Muhammad, 42, a 1991 Persian Gulf War veteran, is charged separately from his co-defendant, Lee Boyd Malvo, 18, who goes on trial for murder next month. While Malvo has admitted that he was the triggerman in many of the shootings and now plans to mount an insanity defense, Muhammad has said little to police and refuses to meet with psychiatric examiners.
Muhammad's stony mien and bare-bones compliance are consistent with "a soldier's affect," said one lawyer who observed the suspect in jail. Like a prisoner of war volunteering nothing to his captors, Muhammad "has stayed disciplined, but it hasn't helped him
What kind of jurors will the defense be looking for?
The jury selection process that begins Tuesday in Virginia Beach could well become the most critical phase in Muhammad's trial. Legal observers say his defense team will seek neutral jurors who remained unswayed by the terror of a year ago. Also, they will likely try to pick jurors who are sophisticated enough to understand the legal and moral nuances of capital punishment and willing to consider sparing Muhammad's life if he is convicted.
Can 12 impartial jurors be found anywhere in Virginia? Is Virginia Beach an improvement over Prince Charles County where the shooting occurred?
There's a clear impression that the public has already made up its mind," said John Zwerling, a veteran Virginia defense lawyer. "People from Tidewater travel the I-95 corridor all the time. They were just as terrified as the people in northern Virginia."
The jury pool in Virginia Beach also tends to have a strong law-and-order cast. In a city that straddles the U.S. Navy shipyards, more than a third of the adult population of 280,000 has ties to the military. "Our juries can be pretty conservative," said Virginia Beach spokesman Dave Sullivan.
We doubt there's anyone in Virginia who would entertain the idea that Muhammed is the wrong guy.
When the sniper killings ceased immediately after Muhammad and Malvo were captured Oct. 24, 2002, a relieved public seemed to take their arrests as a sign of guilt. As prosecutors began assembling a formidable tapestry of evidence, newspaper and television reports devoted microscopic attention to the suspects and the evidence against them.
"The real challenge for the system now is to ensure that the jury is listening," said James Wyda, a federal public defender in Baltimore who briefly represented Muhammad last year before the suspect was transferred to the custody of Virginia authorities.
Even though the case against Muhammed is "purely circumstantial."
Our view: Muhammed doesn't stand a chance in a trial in any county in Virginia. But don't call out the firing squad yet. There are appeals issues galore in the case, including a few of first impression: Can Virginia's anti-terrorism statute which provides for a top punishment of life in prison be used to give the death penalty? Can Virginia impose the death penalty on someone who wasn't the triggerman?
This trial won't have the "who done it" allure of other high profile trials, and we don't expect it to be a media grabber, certainly not the way Kobe Bryant or Scott Peterson has been, [other than perhaps in Virginia and DC]....but for legal practitioners, professors and journalists covering the justice beat, there are a lot of important issues at stake.
