Muhammad's Metamorphosis Impresses Some Trial Observers

After dropping in one day last week, Philip Collins, a lawyer in Bethesda, said: "He's probably got more trial experience than a lot of second- and third-year attorneys."

Another spectator, claims adjuster Eric Ferebee, said that he has been cross-examined by less competent lawyers. "I think he got a great tutorial in the Virginia trial," Ferebee said. "He's ready. He's prepared. I hate to give the guy accolades, but you know. . ."

Even Roger Polk, a prosecution witness who testified that he saw Muhammad's car near a Bowie middle school where the youngest sniper victim was shot Oct. 7, said he had to concede that Muhammad "looked like a regular lawyer to me."

Muhammad, 45, has -- wisely, many lawyers say -- generally declined to cross-examine witnesses who were wounded or whose family members were killed.

He has not visibly reacted to gruesome pictures of sniper victims or to recordings of emotional 911 calls. He has made frequent unsettling references to a "lead snowstorm," a term of art that describes the pattern of damage caused when a high-velocity round fragments inside the body.

Montgomery Circuit Court Judge James L. Ryan allowed Muhammad -- who represented himself for two days in the Virginia trial -- to fire his public defenders more than a month ago. Three private attorneys are acting as standby counsel, permitted to advise Muhammad and help him prepare but not speak for him in court or to the media.

In one typical exchange highlighting his defense, Muhammad last week questioned Mary Ripple, the Maryland deputy chief medical examiner, about drawing inferences from photographs of the victims' injuries.

"Is there anything you can point to that can tell us who specifically shot these people?"

"No."

"Is there anything that you can point to in those pictures that can tell us who has something to do with shooting these people?"

"No."

And he pressed her to admit that the victims' injuries could have been caused by any number of weapons, not just the .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle found in his aging Chevrolet Caprice when he and alleged accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested at a rest stop in Frederick on Oct. 24, 2002.