The Clipboard: Has Ashcroft ever heard of due process?

From an article¹:

Outside the courthouse, though, the defendant's court-appointed lawyer, Michael S. Arif, said he might seek a change of venue.

Mr. Arif also said Fairfax County police investigators tried to question Mr. Malvo for seven hours on Thursday night without the presence of any lawyer for him.

"I am not at all comfortable," Mr. Arif said, "with a 17-year-old being in police custody and being interrogated for that period of time without legal representation."

Prosecutors would not discuss the accusation. (link - registration required)

There's an excellent analysis of this at TalkLeft:

...This is not how the American justice system is supposed to work. You don't bring charges based upon which jurisdiction is most likely to kill the offender upon conviction. You don't let suspects sit for days without lawyers. You don't let the Government and state prosecutors leak evidence to the media that should only come out at a trial.

We are not defending the sniper attacks. We find them as abhorrent as everyone else. Whoever committed them needs to be kept away from society. But we need to do it fairly and this isn't the way.

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Complete text of the article, As Sniper Suspects Go to Court, State Cites New Evidence Against One, by Jayson Blair (registration required for offsite link)

As the two men charged in the sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington area made separate appearances in Virginia courts, a prosecutor said today that the younger of the two had been spotted by witnesses at three of the shooting scenes and that his fingerprints were the only ones found on the murder weapon.

The court appearances followed by a day Attorney General John Ashcroft's order that the suspects, Lee Malvo, 17, and John Muhammad, 41, be turned over from federal custody to prosecutors in Virginia, where the likelihood of winning death sentences was greatest.

Mr. Muhammad, looking haggard and disheveled, appeared here in Prince William County Circuit Court, where he is to be tried in the fatal shooting of Dean Harold Meyers, 53, at a Manassas gas station on Oct. 9.

Mr. Malvo's hearing was in Fairfax, some 15 miles away, where prosecutors will try to prove that he was the gunman in the Oct. 14 killing of Linda Franklin, 47, outside a Home Depot in Falls Church.

The authorities both here and in Fairfax said trial would most likely not begin until the middle of next year.

In all, the two men are charged or suspected in a raft of shootings that killed 13 people and wounded 7 in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Arizona and Washington State. Investigators in several other states are examining whether the suspects committed crimes there as well.

At Mr. Malvo's hearing, Judge Charles J. Maxfield of Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court ordered that the defendant be held in an adult jail. Prosecutors had argued that he should not be held in a juvenile detention center, because of the seriousness of the crimes and because, the authorities say, he tried to escape from an interrogation room shortly after he and Mr. Muhammad were arrested two weeks ago.

Robert F. Horan Jr., Fairfax County commonwealth's attorney, told Judge Maxfield that Mr. Malvo had been spotted by five witnesses at three of the four Virginia shooting scenes — those in Falls Church, in Prince William County and in Spotsylvania County — and that his fingerprints had been found on the Bushmaster rifle that the authorities say was used in the sniper shootings.

Asked outside of court later for elaboration about the prints on the rifle, Mr. Horan said, "Only his prints were found."

Mr. Malvo barely spoke during his 20-minute hearing, acknowledging only his identity and his understanding of his right to counsel. Judge Maxfield appointed him a lawyer, and a custodian until his mother can be contacted. His mother is believed to be living in Bellingham, Wash., but the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been unable to locate her.

Of the decision to seek the death penalty against Mr. Malvo, whose age would have made that impossible in Maryland or in a federal court, Mr. Horan said it was apt.

"Even if you don't believe in capital punishment, the legislature has said capital punishment is available for certain crimes," Mr. Horan said, adding, "If this doesn't qualify for the death penalty, what does?"

Despite the trauma that the sniper shootings created here in the Washington area, Mr. Horan said he thought an untainted jury could be found for Mr. Malvo's trial. Outside the courthouse, though, the defendant's court-appointed lawyer, Michael S. Arif, said he might seek a change of venue.

Mr. Arif also said Fairfax County police investigators tried to question Mr. Malvo for seven hours on Thursday night without the presence of any lawyer for him.

"I am not at all comfortable," Mr. Arif said, "with a 17-year-old being in police custody and being interrogated for that period of time without legal representation."

Prosecutors would not discuss the accusation.

Earlier, at a five-minute hearing here in Manassas, Mr. Muhammad appeared confused when Judge Herman A. Whisenant Jr. asked whether he wanted the court to appoint counsel.

"I thought I already had counsel," Mr. Muhammad said, referring to a federal public defender in Maryland who had been representing him before Mr. Ashcroft's order that he be transferred to Virginia.

Judge Whisenant explained that Mr. Muhammad would need a new lawyer to represent him against the charges brought by Virginia.

"I don't know what to say, sir," Mr. Muhammad replied.

Judge Whisenant said he would appoint a lawyer at a brief hearing next Wednesday.

Local prosecutors in Virginia were chosen to be first to prosecute the suspects because Mr. Ashcroft believes that the state offers the best chance of winning death sentences against them. Critics of the decision have said it was improper, characterizing it as shopping around for a jurisdiction that could kill the defendants most quickly.

State and federal investigators say evidence, which they have not specified, is part of the reason Mr. Ashcroft selected Fairfax County to prosecute Mr. Malvo.

It is less clear why Prince William County was selected for the trial of Mr. Muhammad. But the county's chief prosecutor, Paul B. Ebert, has obtained more death sentences than any other in the state.

Mr. Ebert said today that evidence from all the shootings in the Washington area would most likely be introduced at Mr. Muhammad's trial. "What happened elsewhere may be very material in this case," Mr. Ebert said. "You can look forward to seeing evidence of crimes not only in this jurisdiction but elsewhere. I anticipate before this case is over, almost all these murders will play a role in the evidence."

Local law enforcement officials in Montgomery County, Md., where six of the sniper killings occurred, said they thought it unlikely that the chief prosecutor there, State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler, would ever get to take the case to trial. The officials said prosecutors in Virginia had discussed either holding Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo there if they are convicted, or turning them back over to federal prosecutors to face extortion charges. In fact, Mr. Horan, the Fairfax County prosecutor, said today that it would make no sense to try the defendants "five times."

There were, meanwhile, these developments elsewhere involving the two suspects:

In Tucson, Ariz., where law enforcement officials reported earlier this week that Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo were suspected of the fatal shooting of a man on a golf course there in March, investigators said two detectives had been sent to Seattle to question a friend of theirs. The friend, Harjeet Singh, 35, has told The Seattle Times that he learned of the Arizona shooting from them.

In Atlanta, where investigators said this week that Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo were suspects in the fatal shooting of a man at a liquor store on Sept. 21, District Attorney Paul Howard said that he was close to a decision on when to seek an indictment and that at trial he would most likely seek the death penalty.

In Antigua, where Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo met, officials said the two men left together, along with three of Mr. Muhammad's children, on May 31, 2001, aboard a flight to Puerto Rico. It remains unclear when or how Mr. Malvo came to the mainland United States.

reference=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/national/nationalspecial/09SHOO.html