[Carol Costello, Cnn Anchor:] The trial of teenage sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo will be moved far from the Washington suburbs where the shootings took place. But as CNN's Patty Davis reports, there's not a lot of support for that change of venue.
[Patty Davis, Cnn Correspondent:] The talk of this military town has been the war in Iraq. Come November, the town's focus will likely be on 18-year-old sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo. A Virginia judge moved Malvo's trial far from Fairfax, to Chesapeake, Virginia, in search of fairness in the publicity laden case. In making her decision, Judge Jane Marum Rousch cited news reports about the stress, fear and anxiety residents in the Washington-Richmond Corridor endured last October. Fairfax County Prosecutor Robert Horan says it will be a logistical nightmare.
[Robert Horan, Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney:] Of course, it's far more expensive because almost all the witnesses are from the metropolitan area of Washington.
[Davis:] Chesapeake officials lobbied against it.
[Mayor William Ward, Chesapeake, Virginia:] This will disrupt, to a degree, the normal flow of activities here at city hall as it relates to parking, potential safety issues, certainly the costs.
[Davis:] Chesapeake's new courthouse, one of the largest in Virginia, has only one way in and out. Some worry that's a recipe for major logjams. But it does have a secure tunnel to ferry Malvo from jail to court, a fact that may have helped sway the judge. The town of 205,000, named one of the safest towns in America by the FBI, isn't used to the type of media coverage the case will generate.
[Randy Smith, Chesapeake Commonwealth Attorney:] We've had capital cases before. We've had serious cases. But we haven't had something that's attracted this much attention.
[Davis:] As for choosing jurors, last October's sniper attacks were front page news here, too.
[Unidentified Female:] I watched every minute of it. I stayed up all night a couple of nights watching it.
[Unidentified Male:] And I was real concerned for my family's safety and my own safety.
[Davis:] With the highest concentration of military in the U.S., the jury pool is considered very conservative. But local criminal attorney Andy Protogyrou says race could play a role.
[Andy Protogyrou, Criminal Defense Attorney:] You're going to find that you have a jury pool that's going to be about 28, 29 percent will be black, African-American. In Fairfax, I understand, it's perhaps five percent. Not to say that they're going to be any more lenient on crime, but they may listen to the portion of the case closer that deals with his background and how he was raised.
[Davis:] If convicted, Malvo could get the death penalty. So could his alleged accomplice, John Muhammad. Muhammad's attorneys are also asking for a change of venue. Patty Davis, CNN, Chesapeake, Virginia.
[Costello:] So will the change of venue really make a difference in the Malvo case? We'll ask our legal analyst Kendall Coffey in our coffee pot segment. That happens in the next hour.