A judge rejected defence arguments that Virginia’s death penalty law is unconstitutional and barred cameras in the courtroom for the trial of teenage sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo.
Malvo’s lawyer had argued that the instructions given to a jury on when to recommend the death penalty are too vague.
”The law gives juries very little guidance in what we seek from them,” lawyer Michael Arif told the judge on Monday.
Arif acknowledged after the hearing that his motion had been routine and that he had little hope the judge would overturn the law. The defence argument ”can best be described as 68 pages of diatribe against the Supreme Court of Virginia,” Fairfax County prosecutor Robert Horan Jr. said.
”It cites surprisingly few Virginia cases and then only to tell us how wrong they are.” Malvo (18) and John Allen Muhammad (42) are accused of shooting 19 people — killing 13 and wounding six — in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC.
Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush rejected news media requests for cameras in the courtroom, and said she was ”concerned with the possible prejudice to Mr. Malvo, whether still cameras or TV cameras.”
She approved a request from Fairfax County to allow a closed-circuit broadcast to an overflow courtroom for extra reporters and victims’ families. The prosecution objected only to a televised broadcast, while Malvo’s lawyers opposed any cameras, including a closed-circuit broadcast.
The judge also said the defence is entitled to potentially thousands of uninvestigated leads that were reported to the sniper tip line during the shooting spree. Prosecutors have said 50 000 to 70 000 tips were received.
Prosecutors have said that Malvo made multiple confessions to pulling the trigger in some of the shootings, including the October 14 shooting of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, for which he is facing trial. – Sapa-AP