WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- A Virginia court is mulling a Nov. 9 execution date for John Muhammad, convicted in a series of sniper slayings in the Washington, D.C., area, authorities said.
The execution date was requested by Katherine Burnett, Virginia's senior assistant attorney general, CNN reported Saturday. The chief judge of the Prince William County Circuit Court must hold a hearing within 10 days of a request and must set an execution date no later than 60 days after the hearing, prosecutors said.
Muhammad's lawyer, Jon Sheldon, said he will ask Virginia's governor for clemency and appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Muhammad, 48, was convicted of murdering Dean Meyers, 53 at a Manassas, Va., gas station and killing one person in Maryland.
Muhammad's partner, Lee Malvo, 24, who was a teenager at the time of the killings, was sentenced to life in prison for the death of Kenneth Bridges, 53, in Fredericksburg, Va.
Authorities said Muhammad and Malvo shot 13 people, killing 10, during a terrifying three-week span in October 2002. They also are suspected in other shootings and slayings in Tacoma, Wash., Montgomery, Ala., and the Washington, D.C., area.
Malvo testified Muhammad, an Army veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, hated the United States and intended to kill six people a day for 30 days, then recruit more youths to begin a second phase of killings.
