They are charged with last October’s so-called "sniper" killings of 10 people, and also face prosecution in Maryland, Washington D.C., and Alabama. Laws in Virginia, like those in Alabama, allow the execution of the 17-year-old Malvo.

The new Virginia "terrorism" law went into effect in July after being approved with unanimous bipartisan support by the legislature in February. It authorizes the use of the death penalty for "acts of terrorism," defined as actions with the "intent to intimidate the civilian population at large or influence the conduct or activities of the government of the United States, a state, or locality through intimidation."

The law has the advantage for the prosecution of not requiring proof of who fired the shots.

Virginia prosecutors have expressed their confidence that the case will stand up to legal challenges centered on the new legislation. State attorney general Jerry Kilgore, who helped write the law, said, "The courts are going to look at intent." In this terrorism era, you may be left with someone who did the planning and helped in a very horrible way."

Exploiting the public revulsion at the series of killings centered in the Washington, D.C. area, federal government officials have sought to use the "sniper" case to gain some momentum for the attacks on workers’ rights and civil liberties that have accelerated over the past year under the banner of the "war on terrorism."

In a letter dated October 24, Kilgore assured U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft that "the Commonwealth of Virginia has tested and proven criminal statutes under which these murderers can be tried and sentenced to death." The state of Virginia has the second highest execution rate in the country after Texas. Since 1976, the year the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment, the state courts have executed 86 people.

Ashcroft said in November that he had sent the case to Virginia’s courts first because their laws would make it easier to win a death penalty conviction.

Even some advocates of the death penalty have warned that the use of the antiterrorism law would set a dangerous precedent, opening the way to more applications for capital punishment in the name of "fighting terror."

"There is a possibility that the terrorism law might open the door to all sorts of capital prosecutions we did not intend," said Democrat James F. Almand, a death penalty supporter and member of the Virginia House of Delegates that passed the law.

"Obviously what the legislature had in mind was bin Laden giving the order to other people," said Ronald J. Bacigal, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. "Just about any kind of violent crime that intimidates a community you can talk about as a form of terrorism," he said.  
 
 
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