A year after a time of terror, the second suspect in the Washington, D.C. area sniper attacks is going to trial.
CHESAPEAKE, Va., Nov 10 (Reuters) - The murder trial of Lee Malvo, the 18-year-old sniper suspect linked to 10 killings in the Washington area, was to begin on Monday in this southern Virginia city, as the prosecution of his alleged accomplice moved toward a close in a neighboring courthouse.
Malvo is charged with two counts of murder and a weapons violation in the death of Linda Franklin, an FBI analyst who was shot to death as she loaded purchases into her car at a parking lot in Falls Church, Virginia, on Oct. 14, 2002.
In an effort to save Malvo's life, the defense will claim he is not responsible for the assaults he allegedly participated in, apparently as the triggerman.
Defense attorney Craig Cooley told Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush that he would present a defense of innocent by reason of insanity.The defense plans to argue that Malvo was so brainwashed by fellow suspect John Allen Muhammad, 42, that he either did not know what he was doing or could not control himself.
It likely will be a tough sell — and risky.
Studies have indicated that defendants who mount insanity defenses generally have higher conviction rates than those who don't, said Thomas L. Hafemeister, director of legal studies at the Institute for Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy in Charlottesville.
"A lot of people see insane individuals as both very bad and very scary," said Hafemeister, who also teaches at the University of Virginia law school. "The risk for the defense is that if they fail to convince the jury, then essentially they have a defendant who has acknowledged doing the deed and being mentally unstable, which creates a very scary person in the minds of the jurors."
Malvo is said to have been influenced by violent games and movies, including Halo and The Matrix.
If the insanity defense succeeds, he will likely be confined to a secure facility for the criminally insane for the rest of his life.
Note: This entry is an excerpt from today's news column at Silver Rights.
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