Judge rejects delay in trial of sniper suspect

The trial of Washington sniper suspect John Lee Malvo will not be postponed to allow time for a mental health expert to examine him, a judge ruled.

Instead, the expert will be allowed to continue evaluating Malvo during the trial, Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush said yesterday, rejecting the prosecution’s request for a delay.

“This really is almost an unstoppable train at this point,” Roush said, noting that 250 potential jurors and about 35 out-of-state witnesses had been subpoenaed.

Malvo, who was born in Jamaica, is to go on trial on November 10 over the killing of an FBI analyst last October. The judge moved the trial 200 miles (320kms) away to Chesapeake, outside the Washington metropolitan area, to make it easier to find to an impartial jury.

Malvo’s lawyers gave notice earlier this month that they plan to present an insanity defence, and Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert F Horan Jr had asked for an extra month to evaluate Malvo.

The defence opposed a delay, arguing that prosecutors had three months to hire an expert witness and that the defence theory that 18-year-old Malvo had been ”indoctrinated” by the older John Allen Muhammad was nothing new to the case.

The judge denied several defence motions yesterday, including requests to dismiss the indictment against Malvo that relies on Virginia’s anti-terrorism law, and a request for daily transcripts from Muhammad’s trial.

Muhammad, 42, went on trial last week in Virginia Beach over the killing of a man at a gas station. Yesterday’s proceedings were cancelled because of a power failure at the courthouse.

If convicted, both men could get the death penalty.

Malvo and Muhammad are charged over 13 shootings, 10 of them fatal, during a three-week crime spree last October in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC.