Muhammad does not deserve mercy, candles

John Allen Muhammad remained his hideous self as he addressed the court in Prince William County on Tuesday.

He said he had “nothing to do” with the sniper killings that terrorized the Washington region in the fall of 2002, despite compelling evidence to the contrary.

He said he was not angry or frustrated, an odd position for someone professing to be not guilty. He also insisted that his has been a “wonderful life,” all 43 years of it, after his attorneys had tried to portray him as the victim of a hard childhood.

He showed no remorse in a courtroom stuffed with the relatives of his victims, no trace of humanity, because, you see, he was not involved in all the evilness.

It was just another glimpse into the twisted soul of a killer.

He is history now, as he should be, after Prince William County Circuit Court Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. imposed the death penalty.

Muhammad’s attorneys sought to have their client’s life spared, contending that the difficult circumstances in his background led to the killings.

Their desperate disconnect from reality merely pointed to the heinousness of the perpetrator.

The dropped-on-his-head-as-a-baby defense often is the last refugee of the legally beaten.

So Muhammad grew up in poverty and was abused. Tell that to the relatives of his victims.

His execution date is Oct. 14, a date certain to be delayed because of appeals.

Muhammad is destined to be around a whole lot longer than he deserves and treated in considerably fairer fashion than his victims, who were picked off like mechanical ducks at a shooting gallery.

Muhammad’s passing even ought to be a challenge for the morally obtuse candle-holders who oppose the death penalty. All too many never have met an execution date that did not demand their goodness outside the prison gate, with a candle burning in the nighttime air.

They feel the pain of the moment, in a sanitized way, far removed from the crime scene in the distant past.

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