Monday, November 9, 2009

Detecting glimpses of humanity in DC sniper-Is to Be Executed on Tuesday



The car had a hole cut in the trunk near the license plate (see photo below, left) so that shots could be fired from within the vehicle. It was, in effect, a rolling sniper’s nest.



This blue 1990 Chevy Caprice was used as a rolling sniper's nest.


In this Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 photo, Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebert, displays a book of photos related to the sniper case during an interview in his office in Manassas, Va. Virginia's death row is lined with killers the Prince William County commonwealth's attorney has sent to their demise. Next up: John Allen Muhammad, mastermind of the 2002 sniper attacks that left 10 dead in the Washington, D.C., area.


n this Oct. 22, 2009 photo, Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebert during an interview in his office in Manassas, Va. Virginia's death row is lined with killers the Prince William County commonwealth's attorney has sent to their demise. Next up: John Allen Muhammad, mastermind of the 2002 sniper attacks that left 10 dead in the Washington, D.C., area.


In this Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009 photo, Bob Meyers poses for a photograph with images of his slain brother Dean Harold Meyers, in Phoenixville Pa. John Allen Muhammad is scheduled to be executed on Nov. 10 for the October 2002 slaying of Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas gas station during a string of shootings that left 10 people dead and three wounded in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland.


FILE -- In a March 9, 2004, file photo convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad stands as he is sentenced to death for the shooting of Dean Meyers at the Prince William County Circuit Court in Manassas, Va. Forty-eight-year-old John Allen Muhammad is set to die by lethal injection in a Virginia prison Nov. 10,2009, seven years after he and his teenage accomplice terrorized the area in and around the nation's capital.



The Supreme Court on Monday declined to block the execution of John A. Muhammad, the sniper who terrorized the Washington area seven years ago. The step cleared the way for Mr. Muhammad to be put to death on Tuesday unless Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia intervenes.

The court did not comment in refusing to hear Mr. Muhammad’s appeal, but three justices objected to the relative haste accompanying the execution.

Justice John Paul Stevens complained that “under our normal practice,” Mr. Muhammad’s petition for the court to take his case would have been discussed at the justices’ conference scheduled for Nov. 24. But because Virginia scheduled the execution for Tuesday, the judicial process was rushed, Justice Stevens said in a statement joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

Justice Stevens wrote that, having reviewed Mr. Muhammad’s argument, he did not disagree with the majority’s decision to decline the case. Nevertheless, he said, because the court declined to stay the execution, “we have allowed Virginia to truncate our deliberative process on a matter — involving a death row inmate — that demands the most careful attention.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., upheld the death sentence three months ago. In rejecting Mr. Muhammad’s appeal, that federal panel said it was “unable to find reversible error in the conclusions of the state and district courts.”

Unless Mr. Kaine stops the execution, Mr. Muhammad, 48, will be given a lethal injection on Tuesday night for the killing of Dean H. Meyers, an engineer who was shot in the head at a gas station in Manassas, Va.

Mr. Meyers was one of 10 people killed in Maryland, Virginia and Washington over three weeks in October 2002. Mr. Muhammad’s accomplice, Lee B. Malvo, who was 17 at the time, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The two are also suspected of fatal shootings in Alabama, Arizona and Louisiana.

Mr. Kaine has promised to review Mr. Muhammad’s request but has signaled that he is not inclined to intervene.

The governor has said he is personally opposed to the death penalty, but he has allowed a number of executions to take place since he took office in 2006. Virginia has the nation’s second-busiest death chamber, behind Texas.

The jurors who convicted Mr. Muhammad in November 2003 cited the defendant’s apparent lack of remorse in deciding to impose the death penalty.



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