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Virginia court sets November execution date for DC sniper

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A Virginia court on Wednesday set a November 10 execution date for John Allen Muhammad, who was convicted of murder in 2005 for his role in a series of DC-area sniper shootings. Prosecutors had sought to schedule the execution for Monday, November 9, but Judge Mary Grace O'Brien of the Prince William County Circuit Court moved the date back one day to allow for last minute appeals. Muhammad's attorneys plan to ask Virginia governor Timothy Kaine for clemency, and to appeal Muhammad's death sentence to the US Supreme Court. In August, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the Virginia death sentence, despite Muhammad's allegations of "nondisclosure of exculpatory information by the prosecution" and "ineffective assistance of ... trial counsel." In 2007, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled that a Maryland court did not err in finding Muhammad competent to stand trial in Maryland. Muhammad was sentenced in Maryland in June 2006 to six consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole following his conviction by a Maryland jury of six counts of murder. Maryland prosecutors did not seek the death penalty but wanted a second conviction in case his earlier Virginia conviction was overturned on appeal. Accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, who pleaded guilty to the Virginia charges and received a life sentence, testified in the Maryland case that Muhammad pulled the trigger in five of the six killings there.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on September 17, 2009 (boomark / email).