Sniper Judge Takes Seat on Virginia Supreme Court

Millette Still Faces Vote

The judge who presided over one of the Washington area sniper trials will now be making decisions that affect people throughout Northern Virginia.

Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. was sworn in last week as a judge on the Virginia Supreme Court after receiving an interim appointment from Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D). Millette, a former Prince William Circuit Court judge who spent part of his boyhood in Alexandria, becomes the second member of the state's highest court from Northern Virginia.

Millette, 59, gained attention for his evenhanded approach to the 2003 trial of sniper John Allen Muhammad. The plaudits he received propelled Millette to the appeals court job in November, followed nine months later by his elevation to the Supreme Court on Aug. 15.

The appointment requires confirmation from the Virginia General Assembly and could be subject to partisan bickering. The Republican-controlled Virginia House and Democrat-controlled Senate have been battling for the past year over which party should appoint judges. The state constitution gives that power to legislators, but the governor can make judicial appointments when the legislature is out of session, as it will be until January.

The dispute briefly held up Millette's appeals court appointment, and the same thing could happen with the Supreme Court slot, said Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee. "The problem is that the issue is bigger than Millette," Albo said. "The General Assembly appoints judges, and the governor has kind of gone and stepped in when we are supposed to do it."

But Albo, a lawyer who practiced in Millette's Prince William courtroom, said Millette "is a great judge, there's no doubt." He said Muhammad's trial -- in which he was convicted of two counts of capital murder in the shootings that terrified the Washington region in 2002 -- "was very difficult, and I think he did a really good job."

Kaine said in a statement that Millette "is a first-rate jurist who has devoted his life to the law," and a spokesman for the governor said that the administration expects Millette to be confirmed. "He's well known from the sniper trial, but it's his whole career that stood out," said the spokesman, Gordon Hickey. "He has had a long and distinguished career."

If Millette is confirmed for the 12-year term, he is unlikely to alter the balance of a court that generally has a moderate to conservative reputation but is difficult to characterize ideologically, legal scholars said. "The addition of one justice is unlikely to change the court very much," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, who added that Millette's brief appeals court tenure makes his leanings especially difficult to gauge.

Millette's elevation is good news for Northern Virginia residents, however, because he is likely to understand issues such as transportation and development that are important to the region, Tobias said. Of the six other Supreme Court judges, only Barbara Milano Keenan, a former Fairfax County judge, is from Northern Virginia.

The Virginia Supreme Court handles all manner of criminal and civil appeals, and its decisions can have a huge impact statewide. In March, for example, the court struck down the state's first transportation funding bill in 21 years, imperiling billions of dollars for road and transit projects in Northern Virginia. A ruling in June dealt a blow to the proposed extension of Metrorail to Dulles International Airport by allowing a lawsuit to go forward challenging plans to use Dulles Toll Road receipts to fund construction.

Millette, born in Pennsylvania and raised in Alexandria and Fairfax County, was an assistant commonwealth's attorney in Prince William before serving as a Prince William General District Court judge from 1990 to 1993. He was a Prince William Circuit Court judge from 1993 until his appointment to the state appeals court.

Muhammad's sniper trial was not Millette's only high-profile assignment. He also oversaw part of what was then Prince William's most highly publicized case: the 1993 trial of John Wayne Bobbitt for allegedly raping his wife, Lorena Bobbitt, who severed her husband's penis. John Bobbitt was acquitted.

Millette, who lives in Prince William County and is married with two children, said through a spokeswoman that he is "very excited to serve the commonwealth as a member of the Supreme Court of Virginia."