Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad lost a US Supreme Court bid to stop his execution, scheduled for tomorrow in Virginia, for one of 10 killings that terrorised the Washington DC area over three weeks in 2002.
Mr Muhammad was convicted of killing Dean Harold Meyers, 53, in Manassas, Virginia, in October 2002 while Mr Meyers was filling his car at a gas station. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection.
Mr Muhammad, a US Army veteran, and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo were accused of carrying out the killing spree in October 2002. They were also suspects in shootings in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana and Washington state.
Mr Muhammad was 41 at the time of the shootings and Malvo was 17. Mr Malvo received a life prison sentence on his conviction in Virginia of killing a woman outside a Virginia shopping center.
The Supreme Court rejected Mr Muhammad's application to block his execution without dissent, although Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor issued a statement criticising the court's procedures for handling stay applications in death penalty cases.
The high court was scheduled to review Mr Muhammad's appeal in a private conference on November 24th, said the three justices, who lamented the "perversity of executing inmates before their appeals process has been fully concluded."
Bloomberg