VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — The defense rested Wednesday in the capital murder trial of John Allen Muhammad after the judge said Muhammad and his alleged sniper accomplice "were involved in purposeful shootings."

The defense called five witnesses who testified for two hours, but Muhammad did not take the stand in his own defense.

Earlier, in rejecting defense motions to strike the death penalty from the jury's consideration, Circuit Judge LeRoy F. Millette said an inference could be made that Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo "were not involved in random shootings.

"They were involved in purposeful shootings," Millette said with the jury absent from the courtroom. "They perfected their ability to shoot people. They perfected their ability to escape."

Muhammad, 42, is on trial for the Oct. 9, 2002, slaying of Dean Harold Meyers outside a Manassas-area gas station. Meyers' death is one of 16 shootings prosecutors say were committed by Muhammad and Malvo, 18.

At Malvo's trial in nearby Chesapeake, Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush on Wednesday rejected a defense request to dismiss the jury pool of 28. Attorneys then took about 15 minutes to whittle the jury to 16 -- nine women and seven men.

The Malvo jurors range in age from 22 to 70. Eleven are white, four are black and one is Asian.

"We are very far ahead of where we thought we would be," Roush told the jurors. She sent them home before noon and told them to report to court Thursday morning for opening statements.

Malvo defense attorney Craig Cooley had told Roush that the pool of 28 was unfair because some potential jurors who oppose the death penalty were excluded.

Prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. responded: "The flip side of the coin is that a number of jurors were disqualified because they would only give death."

Muhammad and Malvo each face two counts of capital murder, one alleging multiple murders committed over a three-year period and another charging that they engaged in a form of terrorism by killing random people throughout the Washington area.

In the Muhammad trial, the defense began its case Wednesday with a private investigator who cast doubt on a prosecution witness' testimony that he saw Muhammad at the scene of the Oct. 7, 2002 , shooting of Iran Brown outside a school in Bowie, Md.

The prosecution witness, Jerald Driscoll, said he saw Muhammad and a second person stopped at an intersection, with Muhammad's Chevrolet Caprice on the wrong side of the road.

But private investigator John E. Nenna said he re-created the scene as described by Driscoll, and said the witness would have been too far away to see Muhammad's face.

Muhammad's attorneys had argued that under the multiple murder statute, Muhammad is ineligible for the death penalty because there is no evidence he pulled the trigger in the Meyers killing. They argued Virginia case law makes clear that only a triggerman can get the death penalty.

Prosecutors disagreed, however, arguing that Muhammad was the mastermind of last year's sniper spree even if Malvo was the triggerman. They allege that Muhammad exerted undue control over the younger Malvo. They also argued that when a sniper team works in tandem, the spotter bears as much responsibility for the killing as the triggerman.

"It takes two to tango in this type of relationship," prosecutor Paul Ebert said during a motions hearing Monday.

The judge ruled Wednesday that whether Muhammad was the triggerman was not relevant. He said prosecutors must show instead that Muhammad was an "immediate perpetrator."

Defense lawyers also have sought to strike the terrorism charge, arguing there is no evidence Muhammad exerted the degree of control over Malvo required by the statute.

The terrorism law was enacted by the Virginia legislature after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to target "the evil masterminds" of terrorist acts who may not have actually carried them out.

Prosecutors say a primary motive for the shootings was financial -- that Muhammad and Malvo were attempting to extort $10 million from the government.