dvocating 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 government e-petition website, a new democratic measure that allows the public to submit proposals to be debated in Parliament. If the Restore Justice e-petition gathers more than 100,000 signatures, Members of Parliament have agreed to open up debate on the floor and re-consider the issue of capital punishment in the United Kingdom (Cafe 2011). Considering this fresh development in European death penalty politics, the political proceedings in the coming years will be pivotal in the evaluation of the sustainability of the “anti-democratic abolition” of the death penalty in Great Britain.
2. The United States: Abolition Delayed
Considering the influences of the "tough on crime" agenda in politics, it is no surprise that support for the death penalty in America peaked at 80 percent in 1994. Crime politics in the 1990s created a climate where any position perceived as “soft on crime” was a serious political liability for conservatives and liberals alike (Gerber 2007, 199). In this time period, government leaders could be seen "echoing the lowest levels of public anger and fear" (Ibid., 200). Because Richard Nixon had effectively used this platform to tap into the electorate's pathos, Republican political strategists pushed a conservative crime and punishment agenda nationwide. In March 1991, President George Bush Sr. gave a rousing speech that framed an actively utilized death penalty as instrumental in “giving back our streets to America's families" (Bush 1991). For one of the more extreme examples in political discourse, Newt Gingrich proposed the death penalty for drug smuggling in 1996, citing his reasoning as, "I have made a decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this” (“Gingrich Suggests Tough Drug Measure” 1995).
The expectation of "tough on crime" rhetoric was not confined to Republicans and aggressively infiltrated the Democratic leadership agenda. In the 1988 presidential debate, Democratic Governor Mike Dukakis was asked if he would support the death penalty for someone th