 opinion polling and a decline in public support was cited as a potential measure for "evolving standards of decency" (Falco and Freiburger 2011, 1).
In 1972, Gallup tracked the fluctuation of death penalty opinions surrounding the Furman announcement. In the pre-Furman poll, 50 percent of Americans supported the death penalty. According to the post-Furman polling data, four months after the ruling, support for the death penalty had increased by 7 percentage points (Bohm 2003, 31). Death penalty issues received significant media attention until 1976 when Gregg v. Georgia ruled that capital punishment was not "cruel and unusual” and therefore dissolved the de facto moratorium in the states. Since it was unlikely that the Gregg v. Georgia decision would be reversed in the next few decades, the opportunity to review the constitutionality of state execution, a process supposedly independent from public opinion influence, was exhausted for the time being.
As the issue of the death penalty received heightened media attention and scrutiny in the 1970s, public opinion was treated as the most important barometer for the legitimacy of capital punishment in America. In fact, many Americans launched petition campaigns to restore the death penalty in states during the Furman moratorium period. For example, in March of 1972, an organized effort to gather more than a half a million signatures for a constitutional amendment to restore the death penalty was supported vigorously by then Californian Governor Ronald Reagan (“A Death Penalty is Petitions Aim" 1972). A state senator was quoted in the New York Times for suggesting, "this question will never be properly resolved until the people have had the opportunity to decide the issue” (“A Death Penalty is Petitions Aim" 1972).
Furthermore, many politicians suggested that state legislators should find a way to subvert the Furman moratorium in order to better represent the will of their constituents. For example, NY Assemblyman Vito P. Battista was quoted in the New York Times for advocating that lawyers "put an argument in the proper legal mumbo-jumbo" so that the state could disregard the potential unconstitutionality of the death penalty ("Opponents Clash on Death Penalty" 1972). A review of the media coverage of political speeches in the time period suggests that conservative and liberal politicians alike were reaching out to a constituency that largely favored the death penalty and therefore heartily echoed their wishes for retention coming out of the moratorium period in the 1970s.
1990s: "Tough on Crime" Decade
1. Great Britain: Abolition Solidified
As support for capital punishment remained high in Great Britain, there were fourteen unsuccessful attempts to reinstate it between 1969 and 1994 (Hood 2003, 26). As Great Britain entered what America experienced as the “tough on crime” decade, the British Parliament remained steadfast in their defense of death penalty abolition every time a bill was proposed on the floor. In 1995, 76 percent of the British public still supported the death penalty, a decrease of a mere four points from the 1960s (DPIC "International Polls and Studies" 2013). With the influence of the European Union's human rights standards and the gradual acclimation to a justice system without execution, public support for execution dropped in the late 1990s when Great Britain adopted the Sixth Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights (Ipsos MORI 2007). Forty years after the Murder (Abolition) Act of 1965, the Ipso MORI agency documented a dramatic drop in support for capital punishment at the turn of the century, with only 56% support in 2002 (Ipsos MORI 2007).
The most recent British large-scale poll in 2007 illustrated a populace split down the middle, 50% in support and 45% against capital punishment (Ipsos MORI 2007). In fact, in 2011, an Internet- based campaign referred to as Restore Justice has gathered significant momentum with a petition to reinstitute capital punishment for child and police officer murderers. This campaign is utilizing the British g