Malvo's trial, phase two

Washington Post: There wasn't much suspense in the trial of Lee Boyd Malvo for last year's murder of Linda Franklin. The evidence that he was one of the Washington area snipers was incontestable, and his defense by and large did not contest it. Thursday a jury in Chesapeake, Va., found him guilty of capital murder. Now the jury faces a more difficult question: whether Malvo should be put to death.
Malvo's lawyers acknowledged that he was part of the sniper team, and that he was present at the killings. While they disputed prosecutors' contention that he actually pulled the trigger in key shootings, their major argument against conviction was that he was insane -- that Malvo, then 17, was so under the spell of John Allen Muhammad that he lacked a sense of right and wrong. In assessing Malvo's guilt, this argument was unconvincing. Malvo was the subordinate partner in the sniper attacks and under Muhammad's direction, but he does not appear to have been at such a level of clinical derangement as to be relieved of criminal culpability. The jury rightly rejected this argument.
Is death appropriate?
But if the bizarre relationship between this youth and Muhammad was not reason to acquit Malvo, it is powerful reason to spare his life -- the question the jury now faces. Malvo was only 15 when he came under Muhammad's sway as a neglected yet previously untroublesome child in search of a father figure. This does not excuse what Malvo did. The sniper murders were terrifying and vicious. His confessions show no remorse. His later letters to other inmates are chilling.
But even proponents of capital punishment should have reservations in Malvo's case. There are degrees of guilt, even in horrible crimes and among unrepentant killers. There is a difference between the guilt of an older man who manipulates a child into killing people and that of the child who -- even willingly -- becomes his tool. Malvo's history offers the sort of mitigating circumstances that ought to prevent a jury from imposing death.