And so John Allen Muhammad will be executed for the sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington, DC area in October 2002. "I find no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was recommended by the jury and then imposed and affirmed by the courts," Kaine, who is known for carefully considering death penalty cases, said in a statement. "Accordingly, I decline to intervene."With that, Muhammad will be executed at 9 pm at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia. Now, I'm not generally a big fan of the death penalty, but I really am having a difficult time coming up with a reason to be against it in this case. There's no doubt John Allen Muhammad committed the crimes. There's no doubt that those crimes were particularly heinous. There are no other mitigating factors that I'm aware of (although Justices Ginsburg, Stevens, and Sotomayor pointed to "the perversity of executing inmates before their appeals process have been fully concluded").
All of which leaves no strong argument against capital punishment in this case, except for the usual ones that it's not a deterrent, that the state shouldn't be in the business of taking peoples' lives, that it's just as effective (and usually no more expensive) to lock up the criminal for life, etc. I just hope this brings some "closure" (actually, I can't stand that word; too simplistic and probably not true in most situations) or at least emotional relief of some sort to the families of the victims.
