Posted on 04/27/2008 12:29:47 PM PDT by george76
Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad was regularly whipped with hose pipes and electrical cords and beaten with hammers and sticks by family members during a brutal childhood, according to lawyers trying to save Muhammad from the death penalty.
The lawyers argued in a federal court petition filed this week that the jurors who sent Muhammad to death row for the 2002 sniper spree were improperly barred from hearing most of the evidence of the harsh life Muhammad faced as a child.
Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo , were convicted in 2003 of a random killing spree that left 10 people dead in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia over a three-week span in October 2002 that terrorized the nation's capital region. Muhammad was sentenced to death and Malvo was sentenced to life in prison.
Muhammad's brothers and sisters would have testified that they and Muhammad were regularly beaten by aunts, uncles and grandparents while growing up in Louisiana, when he was known as John Allen Williams.
(Excerpt) Read more at wjla.com ...
Aw.. poor man.. NOW hang em high..
The lawyer should be disbarred for wasting the Court's time.
ML/NJ
Oh,yeah, that excuses him alright. It is ok to kill people if you were beaten as a child. What BS.
What do they mean would have testified? Wasn't it a big enough case for them
to get involved in at the time? This is total BS
Here comes the “poor beaten child” defense ....
I never once in my 50 years on this planet intentionally harmed anyone.
This defense gets quite old with me!!!!
Why didn't his brothers and sisters turn into mass murdering Muslims?
Not badly enough, apparently.
Sorry muslim pederast. It’s time for you to die. When you do, we’ll laugh and mock your supporters.
Show that little violin.
The FBI shrink that evaluated him wrote a whole book about it; the boy's legal team tried to make it like he was juuuust fine before the dastardly old guy came along and ruined him, but that was 100% fiction.
The younger brat was just a reallllllly bad egg, and was determined to do some seriously evil stuff.
Oh a little known fact --he (the younger brat) almost did manage to escape from the FBI; he was in a holding cell and managed to displace ceiling paneling. He had crawled 1/2 out the building b4 the authorities knew what was up.
I don’t care if he was forced to sodomize the family dog. NO excuse.
Next.........................
The amazing ability of lawyers to fabricate the truth is an entertaining sideshow for most trials of mass murderers.
Ten shots from a bushmaster (one for each victim he slaughtered), at one yard. At least I think it's 10. If I'm wrong, adjust the shot count accordingly.
I live really close to where he did some of his dirty work. I'd much prefer Vlad the Impaler carry out the execution. But that's just me. -)
Sorry to hear this as I am sorry to hear of any abuse of kids.
As an adult he killed folks and terrified a whole area of the country.
Hang him.
“John Allen Muhammad was regularly whipped with hose pipes and electrical cords and beaten with hammers and sticks by family members during a brutal childhood,”
Good,they sould of it im harder.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
So, are his brothers and sisters all murderers too? If not, what does that have to do with anything?
How many people have abusive childhood’s and still don’t kill anyone?
The appellate lawyers said in their brief that "Muhammad apparently did not want to acknowledge his horrific childhood" and planned to deny any abuse, either on the witness stand himself or in interviews with the government's mental-health expert.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.