Nov 4, 2009 9:32 pm US/Eastern
Lawyers Want Sniper Killer's Execution Stayed
Reporting
Adam May
BALTIMORE (WJZ/AP) ―
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John Allen Muhammad is slated to die next week.
WJZ
In just days, the mastermind of the sniper shootings that terrorized the region is scheduled to die by lethal injection. The Supreme Court is now weighing a new argument in the case that could spare John Allen Muhammad's life.
Adam May has more.
This petition filed with the U.S. Supreme Court is one of the last legal options to stop Muhammad's execution, scheduled to die Nov. 10.
"The main argument is that John Allen is and has been severely mentally ill," said John Sheldon, Muhammad's attorney.
Using brain scans, Muhammad's lawyers argue their client has schizophrenia and brain damage. In the past, the Supreme Court banned executing the insane or the mentally disabled.
"What we're asking the U.S. court to do is order the lower courts to hold a hearing into his competency because he was not competent to stand trial and no trial was ever heard," Sheldon said.
University of Baltimore law professor Byron Warnken says mental illness is a common--yet difficult--appeal to win.
"You gotta be pretty mentally ill to reach a level of incompetence that you don't understand the nature of the proceedings around you. He'd have to be that bad," Warnken said.
The mastermind of the 2002 attacks that left 10 people dead in the D.C. area is now 48.
His attorneys also released a 2008 letter on Wednesday in which Muhammad proclaims his innocence.
The rambling, handwritten letter was made available because of requests for a statement from Muhammad, his attorneys wrote on the Web page of their law firm. The letter was filed in federal court in connection with Muhammad's unsuccessful attempt to block his execution, the attorneys said.
In the letter dated May 8, 2008, and rife with misspellings, Muhammad writes of discussions with a new team of attorneys and of assurances that "exculpatory evidence" that he claims was withheld from his trial "will prove my innocent and what really happen ...."
The letter adds: "So all you police and prosecutors can stand-down-'rushing' to murder this innocent black man for something he nor his son (Lee) had nothing to do with ...."
Sheldon wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the letter has been filed in U.S. District Court since May 2008.
"It just had not come to public attention, like much of our filings," he wrote.
In their filing, the lawyers said Muhammad was regularly whipped with hose pipes and electrical cords and beaten with hammers and sticks by family members during a brutal childhood.
In
Vic Carter's special report earlier this week, his wife said she worries about how the execution will impact their children.
"I don't know how to prepare for an execution. I know that they are the ones who experience the most difficult pain," she said.
One victim who survived said the execution will give him some closure.
"It's a big step," said Paul LaRuffa. "I knew it would happen someday and it's finally here."
Muhammad was convicted of killing Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas, Va., gas station. Muhammad's lawyers also have asked Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for clemency.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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