For 22 days in October of 2002, life in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., was brought to a virtual standstill. Children stayed in from recess. People ducked at gas stations. Chief Moose became a household name. Fourteen innocent civilians were shot. Ten died.

As a native of Maryland, a customer of one of the gas stations where a victim was killed and a former law clerk for the state’s attorney for Montgomery County, Md., this columnist can assure you that the shooting spree took an unprecedented toll, affecting not just the family and friends of the wounded and deceased but truly making “victims” out of everyone in the region.

John Allen Muhammed is currently on trial for one of those murders, with prosecutors charging that he, with Lee Malvo, orchestrated those three weeks of horror.

Soon it will be up to a jury to decide whether the state has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Muhammed was, indeed, one of the “Beltway Snipers.”

And if convicted, Muhammed should be put to death.

If Muhammed, who has shown a clear and reckless disregard for the sanctity of innocent human life, is found guilty and allowed to live, a very clear message will be sent to the American public: Those who randomly murder strangers, disrupt our way of life and inspire fear throughout an entire region of America will be allowed to live out their days without ever facing the same consequences they imposed upon others.

Furthermore, people like Muhammed, who have already proven willing to murder on multiple occasions, will continue to pose a threat to other human beings (even Alcatraz saw an escape, and even for those unable to sneak their way out, prizes like John Geoghan can be found on the inside).

Moreover, the continued existence of such cold-blooded murderers sends a message to the youth of tomorrow: Whatever happened to the man who shot up our nation’s capital? Oh, he’s alive and well in prison; in fact, he’s working on his soon-to-be-bestselling memoirs.

Now some argue that the Bible, a book many Americans use as grounding for their moral beliefs, prohibits the death penalty. And it is easy for anti-death-penalty advocates to parade around shouting “Thou shalt not kill.”

But this recitation of the Sixth Commandment is not only done in a supremely hypocritical manner (the person being defended is, after all, a killer), but also with a blind eye turned toward the rest of the Bible. Indeed, Exodus 35:2 states, “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.”

If the death penalty is permitted — mandated, in fact — for violations of the Fourth Commandment, why then is it not permissible for violations of the Sixth?

This is not to suggest that we ought to take to the streets this Saturday and start executing everyone who bears a uniform, but rather to point out that any biblical arguments against the death penalty are moot at best.

On a non-theological level, many express concern over the irreversible finality of the death penalty in cases where evidence may later exonerate the convicted.

But it is important to note that for all the noise anti-death-penalty groups make about DNA evidence pulling people off of death row, juries later changing their minds and so forth, there is no precedent of someone being put to death and later being exonerated. That’s right, there is not a single poster child whom murderers’ advocates can point to.

Two hundred twenty-seven years of American justice without one errant execution is a pretty good track record (unless, of course, you consider Vince Foster).

Some, however, argue that matters have come too close — juries have made convictions that are later overturned. But to argue against the death penalty for these reasons is to argue against the American justice system.

Indeed, the great thing about this country is that it takes 12 of one’s peers to unanimously find someone guilty — not by a hunch or a suspicion or a probability, but beyond all reasonable doubt — and a lengthy appeals process allows for even more eyes to review a case, and this time they are not ordinary citizens but judges who have made a career out of the law.

All along, one has the right to be represented — at no cost — by an advocate who has also dedicated his or her career to gaining acquittals. And on the other side is a prosecutor whose job is not to obtain a guilty verdict but to achieve justice; should he or she ever suspect that the accused is innocent, he or she is obligated to drop the charges at once.

The truth is that it doesn’t take 12 jurors, a defense attorney, a prosecutor and countless judges to figure out that John Allen Muhammed committed a series of acts so cold-blooded that they are unbecoming of human life. But in the United States, Muhammed will be afforded the attention and meditation of each one of them.

And then — and only then — will the Commonwealth of Virginia see to it that justice is done.

Mac VerStandig ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in rhetoric.