A majority (55 percent) of Americans support the death penalty, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject, but support continues to decline. In 1994, 80 percent supported the death penalty.
Attitudes may be changing in Utah as well. A poll released by the Utah Justice Coalition last year showed that 64 percent of Utahns favored alternatives to the death penalty for people convicted of murder. Support continues to decline among Republicans and there is a relatively new development: the organization in 2013 of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.
Tuesday, Utah Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty will join the Young Americans For Liberty chapter at Weber State University, as well as the Catholic Association for Social Action, for a panel discussion about capital punishment in Utah. The event, titled “Utah’s Death Penalty - A Broken System Beyond Repair” will be held from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. in the Wildcat Theater, Room 208, in the Shepherd Student Union Building on the campus of Weber State University at 3910 West Campus Drive in Ogden.
Several members of that panel joined us Tuesday from the studios of KCPW in Salt Lake City:
Kevin Greene, the state director of Utah Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty
Darcy Van Orden, the executive director of the Utah Justice Coalition
Marina Lowe, legislative & policy counsel for the ACLU of Utah
Jensie Anderson, legal director of the Rocky Mountain Innocence Project & a professor of law at the University of Utah
