High court refuses to halt sniper execution

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to stop the execution of D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Tuesday night seven years after he and his then-teenage accomplice terrorized the District, Maryland and Virginia.

The court’s decision exhausts Muhammad’s legal options, leaving an unlikely last-minute intervention by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as his only chance for a reprieve from the death penalty.

Muhammad’s execution is scheduled to take place at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va., at 9 p.m.

The Supreme Court denied, without comment, a petition asking that the execution be stayed. However, Justice John Paul Stevens in a statement on behalf of himself, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, criticized the state for not giving the court as much time to review the matter as the justices would have preferred.

He said justices ordinarily would have considered Muhammad’s petition at the court’s conference later this month, but had to expedite its consideration of the request.

“By denying Muhammad’s stay application, we have allowed Virginia to truncate our deliberative process on a matter — involving a death-row inmate — that demands the most careful attention,” Justice Stevens wrote.

Muhammad’s attorney, Jonathan Sheldon, said the fact that three Supreme Court justices weighed in on Muhammad’s case underscores flaws in Virginia’s court system.

Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, then 17, killed 10 people over a three-week period in October 2002. Malvo is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Muhammad was sentenced to death for the killing of Dean Harold Meyers, a civil engineer who was fatally shot while pumping gas in Manassas on Oct. 9, 2002.

Dean Harold Meyers’ brother, Robert Meyers, will be among the witnesses to the execution.

“We’re not taking the position that this is a celebration in any way,” he said. “This is very sobering. It is very permanent. We don’t take it lightly. So it’s part of the process. It is what has been justifiably authorized, but nevertheless, it is what it is. Whenever a person’s life is taken, it is not a pleasant circumstance.”

The state has invited the surviving victims and victims’ family members from across the country to witness Muhammad’s execution, a practice introduced to Virginia by Gov. George Allen in 1994.

Citing privacy concerns, Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections, declined to say how many victims and family members will be attending or the specific arrangements made for them.

Victims and family members attending the execution will be sequestered from the media, four members of which will witness the event. Officials say the state has received a large number of requests from reporters and victims and their family members to witness the execution.

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