Apr 22, 2005 4:32 pm US/Eastern
Sniper Death Sentence Upheld
John Muhammad Denied Involvement At Sentencing
RICHMOND, VA (CBS) ―
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the death penalty for sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad.
"If society's ultimate penalty should be reserved for the most heinous offenses, accompanied by proof of vileness or future dangerousness, then surely this case qualifies," Justice Donald Lemons wrote.
Muhammad was convicted of two counts of capital murder for the shooting of Dean Harold Meyers in Prince William County, one of 10 sniper killings that that began with the crack of a rifle outside a Wheaton, Md., supermarket and terrorized the Washington region in October 2002.
"No great surprise here," says CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen. "The evidence against Muhammad was overwhelming, he got a good defense, the trial judge didn't make any critical errors that would have changed the outcome of the case, and jurors followed their instructions."
Lawyers for Muhammad argued on appeal that Muhammad could not be sentenced to death under state law because he was not the triggerman in the shooting spree. They also claimed that a new anti-terrorism law used against Muhammad is unconstitutional and that prosecutors improperly offered conflicting theories in the trials of Muhammad and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo.
Muhammad's prosecutors portrayed him as a manipulator who molded his then-17-year-old cohort into a killer, defense attorneys said, while Malvo's prosecutors described the teenager as a willful, independent thinker who was free of the older man's influence.
Muhammad denied any involvement in the killings at his sentencing in March 2004, telling the judge, "Don't make a fool of the Constitution of the United States of America."
"Just like I said at the beginning, I had nothing to do with this, and I'll say again, I had nothing to do with this," Muhammad said.
Malvo is serving life in prison without parole for the slayings of Philadelphia businessman Kenneth Bridges and FBI analyst Linda Franklin.
"Because this is a death penalty case, the appeals now move over to federal court, for another round of review," says Cohen, "but the chances that Muhammad will get his conviction or sentence overturned is even more remote at that level than it was during the state review in Virginia. Don't expect him to get a new trial or any other relief."
(© 2005 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
