Poll results on John Muhammad being put to death

November 11, 12:05 PMSpokane Homicide ExaminerDoyle Wheeler

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John Muhammad in court
AP photo

Results of both the National poll and the Spokane poll on the execution of John Muhammad the DC sniper. He was executed on time last night in Virginia.

First the results of the poll right at the time of his death were as follows:
36% said “Yes execute him he richly deserves it!”
10% said “No the government has no right to take a life.”
30% said “Yes but lethal injection is to easy bring back Old Sparkey!”
1% said “No keep him alive and study him.”
18% said "Yes I volunteer to be on his firing squad!"
4% said “Yes kill him but by other means!”
So this 84% Yes with an additional 4% yes but by other means than stated.
So 88% of America wanted him to die!

Results of the National poll changed overnight rather dramatically.
33% said “Yes execute him he richly deserves it!”
27% said “No the government has no right to take a life.”
20% said “Yes but lethal injection is to easy bring back Old Sparkey!”
4% said “No keep him alive and study him.”
13% said "Yes I volunteer to be on his firing squad!"
4% said “Yes kill him but by other means!”
So this 65% Yes with an additional 4% yes but other means than stated.
So 69% of America wanted him to die!
The 17. 5% increase in people saying “No the government doesn’t have the right to take a life” was a little bit of surprise.

I suspect one of two interesting possible explanations. 1. There was what you would call “the buyer’s remorse effect” were after the deed is done people start having second thoughts. 2. We need to take all those computers away from death row inmates or at least limit their access to the Internet.
3. The possibility was that after the deed was done the only people still interested in Muhammad were death penalty opponents as everyone else was just glad to see him gone and wanted to be done with him.

I suspect actually a 4th reason, the sampling was not large enough and a handful of opponents came in after the execution and were able to swing the vote up in the no column.

Spokane results of the local poll asking the same question in the same order, results were as follows:
36% said “Yes execute him he richly deserves it!”
15% said “No the government has no right to take a life.”
23% said “Yes but lethal injection is to easy bring back Old Sparkey!”
3% said “No keep him alive and study him.”
13% said "Yes I volunteer to be on his firing squad!"
10% said “Yes kill him but by other means!”
So this 72% Yes with an additional 10% yes but by other means than stated.
So 82% of Spokane wanted John Muhammad to die!

I think that is actually pretty close to a correct percentage plus or minus 5 %.
Spokane is generally more conservative than say those people voting from a large metropolitan area like Seattle for instances.

Either way and not matter which poll is closer to the feeling of the American people clearly the vast majority of people in America including a great many people that normally oppose the death penalty were silent on this case as they were in favor of seeing him die or they knew they would just hurt their cause by standing up for him.

Just to let you know
I have recently had a stroke that has resulted in some seizures. At times I make grammar errors as I don't always have someone available to proof read these articles, before I have to submit them.

I try to do my best to keep the information fresh. The old brain doesn't connect the dots as it once might have. The stroke dusted some of the dots of my dice I'm afraid. Thank you for being understanding.


Please feel free to point these errors out to me as I review all comments and try to use the information to give you a better article.


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