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The Courtroom Sniper

Accused of selecting the innocent targets of one of the most horrific killing sprees in U.S. history, John Allen Muhammad may know what it’s like to “play God.”

Playing “lawyer” proved to be much more difficult.

While snipers prefer to take random shots and escape without confronting their victims, it is harder to flee the confrontation of a trial. Using this same shotgun strategy after firing his lawyers at the start of his Virginia Beach murder trial, the accused sniper learned quickly that there are no easy exits from the courtroom. Rather than show his innocence, Muhammad only seemed to prove that “he who represents himself has a fool for a client.”

Though his alleged victims never got a chance to plead for their lives, Muhammad thanked the judge “for giving me the opportunity to speak” with jurors in opening statements. As it turned out, the judge didn’t o him any favors. Despite his claim that he “had nothing to do with these crimes,” the accused Beltway Sniper proved otherwise as he attacked the guesswork of prosecutors: “They wasn't there. I was. I know what happened, and I know what didn't happen.”

An interesting trial strategy — claim that you “had nothing to do with” a random spree of cold-blooded killings, but admit that you were present for each of them.

Lest jurors jump to the wrong conclusion, Muhammad warned that appearances may be deceiving. Showing jurors his softer side, the accused sniper shared a lesson he learned when dealing with “my children, whom I love very much.”

When it appeared that his “baby daughter” once disobeyed his order to keep her hands out of the family cookie jar, he failed to consider the evidence, yelled at his innocent little girl to “shut up,” and sent her to her room for an undeserved spanking. Beyond the moral of this story, the murder suspect’s heart-wrenching reference to corporal punishment undoubtedly evoked the empathy of fellow parents on a jury that included an eighth-grade school teacher, a mother of four and a Girl Scout volunteer.

Jury consultants may wince at his choice of material, but nobody’s perfect when trying their first case. Displaying the narcissism described in psychological profiles once created to catch a sniper at large, Muhammad rambled beyond the evidence to question “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Attacking prosecutors for presenting less than the “whole truth,” he warned jurors that “when we take something away from it, it's not a whole anymore. If we do that, that's a lie.”

In the end, John Muhammad couldn’t handle the “whole truth.” As the accused mastermind of 10 cold-blooded murders, he let someone else fire his shots, kept his distance, and escaped face-to-face combat.

Beyond his lack of legal expertise, the man once taunted as a “coward” ultimately lacked the courage to confront his accusers in the face-to-face combat of a murder trial. After taking long-range shots at prosecutors, Muhammad was less effective when standing within a close range of those who would speak for his alleged victims. Wishing to escape the combat of cross-examination, he rehired his old lawyers, let them take the shots for him, and fled to the far side of the courtroom.

As actions speak louder than self-serving words, this modus operandi may be the most incriminating evidence of all.

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