QPoll: Connecticut Supports Death Penalty for Home Invasion Murderer

76 percent of voters polled favor the death penalty for Steven Hayes while 18 percent oppose it. Last week, he was convicted of the murders of Jennifer Hawke Petit and her 2 daughters.

 

The poll also found that 65 percent support capital punishment generally compared to 23 percent. Doug Schwartz is Quinnipiac University's Poll Director:

 

"That's the highest level of support for the death penalty since 1998 which was the first time we asked that we asked the question. Prior to the home invasion murders support for the death penalty hovered around 60 percent so we've seen an increase of about 5 points since those murders."

 

However Schwartz says support for the death penalty is not high when voters are asked their feelings about the sentence of life in prison.

 

"When you give people a choice between the death penalty and life in prison without chance of parole support for the death penalty does drop significantly. It drops down to 46 percent for the death penalty, 41 percent for life in prison with no chance of parole."

 

Of the 1721 voters who were surveyed, 98 percent had heard or read about the Cheshire home invasion since 2007. Schwartz says that kind of recognition for a news story is very rare and shows that everyone knows about this case.The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.