Despite his efforts to seek clemency from Gov. Tim Kaine, convicted killer, John Allen Muhammad will face the death penalty for his crimes. Muhammad was sentenced to death in November 2003 and is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on November 10, 2009. Despite an appeal by Muhammad's attorneys to block the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied their appeal, which was based on claims that Muhammad is suffering from mental illness and post dramatic stress disorder as a result of his time spent in the military fighting in the Persian Gulf War.
According to Gov. Kaine, Virginia's first Roman Catholic governor, crimes such as those carried out by Muhammad, are 'horrible, you just can't understand them, you can't explain them. They completely dwarf your ability to look into the life of a person who would do something like this and understand why.'' Despite his strong religious convictions and opposition to the capital punishment, Kaine kept his promise that he made as a candidate in 2005, to uphold Virginia's death penalty laws.
On October 2002, Muhammad and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, went on a 3 week shooting spree and killed 10 people and wounded three others across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. They are also suspected of other killings in Alabama, Arizona, and Louisiana. Muhammad and Malvo shot their victims as they carried on their business while shopping, pumping gas or walking. The twosome were caught at a rest stop in Maryland where police discovered that their car was altered so that someone could hide in the truck and fire at will through a hole in the body of the vehicle.
For one of his killings, Muhammad was convicted of capital offenses in the shooting death of Dean. H. Meyers for ''committing multiple murders within a three-year period and committing murder as an act of terrorism.'' Muhammad and Malvo were convicted of six murders in Maryland and received six life sentences.
The motive for Muhammad's shooting spree is still unclear however Muhammad's wife maintains the attacks ''were a smoke screen for his plan to kill her and regain custody of their three children.''
Johnathon Sheldon, Muhammad's attorney, maintains that ''Virginia will execute a severely mentally ill man who also suffered from Gulf War Syndrome the day before Veterans Day.'' Malvo, who was 17 years old at the time, is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for his part in the shooting spree.
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