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Attorneys for convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad (pictured) said their client is mentally ill and they have asked Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to spare his life. Thirteen people were shot, 10 fatally, when Muhammad and accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, went on a random shooting rampage around the Washington region in 2002.
Muhammad's lawyers said in a statement they asked Kaine on Oct. 22 to commute Muhammad's sentence to life in prison. They said Muhammad's illness is "illustrated by brain damage, brain dysfunction, neurological deficits as well as his psychotic and delusional behavior."
The defense team said Muhammad's mental illness was exacerbated by his military service in the first Iraq war. They presented Kaine with audio interviews of attorneys, mental health experts and a witness.
Muhammad, now 48, is scheduled to be executed Nov. 10. His lawyers said they plan to file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 3. The U.S. Supreme Court has banned executing the mentally ill.
A spokesman for Kaine said the governor does not comment on clemency requests until a decision is announced.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From The Washington Post:
