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American Morning

Sniper Trials: John Muhammad Case

Aired October 21, 2003 - 07:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's turn now to the strike -- sniper trial, rather, and a surprise request from the defendant. Shortly after winning the right to defend himself, John Allen Muhammad delivered his opening statement, telling the jury he had nothing to do with the D.C.-area attacks.
CNN's Jeanne Meserve is live for us at the courthouse in Virginia Beach this morning.

Jeanne -- good morning.

Let's start with Muhammad's decision to represent himself. Did it catch the court by surprise?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Everybody in that courtroom was slack-jawed. The prosecutor, Paul Ebert, said he'd had no warning this was coming. Defense counsel didn't make any comment, but it appeared from their physical reactions that they were very much surprised by this, too.

Those two defense counsels, Jonathan Shapiro and Peter Greenspun, had been appointed standby counsels. They sat on either side of Muhammad through the rest of the day's proceedings. They talked constantly. They traded notes. And, at one point, one of the prosecutors stood up and said, hey, that's not what the law allows. This is some sort of a hybrid arrangement. It's not self- representation. The judge agreed with them, and then later in the proceedings when Shapiro stood to object to one of the witnesses, the judge told him he was simply out of line to talk.

Back to you.

O'BRIEN: All right, a couple of quick questions for you. So, give me a sense, then, of how the opening statements went. I read reports that he was rambling, completely incoherent. Are those all fair to say?

MESERVE: I wouldn't say completely incoherent at all. It was a long discourse. It was a little bit hard to follow what was about the nature of truth. But in addition to that, he raised a couple of objections during court proceedings yesterday, one of them sustained by the judge. They were about the relevance of certain witnesses and their testimony.

And he did a cross-examination of a British military expert and made several relevant points, one of them being that this particular expert had not seen Muhammad do anything, like shoot anybody. Also, he pointed out that some of the equipment necessary for snipers also had perfectly innocent civilian uses.

O'BRIEN: How about the prosecution's opening statement, Jeanne?

MESERVE: Pretty dramatic. Prosecutor James Willet pulled out the pieces of a Bushmaster rifle, snapped them together, put that rifle right down in front of the jury, as he talked about 16 of the sniper shootings, which he alleges Muhammad was involved in.

Quite interesting witness testimony. They had a woman who said she placed both Muhammad and Malvo a short distance away from the Dean Meyers' shooting about an hour before it happened. And one sort of forecast of what their case is going to be about, a lot of emphasis on team work, the fact that sniping takes two people -- this, because, as the prosecutor acknowledges, there are no eyewitnesses in this case who saw John Muhammad do anything.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Jeanne Meserve for us this morning in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Jeanne, thanks for that update.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired October 21, 2003 - 07:05   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's turn now to the strike -- sniper trial, rather, and a surprise request from the defendant. Shortly after winning the right to defend himself, John Allen Muhammad delivered his opening statement, telling the jury he had nothing to do with the D.C.-area attacks.
CNN's Jeanne Meserve is live for us at the courthouse in Virginia Beach this morning.

Jeanne -- good morning.

Let's start with Muhammad's decision to represent himself. Did it catch the court by surprise?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Everybody in that courtroom was slack-jawed. The prosecutor, Paul Ebert, said he'd had no warning this was coming. Defense counsel didn't make any comment, but it appeared from their physical reactions that they were very much surprised by this, too.

Those two defense counsels, Jonathan Shapiro and Peter Greenspun, had been appointed standby counsels. They sat on either side of Muhammad through the rest of the day's proceedings. They talked constantly. They traded notes. And, at one point, one of the prosecutors stood up and said, hey, that's not what the law allows. This is some sort of a hybrid arrangement. It's not self- representation. The judge agreed with them, and then later in the proceedings when Shapiro stood to object to one of the witnesses, the judge told him he was simply out of line to talk.

Back to you.

O'BRIEN: All right, a couple of quick questions for you. So, give me a sense, then, of how the opening statements went. I read reports that he was rambling, completely incoherent. Are those all fair to say?

MESERVE: I wouldn't say completely incoherent at all. It was a long discourse. It was a little bit hard to follow what was about the nature of truth. But in addition to that, he raised a couple of objections during court proceedings yesterday, one of them sustained by the judge. They were about the relevance of certain witnesses and their testimony.

And he did a cross-examination of a British military expert and made several relevant points, one of them being that this particular expert had not seen Muhammad do anything, like shoot anybody. Also, he pointed out that some of the equipment necessary for snipers also had perfectly innocent civilian uses.

O'BRIEN: How about the prosecution's opening statement, Jeanne?

MESERVE: Pretty dramatic. Prosecutor James Willet pulled out the pieces of a Bushmaster rifle, snapped them together, put that rifle right down in front of the jury, as he talked about 16 of the sniper shootings, which he alleges Muhammad was involved in.

Quite interesting witness testimony. They had a woman who said she placed both Muhammad and Malvo a short distance away from the Dean Meyers' shooting about an hour before it happened. And one sort of forecast of what their case is going to be about, a lot of emphasis on team work, the fact that sniping takes two people -- this, because, as the prosecutor acknowledges, there are no eyewitnesses in this case who saw John Muhammad do anything.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Jeanne Meserve for us this morning in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Jeanne, thanks for that update.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.