Washington sniper gets his dose tomorrow.

The Supreme Court declined on Monday to block the execution of John A. Muhammad, the sniper who terrorized the region around Washington, D.C., seven years ago, killing 10 people. Here's the full story. You can see above that at least one of Muhammad's attorney's is overjoyed at the prospect of representing a mass murderer.

Mr. Muhammad’s lawyer, Jonathan Sheldon (not sure if that's him pictured above), contends that his client's experiences in the Persian Gulf War severely affected his ability for rationale thought. “Virginia will execute a severely mentally ill man, who also suffered from Gulf War syndrome, the day before Veterans Day,” the lawyer said in an interview with the Associated Press.

I've been a death penalty advocate forever. I do, however, question what constitutes "insane". If Muhammad was whacky due to Gulf War syndrome, he's damn ingenius. See the vehicle he used to take down some of his victims (below).

The knee-jerk reaction toward any killer = death penalty. And no one can blame people for thinking that, particularly families of the victim(s). However, I've met, talked with and read a couple books by actor Mike Farrell (MASH) who is against the death penalty. Farrell said at one seminar I attended at UCLA that (I'm paraphrasing) if, God forbid, someone killed his wife - yes...the first thing he'd wanna do is put his hands around the person's neck and choke him to death. BUT - is that our right to kill that person? And are we no better than the murderer himself - or herself? Click here to read more about Farrell's anti-death penalty stance.