The convicted Beltway sniper, John Allen Muhammad, wants to exchange the death penalty for life imprisonment. He claims he is the victim of Gulf War Syndrome and is therefore mentally ill. Muhammad’s lawyer, Jonathan Sheldon, met with members of the Kaine staff to discuss a stay of execution. Kaine stated last month that a stay of execution was very doubtful.
According to the News and Messenger:
During the meeting Thursday, Sheldon told staff members Muhammad has shown signs of brain damage, brain dysfunction and psychotic and delusional behavior. Those symptoms were made worse upon Muhammad’s return to the U.S., after serving as a sergeant in the first Gulf War.
“I am confident from our meeting and our past experiences that Governor Kaine will consider seriously and carefully our request for commuting John Muhammad’s sentence from execution to life without parole,” said Sheldon.
John Muhammad was convicted of killing Deane Meyers of Gaithersburg, MD at Battlefield Sunoco, while the man gassed up his car. In all, 13 people were killed or wounded during the rampage of terror that Mohammad and his young accomplice inflicted on our area back in 2002. Of those 13, ten died.
Sheldon and his staff also submitted to the governor a compilation of audio interviews with attorneys, as well as mental health expert and eyewitness accounts that Sheldon said supports their claim that Muhammad is mentally ill.
Sheldon also plans to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 3.
Malvo was a juvenile and is currently serving 4 life sentences. Muhammad deserves the same clemency his victims received before he and/or Malvo executed them. Governor Kaine does not want to even entertain the notion of saving this evil person’s life.
I believe the legal standard is whether he knew right from wrong, not whether he had a mental illness or “gulf war syndrome”. He seemed to have all of his marbles when he was plotting his next victim.
The lawyer is doing his job in asking for clemency. The governor should do his also by letting justice go ahead.
After all, didn’t he drill a hole in his car so that they would be hidden?
>>> didn’t he drill a hole in his car so that they would be hidden?
Yes he did. Probably two (one for the rifle barrel and one for sighting).
Did anyone hear his wife on TV the other night? She said it never occurred to her that he would kill others to cover up killing her. She did know he was trying to kill her.
Agreed, Rez, everyone is doing is job. I trust the governor to do his.
Unlike all previous killers who have been executed, I feel like each one of us has a stake in this, at least each of us who lived in the area in 2002. Muhammad and Malvo truly were terrorists in every sense of the word.
For every zig zag every one of walked across a parking lot, for every kid who had to run for his or her bus that encircled the children when then went to and from their school building, for every person who feared going into a store or gassing their car, and for those who were killed, I hope he feels just a little bit of the fear that the rest of us felt.
What the Press glossed over was that these two Blacks were intentionally hunting and killing White people. They shot a Black bus driver in the ass to cover their main purpose; that being, to murder as many White people as possible. This was all part of the court testimony, but most of the Press, for reasons known only to their editors, omitted this major part of their story.
Even though this duo are as rotten to the core as humans can be, I do not support State-sponsored murder. Both of those murderers should spend the rest of their lives at hard labor and in organized work details to pay the families of those who they maimed or murdered.
My belief is that if a State murders a convict, then the possibility that they may become truly repentant is lost. In cases other than this one, you also lose the opportunity for new evidence to reveal that the convicted person is not guilty. Of course that doesn’t apply to these two dirt bags, who are as guilty as Hell.
I understand that it costs money to keep a convicted murderer in jail, but they can earn their keep to some extent and also work to repay the injured parties. More importantly, there is the possibility that convicts, even those as low and rotten as these two, might be taught the error of their ways and they may even redeem their souls in the process.
How about we let him loose in a vacant building, but let him know there’s a sniper on the hunt for him. A little cat and mouse just to let him experience the anxiety of being a target before we carry out the order to end his sick existence. Unfortunately he’s had more than a few years to experience life while his victims experienced none. Good riddance!
2nd Alamo, totally agree. I have not one ounce of sympathy for him.
Malvo, maybe an ounce but that’s all. Malvo was a neglected child. He still should have known right from wrong. Picking off people like they are flies is obviously not right.
Last I heard, legal killing (execution after being found guilty in a court of law) was not called murder. Murder is illegal killing.
And having said that, of course, Tyler, it is your right to feel as you do.
You know, I never thought about the idea of blacks picking off white people. I do think that several blacks were targets. I recall a black bus driver being killed and a black middle school student being shot going into school. It sounds like anyone human, male, female, black or white, and maybe asian was fair game, in these 2 scum bags eyes.
I honestly believe race is irrelevant.
The primary motivation seems to have been that Muhammad wanted to kill his ex-wife, whose location was near the other shootings, to get custody of his kids. While they were at it like two demented morons they tried to extract a million dollars – into an easily traceable bank account.
But even they realize how stupid this makes them sound, so I wouldn’t expect them to admit it, to us or to themselves.
They shot black, white, everyone they could get a bead on. When one did utter something about wanting to shoot as many whites as possible, I wouldn’t necessarily take it seriously. Or see it as media bias. We don’t need to take everything this guy says at face value. It’s sad to me that Malvo will live, and inevitably someday I’ll be watching the next generation’s Geraldo Rivera do an interview with him on daytime TV or something.
Yea, I wouldn’t shed a tear to learn that Malvo went on the big endless drip along with his buddy Muhammad.
I am not one who thinks a miserable childhood excuses one to kill or do other anti social deeds.
The ‘endless drip’ just doesn’t have the same pazzaz as riding ‘the lightning bolt’ or a ‘date with old Sparky. ‘ So much for being a kinder, gentler nation. I miss the good old days of Sparky and the lightning bolt.
I guess this kill-whites stuff came from Malvo’s testimony in 2006. From wikipedia :
“hase one consisted of meticulously planning, mapping, and practicing their locations around the DC area. This way after each shooting they would be able to quickly leave the area on a predetermined path, and move on to the next location. John Allen Muhammad’s goal in phase one was to kill 6 white people a day for 30 days (180 per month). Malvo went on to describe how phase one did not go as planned due to heavy traffic and the lack of a clear shot and/or getaway at different locations.”
However, it’s doubtful that Muhammad was insane enough to be telling Malvo, who I take it is a moron, about his real motives. If so, check out Phase 3 :
“The third phase was to extort several million dollars from the United States government. This money would be used to finance a larger plan. The plan was to travel north into Canada. Along the way they would stop in YMCAs and orphanages recruiting other impressionable young boys with no parents or guidance. John Allen Muhammad thought he could act as their father figure as he did with Lee Boyd Malvo. Once he recruited a large number of young boys and made his way up to Canada, he would begin their training. Malvo described how John Allen Muhammad intended to train all these boys with weapons and stealth, as he had been taught. Finally, after their training was complete, John Allen Muhammad would send them out across the United States to carry out mass shootings in many different cities, just as he had done in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.”
I would agree that this information has been underreported. However, I don’t belive it’s particularly important or that it represents more than what one psycho told another to influence him to help him do something stupid.
My guess is that Muhammad was not actually stupid or crazy enough to think that he could extort money from our government and place it into a checking account that he would access with an ATM card. Malvo however was. He let Malvo negotiate on this with police Chief Moose (was that his name?) because Malvo was getting itchy, and Muhammad was getting closer to his real goal of killing his wife and assuming custody of his children.
“Even though this duo are as rotten to the core as humans can be, I do not support State-sponsored murder.”
I try to be consistent in my pro-life beliefs, but this case gives me some serious angst.
I wondered how you would feel about this, Emma.
Me? No problem at all. I want to be the one to administer the drip.
I have no sympathy for either of them. I’d be fine if the Supreme Court had ruled that Malvo’s execution could go forward. Neither of them expressed any remorse during their interviews with police. There was no different reaction from either of them from killing a person to squashing a bug. Sad as it is to say or think, some people just cannot be changed from what they were.
When looking for compassion, I always ask myself…would I want this person “rehabilitated” and living next door to me? Of course, this answer for Malvo is a resounding “no”. He was a killing machine, without sympathy or compassion for anyone else. He too should be executed if justice were to prevail.
I can’t argue with a word you have said, Lucky Duck. My ounce of compassion for him is a mighty skimpy ounce and if the Supremes allowed him to be excuted, I would be glad. I did not like that ruling. Evil is evil. There is a standard for capital punishment. I don’t think it should include age limits.
Good to see you!
Hi Lucky! Nice to “see” you 🙂