Death penalty by the numbers:  Chris Wilson has this brief article in US News and World Report, entitled "Mixed Views on the Death Penalty," noting new DPIC poll numbers indicating reduced public confidence in the death penalty, and new attention drawn to certain not-so-new deterrence studies by Robert Tanner's widely-distributed AP article on Monday.

Excerpt:
No modern debate in America is as muddled by facts as that of the death penalty.

For a long time, the contentious issue of deterrence—whether the threat of capital punishment prevented homicides—was at the center of the debate, serving as a core justification for proponents. Meanwhile, the opposition cited a mounting body of evidence that debunked the claim.

New data this week is not likely to do much to clear things up. A poll from the Death Penalty Information Center, a clearinghouse for data on executions and public opinion on capital punishment, found that only 38 percent of respondents believed that the death penalty deters would-be murderers. The poll, conducted in March, surveyed 1,000 adults and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

Meanwhile, a widely discussed Associated Press article on Monday drew attention to a series of published studies by economists that report statistical evidence in favor of deterrence. ...

Why Robert Tanner's article got so much attention is a mystery to this blogger.  There was no new information contained in it.  The most recent study mentioned was published and hotly debated two years ago (another was "restudied" in 2006).  The way this article has been siezed upon as establishing some sort of "new and final proof" of the deterrent effect of executions is a rather frightening example of the influence misleading, incomplete reporting can have - especially when widely distributed in the mass media under such unquestioning headlines as "Executions shown to deter murders" and "Studies: Death Penalty Deters Murderers."