At 9:06 p.m., the Commonwealth of Virginia began the lethal injection of John Allen Muhammad.  He was pronounced dead 5 minutes later, at 9:11 p.m., at the Greensville Correctional Center .  He was asked if he wanted to make a final statement.  He didn’t answer. OK.  The execution of John Allen Muhammad was carried out in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

  Death was declared at 9:11 p.m. No complications arose. Mr. Muhammad was asked if he wanted to make a final statement.  He did not react to this and did not make any statement at all. No statement. This execution was the latest state action in a case that began 7 years ago with random sniper attacks in the Washington region.

  But tonight the question was no longer where the shooter was. He was already in jail , awaiting trial, which was measured in hearings, motions, court orders, visits, and dates. This is a story about death row, because the crime has already been investigated, tried in court, and confirmed.    All that remains is the distance between the sentence and its execution.

  Six years during which the families of the victims waited for an end. Muhammad’s lawyers sought a commutation of the sentence, and the state prepared to execute him. Muhammad was executed for the murder of Dean Harold Myers, a 53- year-old Vietnam veteran who was shot and killed at a gas station near Manassas, Virginia.

The indictment was built around this murder.  The grief surrounding this case was much larger.  The 2002 attacks took the lives of 10 people in Washington over a 3-week period. Their lives were cut short in places where no one expects a death sentence to begin.  Gas station, parking lot, bus stop, school entrance, shopping trip.

Their names were read aloud in official statements.  In the years that followed, their families faced a different calendar, marked by appeals and execution dates. Death row can create the impression that the final chapter belongs only to the prisoner. This is not true.  People who lost relatives were also caught up in this long waiting period.

  Some wanted the sentence to be carried out.  Others only said that no punishment could bring back what was lost. The background to the verdict is brief, but it cannot be ignored.  In October 2002, a series of shootings caused panic in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The victims seemed to have no connection to each other.

  The lack of warnings made everyday life vulnerable.  The case was solved after a caller who identified himself as one of the shooters directed investigators to a previous crime in Alabama.  A fingerprint on a store at the scene pointed to 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo.  This lead led investigators to John Allen Muhammad in a dark blue Chevrolet Caprice.

When police arrested Muhammad and Malvo on October 24, 2002, they found a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle in the Caprice. The trunk had been converted to allow shooting from a concealed position. The investigation was completed.  The trial was just beginning.  In other news today: Prosecutors in Maryland said they will charge two sniper shooting suspects with six counts of first-degree murder and seek the death penalty for John Allen Muhammad.

  They will not seek it for John Lee Malvo, but plan to try him as an adult.  Three states were arguing. The attacks spanned multiple jurisdictions. Federal officials chose Prince William County, Virginia, for Muhammad’s first trial, where he faced the death penalty.  The state charged him with aggravated murder of Dean Myers, conspiracy to commit murder, and a firearms offense.

    The central legal issue was liability. The prosecution did not need to present the case as a simple scene with one visible shooter and one passive bystander.  It alleged that Muhammad and Malvo acted together.  Jurors heard evidence about the car, the rifle, the planning and scheme of the attacks.  In November 2003, a jury found Muhammad guilty on all counts and handed down two death sentences for aggravated murder .

  In March 2004, the court handed down these sentences.  In 2005, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld the convictions and death sentences.    The death sentence changes the “grammar” of the case.  The verdict does not end the story.  It creates a new set of questions.  Was the trial fair, can the sentence be carried out, and how long can a person live with a date that will one day become time.

  From his sentencing in 2004 until his execution in 2009, Muhammad remained in the appeals system. The public saw episodic headlines .  People involved in the case have seen legal documents, deadlines, and the constant question of whether an appeal could change the outcome. The protocol clearly certifies the final legal outcome.

    The Virginia Supreme Court upheld the verdict.  On November 9, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Muhammad’s request for a stay of execution. The next day, Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine denied the pardon.  These decisions did not resolve all the moral controversies surrounding the death penalty.  They defined what the state was allowed to do next.

  The sentence, which had existed on paper for years, now had a designated time for execution.  The Muhammad case also remained linked in the public mind to the Malvo case.  Malvo was 17 at the time of the 2002 shooting, and he later faced other legal challenges because of his age.  Their cases began together, but the punishment of one was not the punishment of the other.

  On November 10, Muhammad spent his final hours with his closest family members.  He ordered a final meal, but asked that its ingredients not be made public .  These are small facts, but death row procedures are made up of small facts.  Who visits, who testifies, who speaks, and who refuses to speak.  In prison, relatives of the victims were among the witnesses to the execution.

Associated Press reporter Dina Potter was also present.  In her report, she described how Muhammad was taken into the cell and the formal sequence of events that followed .  John Allen Muhammad was led to death row at approximately 8:58 p.m., escorted by a corrections officer on each side and one behind.  When they brought him in, he immediately looked down at the floor, glanced at the gurney, but looked very calm.

  They immediately put him on a gurney and started tying him up.  There were six correctional officers who were part of the team that carries out all the executions here at the Greensville Correctional Center.  They tied him up.  This took several minutes.  Then they stepped back while one of the officers checked all the leather and nylon straps holding his legs, chest, and arms in place.

  And then they pulled the curtains while the technicians came and put in two IVs.  They put two in just in case there is a problem with one, so that there is a backup.  It took a couple of minutes, and then they pulled back the curtains and Muhammad lay with his arms outstretched .  The warden asked him, ” Mr. Muhammad, do you have any last words?”  He held up the tape recorder, and Muhammad stared stoically at the ceiling, not even blinking, just letting the moment pass.

  They left.  During the execution, while he was dying, it was very quiet.  Someone was coughing, you could hear someone’s stomach rumbling.  It was very quiet.  There was a slight rustling of chairs.  When they came out and pronounced the body dead at 9:11 p.m., one of the civilian witnesses turned to the man to her right and said, ” Interesting.

”  And that was the only word spoken. Muhammad made no verbal final statement.  This silence is part of the protocol.  It should not be turned into a fictional confession, explanation, or final revelation .  The evidence only supports this.  When asked if he wanted to say anything, he remained silent.  At 9:06 p.m., the injection began.

  At 9:11 p.m. in Virginia, he was pronounced dead.  The legal process has ended. Human—no.  After the execution, Dean Myers’ brother, Bob, said, “There are no winners here.  “We are not celebrating.”  His words resist the simple ending that stories about the death penalty often tend to lead to.  For the prosecution, the execution meant that Muhammad would never be able to harm anyone again.

Some of the victims’ families felt a measure of relief, while acknowledging that it would never be complete .  For Muhammad’s lawyers, the case ended with their client being executed despite their continued objections to the sentence and procedure.  Every story is part of the same consequences.  None of them cancels out the others.

Capital punishment is meant to be final.  It cannot erase the original violence and cannot force grief to act according to judicial rules.    The case of the D.C. sniper is remembered for a blue Caprice, a rifle, and a city that learned to duck.  The story of death row begins after the arrest, after the trial, after the jury has gone home.

  This is a long period when punishment becomes the main fact of a person’s life and the expectation of many other people.  John Allan Muhammad was executed on November 10, 2009.  The last five minutes in the cell were documented.  The seven years before that had been filled with court decisions, prison visits, appeals, and people trying to find meaning that the legal system could not provide.

  This is the final image.  Not a hidden rifle, but silence after a question on death row. A silence that did not provide answers to what the victims’ families lost , what the courts decided, or what the death penalty could actually accomplish .  Heat.  Heat.