Sniper Defendant Losing Steam as He Wraps Up His Case

With his murder trial entering its final days, John Allen Muhammad’s once-confident tone gave way Thursday to frustration and confusion as his witnesses failed to poke holes in the elaborate case put on by prosecutors and the judge refused to extend the deadline to permit him to bring in witnesses from out of state.

Muhammad, 45, stood slouching and subdued, a sharp contrast to his behavior earlier in the week when he shouted at prosecutors and belittled his alleged former accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo.

He is representing himself in the trial in Montgomery County, where he has been charged with six counts of murder stemming from the October 2002 sniper shootings.

Muhammad was sentenced to death for a sniper murder in Virginia, and Malvo is serving multiple life sentences without parole for his role in several sniper shootings in that state. Malvo has agreed to plead guilty to the same six sniper slayings for which Muhammad is being tried in Maryland.

In his opening statement, Muhammad told jurors that he and Malvo were innocent.

He said he would complete his defense presentation today and decide whether to call himself as a witness -- a risky tactic that would open him to questioning by prosecutors.

“He’s going to testify and say he didn’t do it? And then on cross-examination they will make him look like an idiot,” said University of Maryland law professor Abraham Dash, who is not involved in the case.

Constitutional protections against self-incrimination mean prosecutors cannot call a defendant to the witness stand, but they can question one who chooses to testify.

Given how poorly the case has gone for Muhammad, however, it may not matter, Dash said.

“He has nothing to lose by testifying. Or anything to gain,” he said.

Most of the witnesses Muhammad asked court officials to summon never materialized. He missed the deadlines set by presiding Montgomery County Circuit Judge James L. Ryan to submit names of expert witnesses, and he failed to provide enough information for subpoenas of others.

Of the eight who have testified to date, three said they came to court reluctantly, and one tried to ignore the subpoena but was brought to court by one of Muhammad’s standby attorneys.

One went so far as to say she hoped jurors would not be swayed by her words.

“I’m hoping that my testimony amounts to nothing compared to the other evidence against him,” witness Heidi Mansen said outside the courtroom Thursday. She said she believed Muhammad was guilty.

Mansen, an architect from Silver Spring, Md., testified that she saw a red car speeding away from the scene of one sniper shooting. Officers determined the car was not involved in the crime.

“I felt bad because I pointed out the wrong person,” Mansen said. “Just because I saw something doesn’t mean that really happened.”

Witness Robert Metzger of Greenbelt, Md., said he was summoned to court Tuesday but ignored the subpoena until Muhammad lawyer J. Wyndal Gordon came to his home Thursday to take him to the courthouse.

He testified that he saw two adult men, one white and one possibly Hispanic, praying on the ground at Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Md., three days before student Iran Brown was shot there.

“What this has to do with this, I don’t know,” Metzger said from the witness stand.

“That guy killed a lot of people,” Metzger said outside the courtroom. “If I had my way, I wouldn’t even be here.”

Muhammad has flubbed his interrogation of police detectives, his questions cut short by a volley of sustained objections. Judge Ryan denied a motion to consider out-of-state witnesses after Muhammad missed several deadlines.

Despite frequent whispered conversations with his standby attorneys, Muhammad’s efforts to defend himself were hampered by his lack of legal finesse. Ryan sustained objections Thursday from the prosecutors that Muhammad’s questions were leading, inappropriate or irrelevant.