High court refuses to halt sniper execution

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By Sarah Abruzzese

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.