Tuesday, July 01, 2003

Venue decision in Malvo case to be made public on Wednesday?

According to this report, a judge for the Circuit Court of Fairfax County will issue a ruling on Wednesday on the motion of accused sniper John Malvo for a change of venue.

I suspect that the judge just might move the case from Northern Virginia, one less thing for an appeal, and there is something to the notion that the fear of the snipers probably affected almost everyone living in the D.C. area. Geez, I think they closed schools in Richmond when there was some rumor that the sniper had come that far down I-95.

At the Fourth Circuit judicial conference, oddly enough, one of the speakers was Sonny Seiler, the real-life lawyer and sometime actor who represented Jim Williams in the long-running murder case that was the subject of the book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Williams was tried four times and won a defense verdict only after a new trial judge moved the case from Savannah to the other side of the state in Augusta. Notwithstanding Mr. Seiler's entertaining account of how the case was won using a cat and a nurse, the change of venue seems to have been a major factor in the final outcome. In the Malvo case, not just the society people, but everyone was affected by the shootings.

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