Others feel that the death penalty should never be imposed on juveniles under any circumstance. Moreover, only one Californian in four supports imposition of the death penalty for mentally retarded defendants. Some people feel that there is nothing wrong with imposing the death penalty on persons who are mentally retarded. Others feel that the death Penalty should never be imposed on persons who are mentally retarded under any circumstances. The poll also suggested that a majority of Californians believe that retribution in itself is not a sufficient justification for the death penalty, but that we should consider the other effects that the death penalty has in society.
Some people argue that retribution is the only reason needed to justify the death penalty.
Other people argue that we also should evaluate the effects of the death penalty on society and decide whether to have it on the basis of the other social purposes that it serves. These feelings may help explain the complexity of their death penalty attitudes. It may be that for large numbers of Californians, support of the death penalty is largely symbolic, a way of expressing their general concerns about the seriousness of the crime problem and the plight of crime victims. Yet, when confronted with certain kinds of defendants on whom it might be imposed or features of specific cases in which it might be applied, this abstract, symbolic support decreases dramatically. An analysis of the demographic characteristics of the survey respondents also indicated that abstract support for the death penalty was not evenly distributed across all groups in the state.