MANASSAS, Va. – Rejecting pleas for leniency, a judge on Tuesday sentenced John Allen Muhammad to death for his leading role in a two-man sniper team that killed 10 people in random attacks in the Washington, D.C., area.
The judge, LeRoy Millette Jr. of the Prince William County Circuit Court, rejected pleas from Muhammad’s lawyers to spare his life and sentence him instead to life in prison. Millette decided to impose the sentence recommended by the Virginia Beach jury that convicted Muhammad in November in the Oct. 9, 2002, slaying of Dean Meyers, 53, a Vietnam veteran who was shot at a gas station in Manassas.
Millette said he found the Persian Gulf War veteran’s crimes “vile almost beyond comprehension” and concurred with the jury’s verdict, reached in November after a three-week trial.
Millette set an execution date of Oct. 14, which likely will be delayed by appeals. Since 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, Virginia has executed 89 prisoners, second only to Texas.
“I have nothing to do with this case,” Muhammad, 43, told Millette in a soft, barely audible voice. He added: “You do what you have to do and let me do what I have to do to protect myself.” He nodded to his attorneys in an apparent gesture of thanks.
Muhammad was led by two deputy sheriffs into the courtroom, where family members of some of the victims waited silently. Dressed in an orange prison jump suit, his hair bushy and his beard scraggly, Muhammad appeared to be a different person than the clean-shaven man with military bearing and close-cropped hair who sat stoically through his trial in Virginia Beach – showing no emotion or remorse and seldom even acknowledging his attorneys.
“There are no winners today,” said Bob Meyers, Dean Meyers’ brother. “This was not a victory. But it was something that had to happen, and it was done right.”
The sniper attacks by Muhammad and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, then 17, terrorized Washington and suburban Virginia and Maryland, causing school sporting events to be canceled and playgrounds to be closed. They were arrested Oct. 24, 2002, while sleeping in their car at a Maryland rest stop.
Muhammad’s accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, 19, will be sentenced today in a Chesapeake, Va., courtroom. In that case, Fairfax Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush can sentence Malvo only to life in prison – the sentence recommended by the jury for the slaying of Franklin. In Virginia, the judge cannot overrule the jury and issue the more severe penalty of death.
He and Muhammad, one-time Washington state residents, may face trials for other murders committed during their sniping attacks, which left a trail of victims in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia. In addition to the 10 people killed, three others were shot and wounded.
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