Defense Is Next At Muhammad Trial
The prosecution rested its case Monday against alleged Washington-area sniper John Allen Muhammad, meaning defense lawyers will now present their bid to save their client from execution.
In the final prosecution testimony in the trial, Edward A. Clarke, director of security for Montgomery county, Md., public schools, talked Monday about how the attacks prompted his schools to implement a countywide lockdown, called "code blue," for the first time.
Attendance was down to less than 10 percent at some schools before the suspects were finally captured, he said.
Clarke's testimony was meant to bolster prosecutors' contention that the snipers engaged in a form of terrorism, the basis for one of the capital murder charges against Muhammad and his alleged accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo. Malvo's trial began Monday.
There were "no great surprises from prosecutors," said CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen. "They promised a circumstantial case with plenty of moving parts and I think they delivered both with evidence and with emotion. Now the defense has to figure out if there are any weak links in that chain of evidence and then try to chip away at it."
The defense, says Cohen, is "designed as much to spare Muhammad's life, at the jury level or on appeal, as it is designed to generate an acquittal."
Muhammad is on trial only for one killing, but the prosecution needs to prove participation in multiple killings or terrorizing of the public to get the death penalty.
It remains unclear who actually pulled the trigger in each of the shootings. Investigators have testified in Muhammad's trial that Malvo's fingerprints were on the .223-caliber rifle used in the sniper killings, and that his DNA or fingerprints were found on evidence from several of the scenes.
But while prosecutors in Malvo's case say Malvo has admitted committing many of the shootings and laughed and bragged about the shootings to interrogators and prison guards, Muhammad's prosecutors argue it doesn't matter who pulled the trigger.
They say Muhammad, who referred to Malvo as his son and plunged him into a lifestyle of rigor and discipline, was the "moving spirit." That most of the evidence can be traced to Malvo only shows how carefully Muhammad controlled the situation, they contend.
A key piece of evidence in the prosecution's case has been the car allegedly used by the two men.
Prosecutors say the former police car, with a specially hinged back seat and notch cut above the rear license plate, was used as a killing platform.
They argue that the suspects could crawl into the trunk from inside the car and fire shots without being seen.
The jury went to see the actual car, watched a video of police officers shooting from the trunk, and saw a full-sized mock-up that was brought into court.
Jurors paid particularly close attention to the tape, which played for less than a minute Thursday. Defense attorneys objected, saying it was a faulty re-creation that made maneuvering in the trunk appear simpler than it would have been.
The defense said there is no evidence that anyone saw shots fired from the Caprice's trunk, and that the demonstrations would invite unfair speculation by the jury.
Muhammad, 42, is on trial in only one of the sniper attacks, the Oct. 9, 2002, shooting death of Dean Harold Meyers at a gasoline station near Manassas. Meyers was one of 10 people shot dead during the sniper spree in the D.C. area.