Posted on 03/05/2006 9:57:56 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against convicted Washington-area sniper John Allen Muhammad when he goes on trial in May, the Montgomery County state's attorney said Thursday.
Prosecutor Douglas Gansler said late Thursday that "underlying the entire decision was the fact that Muhammad has received a death sentence in Virginia."
Muhammad, 45, was sentenced to death after being convicted in a sniper shooting in Manassas, Va. Lee Boyd Malvo, 20, who also is a defendant in the case, was sentenced to life in prison for a shooting in Falls Church, Va.
Ten people were killed in the Washington area during a three-week shooting spree in October 2002. Of those, six were shot in Montgomery. Authorities also have linked Muhammad and Malvo to shootings in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Washington state.
Gansler filed notice last month with the county's Circuit Court that he would seek life without possibility of parole if Muhammad is convicted of the six Montgomery deaths, the Washington Post reported in a story to be published Friday.
Gansler said Maryland requires prosecutors to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Muhammad was the triggerman to pursue the death penalty. The law also requires proof that two or more people were killed in a single incident. Maryland has only executed five people since the death penalty was restored in the late 1970s.
"Given space and time and distance, the multiple murders would not satisfy legal definition of single incident," Gansler said.
Muhammad was moved to Maryland from Virginia in August, and his trial is set to begin May 1. Malvo was brought to Maryland in May and his trial is set for October. Both men are charged with six counts of first-degree murder in Montgomery County.
Too bad Gansler's controlling legal authority didn't extend to the victims. /sarcasm
Is it a red state blue state thing? Or an appeals court thing.
I mean I can understand how satan himself would be given life under the 9th court of appeals, And yu can get death in Texas like no where else. But Md. is next to Va., are they just that different or is there a different appeals court between the two?
VA, TX, and FL are execute more than anybody else if I recall correctly.
Wouldn't it be great if someone could find a loophole in the Interstate Commerce Clause (or whatever it's called) and states that don't have the DP but had tried death penalty cases and found the scum guilty, could ship them to other states that do have the DP for quick disposal?
In return, we taxpayers in non-DP states could house and feed lesser criminals until their sentences were served.
Yeah. That'll happen, LOL!
They are just that different. I live in occupied country, MOCO MD, where politicians hunt for votes by bragging about how many baby skulls they can crush for that all important abortion voting block.
A few years ago some crackhead viciously murdered a Catholic priest near here. Gansler refused to go for the death penalty then. As soon as the sniper scum were captured, Gansler demanded immediately that MD be first in line for the trials. Thank goodness VA got to them first. I knew all along it was just posturing, Gansler can't convict.
That said, I hear the western parts of MD are closer in spirit to VA than to MOCO.
The state of Maryland thereby encourages future snipers.
They should drop both these "snipers" off at Quantico or Bragg and let them learn about real snipers.
Texas has a very real and conservative court of appeals. Florida has so damn many transiants that come, raise hell and think they can get away with it.
Why Virginia?
Western Md. or horse country is absolutely wonderful. Whereas Baltimore etc is a stopped up anal cavity.
VA has always been considered very conservative. Don't know why. When I was at the U. of Houston, (I forget what course) the prof. said VA was the most cons. state in the nation. His evidence was use of the death penalty, the fact that only in VA did the equal rights amendment never make it out of committee, and something about gun laws.
I lived in North Va. while in the army and have been many times to the very west part of virginia which I know to be conservative. Also the west is ignored by the large populated areas of the east.
Sort of like Illinois, most is conservative farm land and then there is Chicago, or as I like to call it, Craphole.
That's where I live now (western VA) and it is, of course, more cons. than NOVA. Of course, Manhattan and San Fran are more cons than NOVA!
You agree that Va. politicos for the large part ignore western Virginia?
Hard for me to say, since I've only been in this part of the state for 3 years.
Easy way to tell.
Last summer I drove through southern Illinois. Heard they are ignored by the state govt as they have so few votes comparatively. The state roads there were abysmil. All the available money was being spent in more heavily populated Chicago.
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