Unless Virginia Governor Tim Kaine steps in, the state will execute John Allen Muhammad the "Beltway sniper" tonight at 9pm. Yesterday the Supreme Court declined to hear Muhammad's appeal (clipped by LadybugLady).
Muhammad, along with his teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, was responsible for a 2002 killing spree in the DC area that left 10 people dead. The shootings targeted everyday people in everyday locations like gas stations. They were all the more frightening because they were unpredictable and without motive. It had just been a year since the September 11th attacks and for the period while the shootings were taking place, it was a a new wave of terror for Washington-area residents.
Muhammad has maintained his innocence. His accomplice, Malvo, is serving life in prison without parole. (Ironically, a case that the Supreme Court did hear yesterday was on whether life without parole was cruel and unusual punishment for teenagers.)
We've been looking at the death penalty a lot in the last few weeks, mostly because of the case of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas - where the state may have executed an innocent man. With a case like that, opposition to the death penalty seems practical: let's prevent mistakes from occurring. The Muhammad case is a bit different. It falls along the line of retribution - why Obama says he's supports the death penalty, despite doubts about its efficacy: "the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage."
What do you think? Is the community justified in this instance? In any instance?
