Press Release
For Immediate Release
Contacts:
Rev. Patrick Delahanty
502-494-3298 (cell)
Opposition to capital punishment grows in Kentucky
University of Kentucky survey shows nearly 7 out of 10 favor penalties other
than death
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Dec. 20, 2006 - The Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty today released the results of a recent statewide survey that shows a growing
percentage of Kentuckians clearly favor punishments other than death. The poll,
conducted by the University of Kentucky in August and September 2006 found that 67.6
percent of the state’s adults expressed a preference for life imprisonment and other non-
lethal sentences for crimes otherwise eligible for the death penalty. KCADP is mailing its
most recent newsletter detailing these results to all state legislators. The newsletter is
available online at www.kcadp.org.
The results show a higher level of opposition to the death penalty than in 1999, when the
University of Louisville polled Kentuckians about the death penalty, when 53% percent
favored something other than capital punishment. This continues a trend that began in
1989, the first year that U of L did a survey about the death penalty.
“The UK survey confirms what we’ve known for a long time,” said Rev. Patrick
Delahanty, director of KCADP, “that a growing number of Kentuckians oppose the death
penalty.
“Now it’s time that Frankfort lawmakers and the governor hear what most of their
constituents have to say about putting people to death in our name.”
KCADP has been lobbying members of the General Assembly for years. Carl Wedekind,
aretired Louisville attorney and abolition leader, recently published Politics, Religion
and Death: Memoir of a Lobbyist, an account of the group’s efforts to reach legislators.
The book is available at several local bookstores as well as at www.kcadp.org.
The book and the UK survey come at a time when opposition to lethal injection and other
aspects of capital punishment have been growing nationally. In mid-December Florida
Gov. Jeb Bush declared a moratorium on the death penalty after a gruesome, botched
lethal injection. And in California a Federal court sharply criticized this method of
execution and declared its use unconstitutional.
“One of the things I find most interesting about the Kentucky survey is that popular
opposition to the death penalty is running ahead of national trends,” said Gennaro Vito, a
professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisville who analyzed the UK data.
“That comparison runs counter to the impression - the false impression, in fact - that the
people of a state such as Kentucky could overwhelmingly oppose the death penalty,
despite evidence that classifies them as conservative.”
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