COURT DENISE DC SNIPER NEW TRIAL

Md. court denies new trial for D.C.-area sniper

The Associated Press

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Convicted sniper John Muhammad does not deserve a new trial in Maryland, a state appeals court ruled Monday in a sharply worded unanimous decision.
Citing Muhammad's "murderous rampage" in Washington and its suburbs in 2002, the Court of Special Appeals dismissed Muhammad's claim he should get a new trial because he was wrongly allowed to represent himself and deemed mentally fit to stand trial.

"Jack the Ripper has never yet been brought to justice. The Beltway snipers have been," a three-judge panel of the court concluded.

Muhammad and Lee Malvo were convicted last year on six counts of first-degree murder in Montgomery County in the October 2002 sniper shootings that terrorized the area. Ten people were killed and three were wounded in the shootings in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia.

Muhammad, 46, and Malvo, 22, are in prison in Virginia, where Muhammad was sentenced to death and Malvo to life without parole. Malvo pleaded guilty to the Maryland charges.

"The sense of dread that hovered over the entire community was immeasurable. The six lives that were taken were but a part of an incalculable toll," Judge Charles Moylan wrote in the 152-page opinion.

On one of Muhammad's claims — that he was wrongly prevented from continuing a certain line of questioning of Malvo, who testified against Muhammad — the court seemed frustrated by the appeal.

"The appellant," Moylan wrote, "is attempting to make something out of nothing."

The judges scoffed at Muhammad's claim that he needed to continue questioning Malvo, who referred to a 10th shooting.

"It is as if we had suddenly to revise upward, by one, the casualty reports from (the Civil War battle of) Antietam. One more casualty would not make the seismograph quiver, nor would the addition of a 10th 'other crime' in this case," Moylan wrote.

The judges also wrote that Muhammad "freely and intelligently" waived his right to a lawyer and that the trial judge did not err in letting him represent himself.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler, who oversaw Muhammad's trial while he was state's attorney in Montgomery County, said the panel noted the trial judge "bent over backward" to make sure Muhammad's trial was properly conducted. Muhammad "had a very thorough and fair day in court," Gansler said.