A psychiatrist who examined Muhammad concluding he was mentally ill said he refused to divulge details of his "secret defense strategy." Another psychiatrist, David Williamson of Annapolis, said Muhammad "is confident that he has a legal strategy that will prove him innocent but cannot articulate it."
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The Associated Press State & Local Wire
May 14, 2006 Sunday 4:36 PM GMT
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL
LENGTH: 1036 words
HEADLINE: Washington sniper's "secret plan" for defense emerges
BYLINE: By STEPHEN MANNING, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: ROCKVILLE Md.
May 14, 2006 Sunday 4:36 PM GMT
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL
LENGTH: 1036 words
HEADLINE: Washington sniper's "secret plan" for defense emerges
BYLINE: By STEPHEN MANNING, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: ROCKVILLE Md.
He hid his "secret defense strategy" from his former attorneys, holding it so close that he fired them rather than reveal how he planned to prove his self-professed innocence for six Washington sniper killings.
Two weeks into his second trial for the October 2002 murders, John Allen Muhammad, who is representing himself, has yet to put on his defense. But some of his plan has trickled out through statements in court and cross-examination of witnesses.
He claims he and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo were driving around looking for the young children Muhammad lost in a custody battle. The pair was shocked when they were arrested Oct. 24, 2002, and labeled the Washington snipers, he said.
Muhammad, 45, has asked many witnesses if they saw the shooter or have "direct knowledge" about the culprit. All said no. To counter reports of he and his Chevrolet Caprice near shooting sites, he questions whether witness memories were swayed by media coverage after his arrest.
He challenges medical examiners, trying to get them to concede that a handgun, not the high-powered Bushmaster rifle police found in the Caprice, could be the murder weapon. And Muhammad brings up white vans, playing on authorities' initial belief that the killers were using a van or box truck.
Muhammad is trying to poke holes of doubt for jurors in the established narrative that he and Malvo roamed the region for three weeks in the Caprice, killing 10 people and wounding three with shots fired from the Bushmaster. Since no one saw him, he implies, there is no hard evidence he was the sniper.
"Does our law condemn a person first, before we have heard and known what he's been doing?" Muhammad asked during his opening statement, quoting Nicodemus from the Bible. "The word 'knowing' implies having direct knowledge of the subject at hand, direct seeing of what was going on."
Yet he faces some seemingly insurmountable legal challenges. Prosecutors have forensic evidence that most of the .223-caliber bullets used in the homicides came from the Bushmaster. Muhammad's DNA was found on the gun. Jurors are expected to see the car, which was rigged with a hole in the trunk where a shooter could fire undetected.
"You've got a guy in possession of the weapon, which is pretty damning evidence," said Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert, who prosecuted Muhammad in Virginia. "The fact nobody saw him do it, that's pretty typical of murders."
And Muhammad will likely have to find some way to minimize Malvo's testimony. Muhammad wants Malvo, whom he still calls his "son," to testify for him. But Malvo is expected to plead guilty to the same six killings and testify against Muhammad.
A psychiatrist who examined Muhammad concluding he was mentally ill said he refused to divulge details of his "secret defense strategy." Another psychiatrist, David Williamson of Annapolis, said Muhammad "is confident that he has a legal strategy that will prove him innocent but cannot articulate it."
Williamson wrote that Muhammad may be bipolar, and believes that he was framed because he knew former Attorney General John Aschroft was part of a conspiracy that led the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Muhammad said he thought that is why the FBI was involved in the case.
He has not hinted at the conspiracy theory in court.
Muhammad is charged with six deaths in Montgomery County, just outside Washington. He is already on death row in Virginia for another sniper killing. This second trial, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, is billed as insurance in case his Virginia conviction is ever thrown out.
Montgomery Circuit Judge James Ryan allowed Muhammad in March to remove his two court-appointed attorneys, who had filed the psychiatrists' reports in an attempt to prove he was not competent to stand trial.
He's defended himself before, in his first trial in Virginia Beach. He gave an opening statement, questioned a few witnesses, but gave the case back to his attorneys because he suffered a toothache. In Maryland, he has three standby attorneys who provide him legal advice and sit with him at the defense table, but are not allowed to address the court.
On appearance, Muhammad plays the part of defense attorney reasonably well. He wears stylish suits borrowed from one of the attorneys, totes legal texts and documents to court and listens attentively to testimony. He is polite and appears unfazed by the testimony of victims' relatives and survivors he allegedly tried to kill.
Muhammad's success at pleading his case so far, however, has been mixed.
He pushes police officers on the stand, trying to expose discrepancies in reports they wrote that could undercut their credibility. Perhaps wisely, he hasn't questioned victims who survived sniper shootings. He objects to gory crime-scene testimony that could sway jurors.
But he also badgers some witnesses with repeated questions about police reports, statements and autopsies. His objections and motions are usually overruled.
He failed to submit a request for hundreds of out-of-state witness subpoenas in time, despite many deadline extensions by the judge. Ryan finally rejected the request, in part because Muhammad wouldn't say why he needed the witnesses, fearing it would give away his strategy.
"He has no defense without his out-of-state witnesses," J. Wyndal Gordon, Muhammad's standby lawyer, told Ryan after the judge's decision. "You have gutted his case."
Perhaps the biggest hurdle he faces is his notoriety most of the jurors said during the jury selection that they believed he was guilty, as do witnesses who come before him.
"He's fishing and he doesn't have a clue," said Steven Bailey, a Prince William County police officer who testified about his brief conversation with Muhammad after the Oct. 9, 2002 murder of Dean Meyers in Manassas, Va.
Other witnesses say he confuses them. Muhammad asked Troy Mason, a police cadet who found a shell casing near the Oct. 7 shooting of a middle school student in Bowie, whether he would recognize a rifle like the Bushmaster if he saw it on the ground. Mason said the question didn't make sense.
"I don't understand the shenanigans of his doing the things he is doing," Mason said after his testimony.
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