Judge orders Malvo sniper trial moved from Washington area

FAIRFAX, Va. -- A judge Wednesday moved the murder trial of sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo 200 miles away from the Washington suburbs that were so terrorized by the string of killings last fall.

Over the objections of prosecutors who wanted the case to remain in the Washington area, Fairfax County Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush ruled that the move was necessary to guarantee Malvo's right to a fair trial.

"Venue should be transferred to a jurisdiction outside the Washington-Richmond corridor, where many citizens lived in fear during the month of October 2002 as a result of the crimes with which the defendant is charged," Roush wrote.

He will be tried in the city of Chesapeake, near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

Malvo, 18, is set to go on trial Nov. 10 in the slaying of FBI analyst Linda Franklin outside a Home Depot store in Falls Church. She was one of 10 people killed in the Washington area in what prosecutors have said was a scheme to extort $10 million from the government.

In all, Malvo and John Allen Muhammad, 42, have been linked to 20 shootings, including 13 deaths, in Virginia, Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Washington, D.C. Both could get the death penalty.

Muhammad is scheduled to go on trial in Prince William County, next to Fairfax, in a deadly shooting at a gas station. His lawyers have also asked that the trial be moved; the judge has yet to make a decision.

Malvo's lawyers had requested a change of venue for two reasons: They argued that heavy pretrial publicity had tainted the pool of potential jurors, and they said every resident of Fairfax County could be considered a victim, considering the locked-down schools and fear that gripped the region.

Prosecutors charged Malvo under a new post-Sept. 11 terrorism law that makes it a capital offense to try to intimidate the civilian population.

Prosecutor Robert F. Horan called the judge's decision "nonsense."

For all the residents who think they were victims, "there are 20 who know they weren't," he said.

Roush will still preside over Malvo's trial and has said she does not want to delay the trial date.

Chesapeake is a sprawling suburb of about 200,000 in the military- and port-dominated region of Hampton Roads in southeastern Virginia. The region includes Norfolk, home of one of the largest naval bases on the East Coast.

Chesapeake is more racially diverse than Fairfax County, a potential benefit to Malvo, who is black. Defense attorney Michael Arif had worried that the case would be moved to a place with less racial diversity. Chesapeake is 27 percent black, Fairfax County 9 percent.

"We know that Chesapeake will provide an intelligent, unbiased jury pool and we are confident that we will be able to empanel an objective and well-reasoned jury," Malvo's defense team said in a statement.

Chesapeake City Council members had opposed the trial coming to their city, and city judges had expressed concerns about the potential disruption in their courthouse. Roush said their concerns were justified, but she concluded that Chesapeake was the best location for the trial.

The city has a new courthouse and relatively large courtrooms to accommodate the anticipated crush of reporters.