美国堪萨斯州勒文沃思堡的美国陆军纪律营，尼达尔·马利克·哈桑正在此死囚牢房中服刑。
The U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, where Nidal Malik Hasan is being held on death row, is seen in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images 美国公众对死刑的看法在特朗普总统先是批准、随后又撤回对通过枪决直播处决的同意之后，再次成为焦点。这次计划中的处决发生在今年田纳西州两起注射死刑失败事件之后，当时该州在为克里斯塔·派克和托尼·卡鲁瑟斯注射致死药物时，难以找到血管。
Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images U.S. public sentiment about the death penalty has come to the forefront after President Trump gave his blessing, then backtracked, to livestreaming an execution via firing squad That planned execution comes after two botched Tennessee lethal injections this year where the state struggled to find veins to administer death-inducing drugs to Christa Pike and Tony Carruthers. Speaking at a press conference a day after Pike's failed execution, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Tennesseans were disappointed about what happened.
在派克处决失败一天后的新闻发布会上，田纳西州州长比尔·李表示，田纳西州民众对所发生的事情感到失望。
"The people of Tennessee have determined that the death penalty is an appropriate penalty for the most heinous crimes in this state," he said.
“田纳西州人民认定，死刑是本州最恶劣罪行的适当刑罚，”他说。“田纳西州人民做出这一决定，我的工作就是确保这些判决得到执行。”这些田纳西州民众加上大约三分之二的美国人，支持对被判犯有谋杀罪的人判处死刑，这是皮尤研究中心今年夏天的一项民调显示的结果。根据非党派非营利组织PRRI的说法，支持该刑罚的人倾向于是基督徒、白人，并投票给共和党。
"The people of Tennessee make that decision and my job is to make sure that those sentences are carried out." Those Tennesseans join some two-thirds of Americans who support the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to a Pew Research Center poll from this summer According to PRRI, a nonpartisan nonprofit people that favor the punishment tend to be Christian, white and vote Republican. Daniel LaChance, a history professor at Emory University, says the overall numbers mask a wide range of opinions. " Support for the death penalty in the United States is a mile wide and an inch deep," says LaChance, who also wrote the book "Executing Freedom: The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment in the United States."
埃默里大学历史学教授丹尼尔·拉尚斯表示，总体数字掩盖了广泛的意见差异。
That's because the polling is incredibly nuanced, LaChance said.
“美国对死刑的支持是‘广泛但浅薄’，”拉尚斯说，他还撰写了《执行自由：美国死刑的文化生活》一书。这是因为民调非常微妙，拉尚斯说。当民调提供更多问题选项，例如无假释终身监禁时，60%的美国人支持无假释终身监禁，而非死刑。当向受害者家属提供经济支持作为选项时，这一数字会进一步下降。
When polls offer more variance in the questions, such as life without parole, 60% of Americans support that over the death penalty. The number drops even further when monetary support to the victims' family members is an option. And separate 2025 polling from Gallup— which has been tracking support for the death penalty since 1937 — shows that 52% of Americans support the death penalty if a person is convicted of murder, the lowest share in more than 50 years. The change in public opinion The Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that tracks the use of the death penalty but does not take a position on it, has counted 203 people since 1972 who were exonerated after being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death.
Gallup的独立2025年民意调查显示，自1937年以来一直在追踪死刑支持率的该机构发现，52%的美国人表示，如果一个人被判犯有谋杀罪，他们支持死刑 — — 这是超过50年来的最低比例。公众舆论的变化追踪死刑使用情况但不持立场的非营利组织“死刑信息中心”自1972年以来已统计出203人，他们在被错误定罪并被判处死刑后后来被证明无罪。
"Those are just the ones we know about," says Robin Maher, the nonprofit's executive director. "We don't know how many innocent people were executed before we learned about their claims."
“这些只是我们知道的案例，”该组织执行主任罗宾·马赫尔说。“我们不知道在我们了解到他们的主张之前，有多少无辜的人被处决了。”马赫尔表示，这些错误的死刑判决，加上死刑的道德效力问题，正是影响公众舆论的原因。
The wrongful death sentences, plus the moral efficacy, are what is swaying the public's opinion, Maher said. "For the public to realize that the death penalty system was fallible, that it made serious mistakes, raised a lot of issues in people's minds about whether this very costly public policy, that was nonetheless rather inaccurate and unfair, should be used," Maher said. The Pew Research Center study from July also found that while most people support the death penalty for crimes like murder, some 59% of respondents in the survey said the death penalty does not deter people from committing serious crimes – versus 39% who believe it does.
“让公众意识到死刑制度是有误差的，它犯了严重的错误，这在人们心中引发了诸多疑问：尽管这项公共政策成本高昂，但它却相当不准确且不公平，是否还应该继续使用？”马赫尔说。
Six states were responsible for the 31 executions in 2026 — even though 27 states still legally allow the most severe form of punishment in this country.
皮尤研究中心7月的研究还发现，虽然大多数人支持对谋杀等罪行适用死刑，但调查中约59%的受访者表示死刑不会威慑人们犯下严重罪行 — — 而有39%的人认为它有威慑作用。
Florida led the way, with more than half of the executions this year.
2026年，六个州负责了当年的31起执行死刑的案件 — — 尽管仍有27个州在法律上允许该国最严厉的惩罚形式。佛罗里达州走在前列，当年超过一半的死刑执行发生在此州。
Maher says that the fact that more than half the states allow capital punishment, but are issuing fewer death sentences, shows that the American people are disenchanted with the use of the death penalty. " More often than not, they are finding it is not the right answer to violent crime," she says.
马赫尔表示，超过一半的州仍然允许死刑，但正在减少死刑判决的数量，这表明美国人民对死刑的使用正在感到失望。
"Executions on the other hand, are the result of what a handful of elected officials in just a few states are doing."
她表示：“更多时候，他们发现这并不是解决暴力犯罪的正确答案。”她补充道：“另一方面，处决是少数几个州的少数几位民选官员所做决定的结果。”自20世纪70年代以来，德克萨斯州的处决次数最多，而密歇根州则因在1847年就禁止死刑，在美国拥有最长的死刑废除记录。
Texas accounts for the most executions since the 1970s, while Michigan holds the title for the longest-running death penalty abolition in the U.S., after banning the practice in 1847. Out of public sight The planned execution by firing squad is of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, who killed 13 people and wounded 32 in 2009. It's slated for December but appeals could delay it further.
公众视线之外 计划中的枪决行动针对的是尼达尔·哈桑，他是曾驻扎在德克萨斯州福德堡的前陆军精神科医生，2009年他造成13人死亡、32人受伤。该处决定于12月进行，但上诉可能导致进一步延迟。
While 52% of Americans support Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan's execution, 80% say his death should not be livestreamed according to an October poll from ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos. When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced earlier this month that Hasan would be executed publicly, the U.S. also hadn't conducted a high-profile public execution in 90 years.
尽管52%的美国人支持对福德堡枪手尼达尔·哈桑的处决，但根据ABC新闻/华盛顿邮报/益普索（Ipsos）10月份的民调，80%的美国人表示他的死不应进行直播。
In certain parts of America, quasi-public executions drew up to 10,000 viewers in the past, said LaChance, the Emory history professor.
当国防部长皮特·赫格塞思本月早些时候宣布哈桑将被公开处决时，美国也已有90年没有进行过高调的公开处决。
But the growing use of medicine such as anesthesia began a negative shift in public executions.
埃默里大学历史教授拉尚斯表示，在美国的一些地区，准公开处决曾吸引多达1万人观看。但麻醉剂等药物的日益使用导致公开处决出现了负面转变。
" Pain, especially in public spaces, starts to seem scandalous," LaChance says. "It's preventable now.
拉尚斯说：“尤其是在公共场所的疼痛，开始显得丑陋不堪。”他补充道：“现在这是可以避免的。它开始显得野蛮。”拉尚斯还表示，公众——尤其是移民社区——会将被处决的人视为英雄。“他们会认领遗体，并在曼哈顿下城举行小型游行，庆祝被处决者的生命，”他说。
It starts to seem barbaric." LaChance also said the public, especially in immigrant communities, would turn the executed into heroes. "They would claim the body and conduct little parades in Lower Manhattan, celebrating the life of the person who had been put to death," he said. One U.S. official who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution said President Trump was talked out of a livestream execution because it was against American values — but also because there was concern the tape would show up on Jihadi websites, leading to an increase in recruits and possible danger to U.S. forces in the Middle East.
一位出于担心报复而要求匿名的美国官员对NPR表示，特朗普总统被劝阻不要进行直播处决，因为这违背了美国价值观——但也因为担心录像会出现在圣战网站上，从而导致招募人数增加，并可能对中东地区的美军构成威胁。
" That's the story of the death penalty," LaChance says.
“这就是死刑的故事，” 拉尚斯说。“当公开处刑消失时，人们并不希望它消失。精英阶层希望它消失，因为它正变成令人尴尬的嘉年华。”
"People didn't want public executions to disappear when they did. Elites did because they were becoming embarrassing carnivals."