Convicted snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo will stand trial in Maryland, site of six of the 10 sniper killings that paralyzed Washington-area residents with fear in 2002, the Baltimore Sun reports. Their extradition was announced yesterday by Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner and Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., after the final Virginia charges were dropped against Muhammad, 44, and Malvo, 20. Alabama and Louisiana also want to try the pair.
Maryland state prosecutors and victims’ families sought the new trial, but the snipers’ attorneys criticized the move as a waste of money. In Virginia, both were convicted of murder – Muhammad sentenced to death, and Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, receiving two life sentences without parole. “There is a huge willingness to spend taxpayer dollars to obtain nothing different than the same results,” said Peter D. Greenspun, the Fairfax attorney who has been representing Muhammad. A Maryland prosecutor called the new cases “insurance” in case the Virginia convictions are reversed.