Sniper to be executed Nov. 10

Barring a last-minute stay or clemency from the governor, John Allen Muhammad will die in Virginia’s death chamber seven years and one month to the day that the “Beltway” sniper rampage came to Prince William County.

Prince William Circuit Court Judge Mary Grace O’Brien signed Muhammad’s death warrant Wednesday morning, setting a Nov. 10 date for his execution. The Virginia Attorney General’s office last week requested a Nov. 9 execution but the judge set it for next day — a Tuesday — so courts would be open the day before to hear appeals.

Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert said he hopes there won’t be any 11th hour stays.

“I’d like to see this proceed,” he said Wednesday.

Muhammad, now 48, is convicted in Prince William County of killing 53-year-old Harold Dean Meyers at a Sunoco station on Sudley Road off Interstate 66 on Oct. 9, 2002. Meyers, a Maryland resident, was the ninth victim of Muhammad and teen accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, who killed 10 people and wounded three others during a three-week shooting spree in the Washington area.

The two are also suspected of shootings in several other states, including a killing in Louisiana and another in Alabama.

Meyers’ brother, Robert Meyers of Perkiomenville, Pa., told the Associated Press that the setting of an execution date has served as something of a “reality check” for a death sentence that was imposed more than five years ago.

“We’re not bloodthirsty people. It’s not like we can’t wait for this to happen,’” he said in a phone interview. “But there’s a debt to society. And it’s been determined in the right way — not by vigilantism — that this is the action to be taken.”

Muhammad and Malvo were arrested Oct. 24, 2002, at a rest area in Maryland, asleep in their blue Chevrolet Caprice. The car’s trunk had been modified into a sniper’s nest, where the duo picked off victims with a Bushmaster .223-caliber semiautomatic rifle equipped with a silencer.

Malvo, who testified against Muhammad, is serving a life sentence. Although convicted of capital murder, he can’t be put to death because he was 17 at the time of the crimes.

Muhammad is convicted on two counts of capital murder in connection with Meyer’s death, one charging him with multiple slayings in a three-year period and the other a terrorism law enacted in Virginia after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon. Muhammad is the first person to be tried and sentenced to death under that law.

Last month, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Muhammad’s final appeal, rejecting claims that the prosecution withheld critical evidence and that he never should have been allowed to act as his own attorney for a portion of his trial because he was too mentally impaired.

Muhammad’s defense attorney, Jonathan Sheldon, said he plans to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court next month, likely on the issues of Muhammad’s competency at his trial and the state’s “rush” to set an execution date before attorneys can appeal to the highest court.

Sheldon said in an e-mail that other states “wait until after the U.S. Supreme Court has decided a death penalty case to set an execution date.” In Muhammad’s case, the attorney general’s office “requested the execution date now, which, in effect, cuts short a death sentenced inmate’s ability to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Ebert on Tuesday said his office has been flooded with calls from families of the sniper duo’s victims, all wanting to watch Muhammad’s execution. Virginia Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor said prison officials are getting in touch with victims’ family members now.

Cheryll Witz is one of those who want to see Muhammad die. Her father, Jerry Taylor, was shot and killed by Malvo on a Tucson, Ariz., golf course in March 2002, at Muhammad’s direction.

“It’s definitely about justice,” she said. “The death penalty is the only justice for him.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.