3-Hour Closing Speech Mentions Lies, Bible
By Ernesto Londoño and Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Sniper John Allen Muhammad invoked Groucho Marx and the Bible and declared his innocence during an hours-long, wide-ranging closing argument yesterday in his Montgomery County trial.
He compared his plight to that of Martin Luther King Jr. and challenged the jury not to assume his guilt based on his looks.
"How do you know when a person is innocent?" Muhammad asked. "How do they look?"
If he looks remorseless, he said, it's because he is. "The person who's done nothing wrong should have no remorse," he said.
Muhammad spoke for more than three hours defending himself against charges that he murdered six people in Montgomery County during the October 2002 sniper shootings, which killed 10 and wounded three in the Washington region. He has already been convicted and condemned to death in Virginia.
After closing arguments by Muhammad and prosecutors, the jurors spoke together briefly and told the judge that they will begin deliberations Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Muhammad, 45, wearing a tan suit, sat impassively as Assistant State's Attorney Vivek Chopra called him a "coward" who prowled the county's streets looking for "regular citizens, like you, like me, like anyone in this gallery" to shoot from afar with a powerful rifle.
Chopra said Muhammad was a "pathetic" man who made "godlike" decisions that silenced several lives and devastated the victims' loved ones.
Ola Martin-Border, sister of victim James D. Martin, is now an only child, he noted, talking about the relatives' loss. Denise Johnson, wife of Conrad Johnson, is now a widow.
" 'Call me God,' indeed," Chopra said, referring to the preface the snipers used to communicate with police while they were at large.
Chopra briefly reminded the jury of the testimony of Muhammad's accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, 21 -- the pinnacle of the trial. He agreed to plead guilty to the six slayings and testified for the state this week.
"Mr. Malvo is an admitted killer," Chopra said. "There is no getting around that. But he was also a boy. He was 15 years old, abandoned by his mother, abandoned by his father," a boy whose chance encounter with Muhammad in Antigua created "the perfect storm."
Muhammad evoked the image of his daughters to try to make a point to the jury. For the jury to convict him on six counts of first-degree murder, he argued, would be tantamount to Muhammad punishing one daughter for fighting with her sibling without taking the time to consider the other child's side of the story.
Muhammad, who has conducted his own defense and has appeared to revel in the role of an officer of the court, portrayed himself as an aggrieved man who has been framed by overzealous authorities and denied due process.
"People gather round," Muhammad said to the jury. "Let me tell you a story that hasn't been told about the lying prosecutors and police. Ooh, the lies they told!"
Muhammad accused police and prosecutors of lying and spoke of "negative proof" and "stupid sense," as opposed to common sense, during his 3 1/2 -hour closing argument.
"These cases are not even made on stupid sense," Muhammad said. "I call these cases 'the cow jumping over the moon.' "
The witnesses who took the stand for the state, he added, were "very good witnesses. I like to call them paid witnesses. They're hired guns for the prosecutors."
Muhammad told jurors that Malvo, whom he continues to call his son, has been "indoctrinated" by police. "He really believes he did this," he said, sounding indignant.
"I don't care what you saw" Monday, he said, referring to the testimony by Malvo, who said Muhammad was the triggerman in most of the shootings. "Lee is a magnificent human being, and I don't care what they've done to him. My son is innocent. I'm asking you to find us both not guilty."
Muhammad cited several passages from the Bible and quoted part of a Groucho Marx line: "Who are you going to believe -- me or your lying eyes?"
Rebutting Muhammad's closing arguments, Deputy State's Attorney Katherine Winfree urged jurors to dismiss Muhammad's contention that the case against him is the product of a broad law enforcement conspiracy.
"In order to accept his theory of defense, you have to believe that everyone who came in here lied," she said.
She added that although it was significant, Malvo's testimony was unnecessary to convict Muhammad. She called his claim that Malvo had been indoctrinated ludicrous.
"This man ducked behind a 17-year-old boy," Winfree said, reminding the jury that Malvo testified that Muhammad told him to take responsibility for the shootings if they were arrested because as a juvenile, he was unlikely to get the death penalty.
She said Muhammad is "a man who's angry at the world" who had been callous enough during opening arguments to equate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to losing custody of his children.
Pointing her finger and looking him squarely in the eye, she recited the names of the six Montgomery sniper victims: James D. Martin. James L. "Sonny" Buchanan. Premkumar A. Walekar. Maria Sarah Ramos. Lori Lewis Rivera. Conrad E. Johnson.
"He's guilty," she said. "He knows it. You know it. Tell him so."
View all comments that have been posted about this article.