Barring clemency, sniper to be executed tonight

Barring clemency, John Allen Muhammad will be led into the state death chamber tonight and executed for the Oct. 9, 2002, capital murder of Dean Harold Meyers.

Muhammad, 48, lost an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday. His last hope is a petition now before Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. Should Kaine decline to intervene, Muhammad is set to die by injection at 9 p.m. in the Greensville Correctional Center, near Jarratt.

Meyers, 53, was fatally shot at a Prince William County service station and was one of 10 people killed and three wounded in Virginia, Maryland and Washington by the sniper team of Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo in October 2002.

The two also are suspected of slayings in other states. Malvo, 24, was a juvenile at the time of the shootings. He is serving four life terms at Red Onion State Prison in Wise County.

If the execution is carried out, an undisclosed number of family members of the victims will witness it. One who said he will attend is Robert Meyers of Pennsylvania, a brother of Dean Meyers.

Department of Corrections policy allows Muhammad one non-contact visit with immediate family members today. Mildred Muhammad, an ex-wife and mother of his three children, said last week that she hoped the children could meet with him.

In addition, the department permits lawyers, clergy and spiritual advisers to visit until the time of execution.

In an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court last week, Muhammad’s lawyers argued that his trial lawyers—said to have known Muhammad was mentally ill—failed to perform up to constitutionally acceptable standards by not attempting to stop him from representing himself during the first two days of trial.

The appeal claimed that a psychiatrist could have provided expert testimony that while Muhammad may appear bright at times, he was not competent to represent himself. Also, his current lawyers say an MRI scan of Muhammad’s brain showed serious abnormalities.

The jury did not hear any mental-illness testimony on his behalf because Muhammad refused to let a state mental-health expert interview him.

The justices rejected the appeal yesterday about noon. However, Justice John Paul Stevens, in a statement joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, was critical of the way Virginia handles appeals in death cases.

“This case highlights once again the perversity of executing inmates before their appeals process has been fully concluded,“ Stevens wrote.

“We must resolve the [appeal] on an expedited basis unless we grant a temporary stay. By denying Muhammad’s stay application, we have allowed Virginia to truncate our deliberative process on a matter . . . that demands the most careful attention,“ he wrote.

Jonathan Sheldon, one of Muhammad’s lawyers, said: “In its effort to race John Allen Muhammad to his death before his appeals could be pursued, the state of Virginia will execute a severely mentally ill man who also suffered from Gulf War syndrome the day before Veterans Day.“

A spokesman for the Virginia attorney general’s office, David Clementson, said: “We are pleased with the order from the U.S. Supreme Court. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of the many victims in this case.“

In the clemency petition to Kaine, Muhammad’s lawyers say his mental illness was exacerbated by his service during the first Gulf War. They also said a juror would not have sentenced him to death had she known he was severely mentally ill.

The Virginia attorney general’s office disputes that Muhammad is mentally ill, that he suffers from brain damage or that his representation at trial suffered as a result.

Though personally opposed to the death penalty, Kaine has let nine executions go forward since he took office in 2006. A Kaine spokesman would not comment yesterday on the clemency petition.

Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty has scheduled a vigil and prayer service for 8:30 p.m. in a field outside the prison to remember the victims and their families and to protest the execution.

Beth Panilaitis, the group’s executive director, encouraged people to contact Kaine’s office and urge that he commute Muhammad’s death sentence.

“The citizens of Virginia have been safe from this crime for seven years. Incarceration has worked, and life without the possibility of parole has and will continue to keep the people of Virginia safe,“ she said.

If executed, Muhammad would be the 104th person put to death in Virginia since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976, second only to Texas’ 442 executions.

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .