D.C. sniper changes mind, wants to appeal

MCLEAN, Virginia (AP) -- Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad has changed his mind again and now wants to go forward with a federal appeal of his conviction and death sentence, according to his lawyers.

In a handwritten letter from death row made public this week, Muhammad told the Virginia attorney general that he wanted to suspend all appeals on his 2003 death sentence and that appeals filed on his behalf were not authorized.

But Muhammad's lawyer, James Connell, wrote a letter Thursday to a U.S. District judge saying Muhammad now wants to go forward with his appeal.

"Mr. Muhammad expressly authorized me to represent that (1) he does not wish to be executed; (2) he does not wish to abandon the (appeals) process; and (3) he does not wish to discharge his legal team," Connell wrote.

Katherine Baldwin, a senior assistant attorney general who is representing Virginia, said Friday in a letter that she accepts Connell's representation and that she sees no reason to take action based on Muhammad's earlier letter.

In that letter, Muhammad said he was writing to prosecutors for assistance "because I know you will make sure this letter will get to the right people -- so that you can murder this innocent black man."

Defense lawyer Jonathan Sheldon, who is also representing Muhammad, declined to comment specifically on his client's thought process but said it is not unusual for death-row inmates to vacillate in their commitment to the appeals process.

"This is largely due to the relatively new and legally questionable phenomenon of solitary confinement for death row inmates and partly due to the reduced opportunity to have the fairness of their trial evaluated" as the appeals process has been curtailed, Sheldon said. "The decline in mental health and feelings of despair often result in death row inmates volunteering for execution."

Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, were convicted for their roles in an October 2002 sniper spree that left 10 people dead and terrorized the Washington region. Muhammad was sentenced to death, and Malvo was sentenced to life in prison.

In their appeal, Muhammad's lawyers have raised questions about their client's mental health, citing evidence of brain damage associated with schizophrenia. They argue that the damage may render Muhammad incompetent to make legal decisions on his own behalf, as he has done on several occasions.

He represented himself for a disastrous two-day stretch at his Virginia trial and also represented himself in a subsequent trial in Maryland, in which he was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

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