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Tuesday, March 9, 2004

Circuit Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. turned aside a plea from Muhammad's lawyers to spare their client's life. He ordered Muhammad executed on Oct. 14, but that date likely will be postponed to allow appeals.

Muhammad, 43, was convicted of capital murder on Nov. 17. A jury recommended he be sentenced to death for the murder of Dean Harold Meyers at a gas station near Manassas.

'Fool'

Muhammad denied his involvement in the killings Tuesday. "Don't make a fool of the Constitution of the United States of America," he told the judge.

"Just like I said at the beginning, I had nothing to do with this, and I'll say again, I had nothing to do with this," Muhammad said.

Defense lawyers had filed a motion Monday arguing that life in prison was the more appropriate sentence to eliminate the disparity between Muhammad's punishment and that of his 18-year-old partner in the killings, Lee Boyd Malvo.

Malvo, who will be formally sentenced Wednesday in Chesapeake, was given life in prison by the jury. Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush has no leeway to alter that sentence. In Virginia, judges can accept a jury's sentence recommendation or reduce it, but cannot increase it.

Breaking; details to follow ...

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