Supreme Court Denies Execution Stay for Convicted Sniper
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to delay a Tuesday evening execution for convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad.
The court refused to grant a stay and also refused to hear an appeal filed by lawyers for Muhammad, SCOTUSblog reports. Muhammad’s cert petition had asserted that the appeal of his Virginia conviction had moved through the court system too quickly, the Los Angeles Times reported in a story written before the court’s action today.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a separate statement saying the case “highlights once again the perversity of executing inmates before their appeals process has been fully concluded.” He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.
Muhammad was appealing his conviction for killing Dean Harold Meyers at a gas station, the Associated Press reports. He is suspected of masterminding a string of sniper murders, including 10 in the Washington, D.C., area. Muhammad was tried in Virginia, where three of the murders took place and death sentences are carried out quickly. Most of the murders took place in Maryland, but the death penalty is on hold there because of questions about racial fairness, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Stevens said the case cert petition should have been reviewed on Nov. 24, according to The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
“By denying Muhammad’s stay application, we have allowed Virginia to truncate our deliberative process on a matter—involving a death row inmate—that demands the most careful attention,” Stevens wrote. “This result is particularly unfortunate in light of the limited time Muhammad was given to make his case in the district court.”
Stevens said he did not disagree with the court’s decision to deny cert. The Washington Post also had the story.
