Jury shown two sides of Malvo: obedient boy, obsessed teen
 |
Defense attorneys claim Malvo, left, was brainwashed by John Allen Muhammad, right.
Story Tools
VIDEO
|
CNN's Jeanne Meserve reports attorneys for Lee Boyd Malvo say their client was under the control of John Allen Muhammad at the time of the sniper killings.
Jailhouse sketches by Malvo illustrating threats, hate and violence are used as evidence by the defense.
Judge disallows a letter the defense says shows Malvo's fear of Muhammad.
|
SPECIAL REPORT
|
|
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
|
Follow the news that matters to you. Create your own alert to be notified on topics you're interested in.
Or, visit Popular Alerts for suggestions.
|
|
CHESAPEAKE, Virginia (AP) -- Jurors have seen Lee Boyd Malvo as an obedient boy who yearned for a father during a childhood of loneliness and uncertainty. His lawyers say he once complained that he had no one, "not even a dog, not even a bird."
They also have seen the sniper suspect as a teenager obsessed with racial injustice and looking to start a violent revolution to transform society. On interrogation tapes, they heard him chuckle while telling police how he chose his victims and how the Bushmaster XM-15 rifle inflicted horrendous damage on human bodies.
The challenge for Malvo's attorneys as his capital murder trial enters its fifth week is to convince the jury that his transformation and participation in the attacks that killed 10 in the Washington, D.C., area last fall amounted to legal insanity, that Malvo was so indoctrinated by John Allen Muhammad that he was unable to discern right from wrong.
"What the defense will have to do, and it will be very difficult to do, is to persuade the jury that essentially anyone in Malvo's position who was exposed to Muhammad like he was would not have been able to resist Muhammad's reign of terror," said Stephen Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University and director of the National Trial Advocacy College at the University of Virginia.
So far, however, the defense has not presented evidence of any remorse, and prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. said in his opening statement that Malvo has none.
"Genuine remorse is an emotion that moves jurors, that makes them feel like they're dealing with a human being who can change, who understands that he did wrong, and who deserves some mercy and compassion," Saltzburg said.
Jurors who convicted Muhammad last month and recommended execution said they were pushed toward the death penalty by Muhammad's lack of remorse for the sniper killings.
Malvo, 18, met Muhammad on the island of Antigua after Malvo's mother left him alone there at age 15. Muhammad treated him as a son and took him to the United States on a fake passport. Malvo lived with his mother for a time in Florida but eventually went to live with Muhammad in Washington state. He called him father.
Witnesses, including former teachers and schoolmates, testified that as a child Malvo was a good student, respectful and generous.
People who met him with Muhammad also described him as polite. Some testified that he seemed to follow Muhammad's example in many ways, including adopting a strict diet and workout regimen, learning to shoot a gun, converting to Islam and shedding his Jamaican accent.
The defense was not allowed last week to show the jury a key piece of evidence that they contend helps explain Malvo's state of mind just months before the sniper attacks.
Lawyers said a letter written to Muhammad's niece, LaToria Williams, during a visit to the older man's family in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, showed that Malvo was unhappy. Williams testified, with the jury absent, that the letter scared her because in it Malvo described himself as a "time bomb."
Lawyers have said they may try to get the letter in evidence in another way. That could mean calling Malvo to testify, a move Saltzburg said could work in his favor but was risky.
"If the jury believes that this indoctrination is lawyer strategy, and maybe a good one, but that they don't see it for themselves, the strategy could backfire," Saltzburg said.
Muhammad was convicted in the slaying of Dean Harold Meyers, shot while pumping gas in Manassas during the three-week sniper spree that terrified the Capitol region. Malvo is being tried in another of the 10 killings, that of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, shot outside a Falls Church store. The two men also are accused in earlier shootings in Washington state, Arizona, Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana.
Copyright 2003 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
