Fairfax County

FAIRFAX, Va. - A Virginia judge cleared the way yesterday for 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo, one of two suspects in the Washington-area sniper shootings last fall, to be tried as an adult for capital murder and possibly face the death penalty. After hearing testimony from 24 witnesses tying Malvo, also known as John Lee Malvo, to four shootings, three of them fatal, Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Charles J. Maxfield ruled that there was enough evidence to send the allegations against the teen to Circuit Court for trial.

Convinced by personal observations that a trash-burning plant can bea clean, efficient producer of energy rather than a smoke-belching, environmentally hazardous eyesore, two county commissioners say they intend to form a citizens committee to begin planning a waste-to-energy facility for county use.Commissioners Donald I. Dell and ElmerC. Lippy, who toured the I-95 Energy/Resource Recovery Facility in Fairfax County, Va., Friday, said they believe the long-term answer toCarroll's solid-waste problems lies chiefly in converting trash to energy through incineration, not in landfill expansion or creation.

The group trying to bring the 2012 Summer Olympics to the region announced a plan yesterday that would concentrate most of the Games' sporting events in five areas. The Washington and Baltimore downtown areas, Annapolis, Prince George's County and Fairfax County, Va., emerged as the areas of concentration after an inventory of facilities, transportation and hotel rooms by the Washington-Baltimore Regional 2012 Coalition and its consultants. The University of Maryland, College Park would be the focal point for the Prince George's County events, and George Mason University would be the center of activities in Fairfax County.

The days when free or at least cheap parking in the Washington suburbs was a right are waning fast. In an era of carbon footprints, greenhouse gases and crippling congestion, the goal of today's planners and politicians is maximum inconvenience for drivers. The District of Columbia is pulling up parking lots and putting in expensive meters and spots priced to move drivers out of their cars and onto a train, bus, bike or their feet. Montgomery County in Maryland and Fairfax County in Virginia are thinking along similar lines, considering changes to codes to reduce the number of parking spaces builders have to include.

Family of man slain by officer is awarded $3.7 million A Prince George's County jury awarded $3.7 million yesterday to the family of a Howard University student fatally shot by an undercover county officer in 2000, a case that helped spark a federal probe of the county force. The civil trial jury deliberated over two days before awarding the money to the parents and daughter of Prince Jones Jr. in a wrongful death lawsuit against the county, according to their attorney, Gregory Lattimer.

Lawyers for 17-year-old sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo failed in a Virginia courtroom yesterday in their bid for a psychiatrist and other experts to help them prepare for Malvo's preliminary hearing on capital murder charges. "We are not certain what makes Mr. Malvo tick at this time. So that is why we need a psychiatrist," defense lawyer Michael S. Arif told Fairfax County Juvenile Court Judge Kimberly J. Daniel as he asked for experts in four areas. But she disagreed, siding with prosecutors who said it would be precedent-setting and too early in what is expected to be a lengthy court process for the state to provide funds for experts in psychiatry, DNA, fingerprinting and ballistics.

FAIRFAX, VA. - Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. said yesterday that he was confident that court documents released today will show that a grand jury indicted teen-age sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo on charges of capital murder. The grand jury, meeting behind closed doors, considered testimony against Malvo yesterday afternoon from a Fairfax County police detective who told a juvenile court judge last week that she questioned the 17-year- old for six hours after he was transferred from federal custody.

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Lawyers for John Allen Muhammad failed yesterday to prevent a second capital murder trial in Virginia for the convicted sniper, after a judge ruled that another prosecution for his alleged role in the sniper shootings does not constitute double jeopardy or violate state law. However, Fairfax County Circuit Judge Jonathan C. Thacher delayed ruling on a defense claim that Muhammad's right to a speedy trial was violated. Although he was arrested in October 2002 and indicted the next month, his lawyers say, prosecutors waited until May to hand him the documents charging him with killing 47-year-old FBI analyst Linda Franklin.

FAIRFAX, VA. - Court documents made public yesterday revealed that teen-aged sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo was indicted Tuesday on two counts of capital murder and one weapons charge, beginning a court process that could end with the state putting him to death. The two-page indictment accuses the 17-year-old of gunning down FBI analyst Linda Franklin, 47, on Oct. 14 in the parking lot of the Home Depot store in the Seven Corners area. The first count alleges that the slaying was an act of terrorism under a new and untested state law. Prosecutors cited allegations that Malvo and 42-year-old John Allen Muhammad, the other suspect in last fall's sniper shootings in the Washington area, asked for $10 million from the government to end the spree.

In an unprecedented move, Maryland has sued its own Department of the Environment to keep Virginia from building a water intake pipe halfway across the Potomac River. Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. went to court to overturn an MDE hearing officer's order in November to give the Fairfax County Water Authority a permit to build the pipe. It was one of two blows struck this week in the centuries-old battle between Maryland and Virginia over rights to the river that forms their common border.