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American Morning
Sniper Suspect Muhammad's Trial Continues Today
Aired October 24, 2003 - 07:09 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: The lights came back on this morning at the Virginia Beach courthouse, where the sniper trial is taking place. Prosecutors are going to continue to try to link more shootings to John Allen Muhammad. And the judge in the trial of the other suspect, Lee Boyd Malvo, has decided that the start of his trial should not be delayed.
Jeanne Meserve is live for us in Virginia Beach this morning.
Good morning to you -- Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Court is going to be back in business this morning. The lights are indeed back on here in Virginia Beach, after a power outage yesterday which made it impossible to conduct the trial in the windowless courtroom.
Now, what has been happening in this trial is that prosecutors have been laying out the alleged crimes of John Muhammad one by one in chronological order. We expect that to continue here today.
Meanwhile, there was a hearing yesterday in the case of Lee Malvo. The Commonwealth's attorney for Fairfax County, Robert Horan, said he needed a delay of one month in that trial, so his expert could do a psychological evaluation of Malvo. He said he needed a delay, because defense attorneys had told him so late that they were going to be using an insanity defense.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT HORAN, JR., PROSECUTOR: I give them the benefit of the doubt and say, you know, they didn't know the better, but they sandbagged. It's so much easier to just wait until the end when your expert has all of these hours and you know that the Commonwealth expert will have next to none. And that's sandbagging in my view.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MESERVE: Defense attorneys denied that characterization. They said that the prosecution has known for sometime that they intended to present evidence that Malvo would be under the spell of Muhammad, and they said they had met all of the court deadlines. The judge agreed with that. The case will go forward on November 10th.
And by the way, this is an anniversary. It was one year ago that John Muhammad and Lee Malvo were arrested at a Maryland rest stop. Soledad -- back to you.
O'BRIEN: All right, Jeanne Meserve for us in Virginia Beach, Virginia this morning. Jeanne, thanks for that update. Appreciate it.
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 24, 2003 - 07:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The lights came back on this morning at the Virginia Beach courthouse, where the sniper trial is taking place. Prosecutors are going to continue to try to link more shootings to John Allen Muhammad. And the judge in the trial of the other suspect, Lee Boyd Malvo, has decided that the start of his trial should not be delayed.
Jeanne Meserve is live for us in Virginia Beach this morning.
Good morning to you -- Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Court is going to be back in business this morning. The lights are indeed back on here in Virginia Beach, after a power outage yesterday which made it impossible to conduct the trial in the windowless courtroom.
Now, what has been happening in this trial is that prosecutors have been laying out the alleged crimes of John Muhammad one by one in chronological order. We expect that to continue here today.
Meanwhile, there was a hearing yesterday in the case of Lee Malvo. The Commonwealth's attorney for Fairfax County, Robert Horan, said he needed a delay of one month in that trial, so his expert could do a psychological evaluation of Malvo. He said he needed a delay, because defense attorneys had told him so late that they were going to be using an insanity defense.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT HORAN, JR., PROSECUTOR: I give them the benefit of the doubt and say, you know, they didn't know the better, but they sandbagged. It's so much easier to just wait until the end when your expert has all of these hours and you know that the Commonwealth expert will have next to none. And that's sandbagging in my view.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MESERVE: Defense attorneys denied that characterization. They said that the prosecution has known for sometime that they intended to present evidence that Malvo would be under the spell of Muhammad, and they said they had met all of the court deadlines. The judge agreed with that. The case will go forward on November 10th.
And by the way, this is an anniversary. It was one year ago that John Muhammad and Lee Malvo were arrested at a Maryland rest stop. Soledad -- back to you.
O'BRIEN: All right, Jeanne Meserve for us in Virginia Beach, Virginia this morning. Jeanne, thanks for that update. Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
