Barring clemency, sniper to be executed tonight
AP
Lawyers for John Allen Muhammad say his mental illness was exacerbated by his service during the first Gulf War.
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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
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Reader Reactions
For those of you who are stating where this man is “going” are obviously influenced by religious beliefs. This is the same belief system that states that only One is to judge, and yet here you sit. Now I believe that we are a functioning society and it is upon us to see that we thrive and survive. This to mean involves removing those that are detrimental to our society. But it is not my place nor yours to state where he is going.
For those who do not follow the same religious path, or one at all, I emplore upon you to consider the mistakes you have made. Do you require the whole world to sit in judgment of your future, here and thereafter, or are you held to the repercussions of your own actions?
And last but not least, Travis, you speak of things on which you do not know. Mental Illness or the more technical term, Chemical Imbalance, is a proven scientific fact. Though the cause and effect factors behind such illness’ are yet to be fully understood, you can document and prove such imbalances. What you propose would place diseases such as MS on the same level due to lack of understanding and your level of “proof”.
God bless to those of you who claim to sit on judgment that you may find in your heart what you need to handle this situation as God see fits. Good riddance to the detriment to our society, and allow us to move on and live better lives with one less person that brings us down around. Thank you.
Um, “justagirl”...
You say it’s wrong & cruel to execute vicious killers, but then proceed to say how great it would be to “torture” them by other means.
Do you not realize how illogical and inconsistent that is??
God instituted civl government for two main purposes:
1) Protect the innocent
2) Punish the evildoer
He gives government the right to execute criminals if they so choose. If you take a life, you are subject to losing your own. God will judge us all by his standards.
Tell me, how do two wrongs make a right? How can we kill someone for killing someone? Doesn’t make sense to me. What he did is horrible. I would rather he sat in a cell and rotted. Instead, inmates get better treatment than most of the people in this country. There should be no tv, the most basic of food. No contact with anyone. Just the four walls with pics of their victims. Now that is torture. There is only ONE being that should decide if someone lives or dies. And it certainly is NOT some jury or judge. I think he is getting off way too easy.
The “mental illness” defense “falls apart” because mental illness is a myth - a metaphor, if you will, that describes an offending, disturbing, or shocking conduct, action, or pattern of behavior, such as schizophrenia, as an “illness” or “disease.”
Although people behave and think in ways that are very disturbing and may resemble a disease process (pain, deterioration, response to various interventions), this does not mean they actually have a disease. Disease can only mean something people “have,“ while behavior is what people “do.”
By calling certain people “diseased,” psychiatry attempts to deny them responsibility as moral agents, in order to better control them. People who are said (by themselves or others) to “have” a mental illness can only have, at best, a “fake disease.“ Diagnoses of “mental illness” or “mental disorder” (the latter a “weasel term” for mental illness) are passed off as “scientific categories” but they remain merely judgments (judgments of disdain) to support certain uses of power by psychiatric authorities. Psychiatrists testifying about the mental state of an accused person’s mind have about as much business as a priest testifying about the religious state of a person’s soul in our courts.
To be a true disease, it must first, somehow be capable of being approached, measured, or tested in scientific fashion. Second, to be confirmed as a disease, a condition must demonstrate pathology at the cellular or molecular level. A genuine disease must also be found on the autopsy table (not merely in the living person) and meet pathological definition instead of being voted into existence by members of the American Psychiatric Association.
Bottom line: “mental illnesses” are really problems in living, not diseases. Muhammad committed horrific crimes and consequently must be put to death in accordance with state law. Not to minimize the tragedy of his behaviors, but to excuse Muhammad’s behaviors (actions) because of some so-called “mental illness” and confine him to a mental health facility for life would be nearly as criminal as the acts he committed.
I disagree that knowing when you will die is worse because it causes one mental torture. This guy is getting the chance to talk to clergy, to family, to his Higher Power and possibly make peace with the situation. He has time to mentally prepare. I’m not saying that the sniper is doing all of this….but at least he has the option which is something none of his victims had.People who are terminally ill know that they will die sooner rather than later and many of them make peace with that reality and when death comes for them, they are ready. The sniper is getting a break….to be able to go to sleep first and never wake up. I think a firing squad with no blindfold is more appropriate for this monster.
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.“
I agree anyone that would even fathom killing so many people is mentally ill however it does not excuse him from punishment. Severly mentally ill people cannot function nor make sound decisions and in most cases have been institutionalized most of their lives. Muhammad may have been traumatized by war and have a form of mental illness but he knew right from wrong or he wouldn’t have tried to hide his crime.This is where the “mentally ill” defense falls apart. If I have the foresight to hide my crime and plan what my next step is then I know right from wrong. The taxpayers do n ot need to be paying for him to live and if his punishment is to die then I agree w/ ProudAmerican24, that knowing the exact moment I will die is torture enough.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. As much as I like the ideas people have about blindfolding him and shooting at him randomly so he doesn’t know it’s coming, etc., I honestly think what he’s getting is worse. I mean the reason we normal humans can live our lives being happy and not in fear is because we basically do not know when we are going to die. We assume it will be a long time away when we are old, but we don’t know exactly when. This guy has known for some time now the exact day, hour, and minute that his life will end. I would think the mental torture of watching the clock tick closer and closer to when you know your life will end, eats a person alive. I mean why else is he appealing his conviction? He doesn’t want to die. He has to be scared to death. My point is knowing when you are going to die is much worse than not knowing. I don’t know maybe because I’m a normal sane person, that’s how it would be for me.
It’s about time, And now we will feed him his last meal of what ever he wants,
I say feed him nothing, and do it already, he doesnt deserve one single bite,,, the fear, the lost the heart break this man has forced on so many people is un forgivable,
Texas rock’n & roll’n!
Lethal injection is getting off easy. They should blindfold this man, let him run around in boxers in a fenced off area while having gunmen shoot at him randomly b/c this is basically what he did when he killed all those people. Enjoy the road to h***!!!!
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