Jury says death for US sniper

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia: Jurors decided yesterday that John Allen Muhammad should be executed for masterminding the deadly sniper attacks that terrorised the Washington area for three weeks last year.

As the verdict was read, Muhammad maintained the same unflinching demeanor he had shown through most of his trial. The jury deliberated five hours over two days before reaching the verdict against Muhammad, a 42-year-old Army veteran who had asked police to “Call me God” during the October 2002 shooting spree. The same jury had convicted him a week earlier of murdering Dean Harold Meyers, a 53-year-old man struck by a single bullet to the head on October 9, 2002, as he filled his tank at a Manassas-area gas station.

The jury’s sentencing recommendation is not final. Circuit Judge LeRoy F Millette Jr can reduce the punishment to life in prison without parole when Muhammad is formally sentenced, but Virginia judges rarely do that. Sentencing was set for February 12; Virginia death row inmates are executed by injection unless they choose electrocution. The jury concluded that prosecutors proved both aggravating factors allowing the death penalty: that Muhammad would pose a danger in the future or that his crimes were wantonly vile. He was sentenced to death on both counts he was convicted of last Monday: multiple murders within three years and murder as part of a terrorist plot. “As we said from the set-go, the death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst,” prosecutor Paul Ebert said. “We think Mr Muhammad fell into that category and we think the jury agreed.”

Jonathan Shapiro, one of Muhammad’s attorneys, said the defence team had no problem with the jurors, “who applied the law as it was given to them.” But he added: “We have deep disagreement with any system that sanctions killing.” Prosecutors had depicted Muhammad as a ruthless murderer who was “captain of a killing team” that included teenage co-defendant Lee Boyd Malvo. They presented evidence of 16 shootings, including 10 deaths, in Maryland, Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana and the District of Columbia. “They took pleasure in killing people and that’s the kind of man that doesn’t deserve to be in society,” Ebert said. Marion Lewis, 51, the father of sniper victim Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25, said his relief at the jury’s verdict was tempered. “Now I have to wait 10 or 15 years for the execution to happen,” he said. He added: “I don’t believe there ever can be any total closure for something like this.” At the height of the killings, the area was so terrified that sports teams practised indoors and people ducked down while fuelling their cars. Some Virginia school systems closed for several days after police found a note at one shooting scene: “Your children are not safe anywhere, at any time.”

The jury also recommended the maximum sentences of 10 years in prison for conspiracy to murder and three years for using a firearm in a felony. Malvo is on trial in nearby Chesapeake for killing FBI analyst Linda Franklin, 47, outside a store in Fairfax County on October 14, 2002. When Muhammad and Malvo were arrested on October 24, 2002, several jurisdictions scrambled to prosecute them. Attorney General John Ashcroft decided to send them to Virginia to stand trial, citing the state’s ability to impose “the ultimate sanction.” Only Texas has executed more people than Virginia since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 — 310 to 89. Virginia is one of 21 states that allow the execution of inmates who committed capital crimes as 16- and 17-year-olds. Malvo was 17 at the time of the shootings.

During the sentencing phase of the trial, defence lawyers sought to portray Muhammad as a caring family man. But prosecutor James Willett said “that person no longer exists.” The defence was barred from presenting any mental health evidence because Muhammad refused to be interviewed by the prosecutors’ psychiatrist. The defence had previously suggested Muhammad may have suffered from Gulf War syndrome. Prosecutors offered no proof that showed Muhammad was the triggerman, but a mountain of circumstantial evidence linked him to the crimes. His DNA was found on the .223-caliber rifle used in the killings, and prosecutors said a laptop computer found in his car included maps of six shooting scenes, each marked with skull-and-crossbones icons.