A new poll shows support for the death penalty in America is at it's lowest since 1978.

According to the latest Gallup Poll in October 2003, support for the death penalty has dropped to 64%, its lowest level since 1978. The 32% of Americans opposed to the death penalty represented the most opposition since 1972. (2003 poll: CNN.com, November 25, 2003; Fox News, November 26, 2003) This finding is particularly noteworthy given the extensive media coverage leading to the trials of John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo in Virginia. Two other polls this year also recorded a drop in death penalty support to 64%: ABC News poll and Pew Research Center Poll.

According to Magnus Ranstorp, head of St. Andrews University's Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, America's death penalty is hindering the war on terror. From America's Eager Executioners:

Europe has been described as the jumping-off place for Islamic terrorists bent on infiltrating and harming the United States. European cities are ringed by Muslim slums where clerics preach violence to the impressionable. Many of the 9/11 bombers spent time in Europe before they entered the United States. Americans badly need Europe's full cooperation in helping to foil terrorists and bring them to justice. But the death penalty stands in the way.

I asked Magnus Ranstorp, head of St. Andrews University's Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, if he thought capital punishment was hurting America's war on terror. "Without question," he said. The argument that the death penalty deters crime doesn't apply to terrorists who seek death. "As a matter of fact, it does the opposite," he said. "It creates martyrs."

"You have to measure justice with effectiveness," he continued, "and justice is served by life in prison without parole."

If capital punishment is actually hurting the United States in the war on terror, it ought to be abandoned for no other reason than enlightened self-interest. But try telling that to John Ashcroft.