by Mark Silva
John Allen Muhammad, the urban sniper who terrorized an entire region around the nation's capital with random shootings in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., that left 10 dead seven years ago, died by lethal injection in Virginia tonight.
Virginia's governor, who personally opposes capital punishment on religious grounds, refused to block the execution today. And the Supreme Court this week declined to intervene in an appeal that had challenged the time which Muhammad, whom his attorneys claimed was mentally ill, had to appeal his death sentence.
Muhammad and a teenage accomplice had gone on a three-week spree of long-range shootings in open public places in 2002 that left people in a wide suburban swath fearful of even stopping at gas stations to refuel their cars or load groceries at stores.
His accomplice, Lee Bond Malvo, is serving life in prison without parole because he was 17 at the time of the killings.
Muhammad, 48, was pronounced dead tonight at 9:11 p.m. EST at Greensville Correctional Center, according to a prison spokesman, after the convict's execution by lethal injection - a sentence carried out in only one of several killings for which he had been convicted.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a Roman Catholic who has stated his opposition to capital punishment, had promised that he could carry the death penalty if required as governor.
"Crimes that are this horrible, you just can't understand them, you can't explain them," Kaine said. "They completely dwarf your ability to look into the life of a person who would do something like this and understand why."
We have witnessed executions in our time, in Florida and in Texas, both by electrocution and by lethal injection. One is no easier to watch, no more "humane,'' than the other. And the crimes, it seems, have grown more heinous through the years, nothing humane about them either. Muhammad had an option in Virginia: The chair or intraveinous needle and a lethal cocktail. He refused to choose. He got death by default.
Muhammad was sentenced to death for killing Dean Harold Meyers at a gas station in northern Virginia. He and Malvo also were suspected of fatal shootings in Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana and Washington state.
Prosecutors chose to put Muhammad and Malvo on trial in Virginia first because of the state's willingness to execute killers. He and Malvo, also convicted of six other murders in Maryland, both were sentenced to life terms in prison. The death penalty was later ruled out for Malvo, because the Supreme Court barred the execution of juveniles.
Malvo has claimed that Muhammad wanted to use the murders to extort $10 million from the government to set up a camp in Canada where homeless children could be trained as terrorists. But Muhammad's ex-wife has claimed that the attacks were a smoke screen for his plan to kill her and regain custody of their three children. Muhammad has never testified or explained why he directed attacks that terrorized the Washington region.
The shooting spree ending on Oct. 24, 2002, when police captured the two sleeping at a Maryland rest stop in a car rigged for a shooter to hide in the trunk and fire through a hole.
Muhammad had been in and out of the military since graduation from high school in Louisiana. A convert to Islam, John Allen Williams changed his name to Muhammad. He had earned an expert rating on the M-16 rifle -- the military cousin of the .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle used in the sniper shootings.
Wire services contributed to this report, as did the witnessing of four executions in Florida and Texas, three by electric chair, one by lethal injection..
Comments
I hope all of those anti-abortionists were out there foaming at the mouth, about a life being taken, during this state-sanctioned murder !! The hypocrites will now go and protest against President Obama for not bombing the people of Afghanistan back to the Ice Age !! Some words of wisdom, from one who knows:
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) A five-star General and the 34th President of the United States.
Give peace a chance !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | November 11, 2009 8:06 AM
Conservative web sites have been having wet dreams about his execution, because killing all Muslims = good in their minds.
'
I wonder if they'll act the same way and demand that killers of abortion doctors and bombers of abortion clinics receive the same justice?
Posted by: BC | November 11, 2009 10:33 AM
Leave it to the absolute morons on the Left, led by the insightfully ignorant Don Fitzgerald and BC to stick up for the sniper!! Leave it these idiots to correlate the taking of a cold-blooded murderer's life to abortion. Or even equating this to the war in Afghanistan. Morons: there is a huge difference between taking the life of an innocent baby and that of a cold-blooded killer.
And,Idiot-for-Life BC, if someone kills an abortion doctor then that person deserves whatever fate a jury decides.
But I love the defense of this guy. Proves once again, Don and BC, that you folks are on the side of the terrorists and murderers and against the American people. You guys sing praises to Hasan yet?
Posted by: John D, still right, as usual | November 11, 2009 11:05 AM
@BC yes the killing of Islamists, especially those that would attempt replace our government with with an Islamic state are fair game. Likewise, those that target abortion doctors should also be put to death despite your naive and clumsy attempt at equating the two. I would also include eco terrorists that burn down ski lodges, car lots etc.
Posted by: Hans | November 11, 2009 11:09 AM
I wonder if they'll act the same way and demand that killers of abortion doctors and bombers of abortion clinics receive the same justice?
Posted by: BC | November 11, 2009 10:33 AM
;
Are you kidding? Eric Rudolph, David Koresh, Tim McVeigh, Dr. Tiller's Killer, these people are folk heroes. Just this week an Anti-Abortion group came out with their 3rd Edition of their "guide" and they came out in support of violence to "protect" unborn "children". Quality people in the GOP. To date I haven't seen these people listed above repudiated or disavowed.
Posted by: Nutjobs Surround Me | November 11, 2009 11:16 AM
* * * * *
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | November 11, 2009 8:06 AM
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Don,
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You are raving AGAIN.
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Unborn babies don’t murder innocent people with sniper rifles. Thus, performing an abortion to kill an innocent child is not the moral equivalent of executing a gunman who is fairly tried and convicted of mass murderer. In which case, there is no hypocrisy in protesting the former and assenting to the latter. Where were you when common sense was being handed out?
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And then you make the incomprehensible leap of (il)logic by assuming the same people who oppose abortion and favor the death penalty would “protest against President Obama for not bombing the people of Afghanistan back to the Ice Age (excessive exclamation points omitted). I don’t know if it’s Kool-Aid, Don, but there has to be some rational explanation for your wild hallucinations. Nobody - not even the most hardened war hawk - wants to bomb the people of Afghanistan back to the Ice Age. We are not at war with the people of Afghanistan. We are at war with Al Qaeda and the Taliban; and those two groups are hardly co-extensive with “the people of Afghanistan.” You should have been a Soviet historian.
Posted by: John W. | November 11, 2009 2:33 PM
There is no rational understanding of Liberalism.
The Leftists need to get together at their next coven meeting and come up with a program where u could just adopt out one of these ‘No Remorse’ guys. Take ‘em home with ya, get to know the family, befriend the dog. U could warehouse ‘em for another 30 or 40 years. Do their laundry. U good Liberals would be down with that, right?
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | November 11, 2009 4:19 PM
Don I have a different take on it. The same Libs that scream at the top of their lungs that this is “state sanctioned murder" and mourn this mans passing see absolutely no problem ripping a innocent 3rd Tri baby to pieces because its "only a clump of tissue" kinda weird if you ask me.
Posted by: Chicken-little | November 11, 2009 4:50 PM
Why are you upset about all the helpless children babykiller George Tiller murdered? If it's ok to murder helpless children, just why is it wrong to protect those children with the use of force? Scott Roeder did the right thing and deserves a medal.
Posted by: Rev Don Spitz | November 11, 2009 6:19 PM
Nutjob@ 11:16 a.m.
I have to reject the Tim McVeigh, portrait of a Right Wing Hero, propagated by the Leftists. I understand that the Leftist portrayal is because Clinton said that he was inspired by Rush. Well, I have been “inspired” by Django Reinhardt, but that alone, in and of itself, does not make me Django Reinhardt. There would be a difference there, at times.
I, Django Lite, would have executed Timothy McVeigh by a special firing squad recommended by the local chapter of the NRA. He would have had his fair trial, sentencing, appeals, reviews of legal proceedings, bad childhood reviews and the like, all of the required rigmarole, but then he would have had to dance to the music without any further delay.
The Dave Koresh issue that we Wingnuts have, I think, is that he and his sect were consumed by fire under the jurisdiction of Janet Reno. He was no doubt guilty of a lot of despicable social evils, but complete destruction by fire was the heavy-handed manner by which Janet Reno handled the issue. Clinton, of course, had nothing to do with it and could not work Rush into the mix, but we kind of got a little preview as to one method of how dissent could be handled during the Clinton Administration. An Abrams tank is a mind changer, when u get right down to it. Just sayn'.
Dave Koresh is NOT a folkhero that I seem to have in my scrapbook. Neither be the others on your Wingnut folkhero list. Thanx for the shout-out.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | November 11, 2009 7:15 PM
Michael Bray served over 4 years in prison for conspiracy to blow up several health clinics. Rev. (sic) Spitz’s opinion on the beliefs or behavior of others should carry no weight whatsoever. He uses his own website to try to make heroes out of murdering terrorists like Paul Hill, Eric Rudolph, John Salvi, James Kopp, and now Scott Roeder, the man who shot of Dr. Tiller in his church. Therefore, the recent designation of Spitz's Army of God as a domestic terrorist group by the Virginia State Police is very appropriate. Spitz is so delusional that he thinks that he was ordained by the International Gospel Crusade, a denomination that only exists in his imagination. This makes Spitz even more of a concern.
Posted by: A Parent | November 11, 2009 7:57 PM
Scott Roeder. Tim McVeigh. Eric Rudolph.
Johnny Muhammad.
Dr. Hasan.
All deserve death penalty, yet only 2 have been executed.
Brown's Chicken murderers did not get death penalty. How many people do you have to shoot in the meat locker to qualify? Juan Luna & J Degorski -- the Beavis & Butthead of mass murderers.
Dr. Hasan was written up by co workers as probably psychotic, had Rx drugs in his possession, may get off on some psych defense.
Trouble with death penalty is lack of uniformity.
Why should Scott Roeder and Dr. Hasan escape fate of Tim McVeigh and Johnny Muhammad-Williams?
Posted by: ornery | November 12, 2009 7:43 AM
Posted by: John W. | November 11, 2009 2:33 PM
I agree that the circumstances of the deaths are different. However, as someone who is moderately pro-choice and personally opposed to abortion by my moral beliefs. And also opposed to capital punishment. There is one dintinction to be made.
Where I think a similar paralell can be drawn is this. As a moderate on abortion, I was glad to see the public funding of abortions written out of the bill. As the state should not use funds from tax payers that go against some of those tax-payers conscience. That theory should apply to the death penalty as well. I don't want my tax-dollars going to an abortion. I also don't want the state using my tax dollars to take a life in my name either.
Posted by: Steve34 | November 12, 2009 7:28 PM