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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 01/22/2003 8:05:59 AM PST by ex-Texan
Edited on 04/13/2004 1:40:18 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP)
(Excerpt) Read more at usatoday.com ...
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Don't forget, this trial is being held in Virginia - not California. I don't think the judge will allow the grandstanding that happened w/OJ. This trial is being held in what is affectionately known as "the rocket docket". Justice will be swift and sure.
Maybe they'll try the "veggie loaf defense" : cruel and unusual punishment...even though Malvo and his lawyer DEMANDED the jail feed him veggie loaf for every meal because of his 'religion'.
Praying they BOTH get the death penalty. Malvo's no kid...he's Muslim. In his own culture he's been an adult since he was 13.
The Rocket Docket is the federal court in Alexandria.
Remember John Walker Lindh (already tried, convicted, sentenced, and incarcerated)? That was through the Rocket Docket.
Still my county court will do an expeditious job in trying this Islamist scum.
Prosecutor: Malvo indicted
January 22, 2003 1:19 am
A grand jury in Fairfax County yesterday considered capital murder indictments against teen sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo in the Oct. 14 killing of an FBI analyst at the Seven Corners Home Depot.
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. told reporters last night that "I'm sure he was indicted" and "you can assume he is going to be tried."
Horan declined to be more specific after the grand jury spent the day behind closed doors.
The prosecutor did say he sought two counts of capital murder against 17-year-old Malvo in the slaying of Linda Franklin, 47, who was shot in the head as she loaded packages into her car with her husband. Horan said the grand jury's indictments would be made public this morning.
The Fairfax Circuit Court clerk's office had closed before the jurors completed their work.
Lt. Tyler Corey, spokesman for the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office, said last night that Malvo had not been been served with any indictments at the county jail.
Prosecutors spent more than eight hours before the grand jury yesterday presenting evidence from the Home Depot slaying and three other sniper shootings--the Oct. 9 killing of Dean Meyers at a Manassas-area gas station, the Oct. 19 wounding of a Florida man outside a Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland and the Oct. 22 shooting death of bus driver Conrad Johnson in Aspen Hill, Md.
Malvo and fellow sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad, 42, were arrested Oct. 24 at a Maryland truck stop.
The two are accused of shooting 13 people, killing 10, between Oct. 2 and Oct. 22. Two sniper attacks happened in Spotsylvania County--the Oct. 4 wounding of a woman outside a Michaels Arts and Crafts store and the Oct. 11 killing of a Philadelphia man outside the Four-Mile Fork Exxon.
Malvo is charged under two statutes of the state's capital murder laws. One count alleges Malvo committed a capital offense under Virginia's new antiterrorism law by intimidating the public at large. The other charges he committed at least two murders in a three-year period. Prosecutors say the Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle used in the sniper shootings was found in the trunk, loaded and wrapped in a Bungee cord.
Yesterday's grand jury reviewed more than 40 pieces of evidence and testimony from Malvo's preliminary hearing in Fairfax Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court last week.
The evidence--boxed, bagged and sealed with yellow crime scene tape--includes the Bushmaster rifle with what prosecutors say is Malvo's fingerprint on the grip; bullet fragments taken from the bodies of Franklin, Meyers, Johnson and the Ashland victim; grisly crime scene pictures of victims' bodies; a map of Baltimore--found at the scene of the Manassas-area shooting with, prosecutors say, Malvo's fingerprints--and two notes left by the snipers at shooting scenes.
Through notes and phone calls, prosecutors allege, the suspects demanded $10 million to stop the shooting spree.
Their last letter, found in the woods near the Aspen Hill shooting, began: "For you Mr. Policeman, call me God. Your incompetence has cost you another life."
Malvo, who turns 18 next month, was originally charged under the name John Lee Malvo, but the name on court records changed after his Jamaican birth certificate was introduced into evidence during the two-day hearing last week.
In other legal maneuvers for Malvo, a Fairfax Circuit judge yesterday dismissed efforts by the teenager's court-appointed guardian to obtain police documents about the deadly shooting spree.
The guardian, Todd Petit, argued that a provision in juvenile law gave him the right to seek a wide range of records from police and other agencies that had documents about Malvo.
"It makes me wonder what they're trying to hide," Petit said after the ruling.
Malvo spoke to Fairfax police detectives for six hours after he was transferred from federal custody to the county jail in early November.
Prosecutors did not introduce any of those tape-recorded interviews into evidence during the preliminary hearing.
Defense lawyer Thomas Walsh yesterday said his team expects to file pretrial motions now that the case is in Circuit Court. He said the motions, among other things, will seek to suppress evidence from the police interrogations, which purportedly include a confession to some of the shootings.
Walsh said the defense team has not decided whether to seek a change of venue for the trial. "There's pros and cons to that and different opinions among the defense attorneys," he said. "If it's moved we don't know what the demographics [of the jury pool] will be."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright 2001 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.
True, but he also was on the Rocket Docket, which no doubt influenced his attorneys.
Teen sniper suspect faces charges in adult court
Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney
Robert Horan will seek a capital
murder indictment of sniper
suspect Lee Boyd Malvo when
he presents evidence this week
to a grand jury.A Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court judge cleared the way last week for the 17-year-old Malvo to be tried in Circuit Court as an adult when he ruled there was enough evidence to prove Malvo had a role in at least four of the 14 sniper shootings that gripped the region last October.
A preliminary trial date has been set for Feb. 25, but both Horan and Malvo's attorneys said it will be delayed until at least this summer.
"He's a 17-year-old kid. Of course, he's not happy about being certified as an adult because that makes this a death penalty case," said Michael Arif, a Springfield attorney who heads Malvo's defense team.
Arif objected in court last week to Malvo being charged under Virginia's new anti-terrorism statute, saying it was "a response to Sept. 11, not about people shooting people individually or in great numbers."
But Horan said Malvo and his alleged mentor/accomplice John Allen Muhammad tried to "intimidate the government" to pay in excess of $10 million, "in essence, saying, 'If you want us to stop killing people, give us the money.'"
"If that doesn't fit the terrorism statute, there may never be a case that does," Horan said.
Muhammad is awaiting an October trial in Prince William County for the killing of Dean Meyers at a Manassas gas station. His attorney, Peter Greenspun, of Fairfax, attended last week's hearing.
Arif noted that none of the two dozen witnesses--mostly local and federal law enforcement officers--who testified during a two-day hearing could place Malvo at the site of any of the shootings.
But Horan countered with a federal weapons expert who testified that Malvo's fingerprint was the only one found on the Bushmaster rifle used in each of the shootings.
Horan also introduced evidence showing Malvo's fingerprints were found on items recovered from two crime scenes.
In addition, a Fairfax County police detective identified Malvo's voice on the recordings of two phone calls to police from the alleged sniper. She said she recognized his voice after questioning the teen for six hours upon his transfer from federal custody.
Arif questioned how she could be so certain, noting she was not an expert in voice recognition and did not use any special technology to compare Malvo's voice to the voice or voices on the tapes.
"If they have better experts, tell me and we'll sit down," Horan shot back outside the courtroom later.
Most of the testimony in last week's hearing came from law enforcement officials, who laid out a detailed framework for the collection and analysis of evidence in the case.
The hearing opened with emotional testimony from the widower of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, who was killed outside a local Home Depot store on Oct. 14, 2002.
Horan presented more than 40 pieces of evidence in last week's hearing, ranging from the rifle, to bullet fragments, to notes left by the alleged sniper.
One note left at the scene of the Oct. 22 fatal shooting of a bus driver in Montgomery County, Md., taunted police, saying, in part, "Can you hear us now? Do not play these childish games with us. You know our demands. ... You did not respond. ... Your incompetence has cost you another life."
The note was covered with small, red-star-shaped stickers--possibly one for each fatal shooting or wounding in the Washington, D.C., region.
©Arcom Publishing Inc. - Great Falls/McLean/Vienna Times 2003
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