CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad will refuse to testify at fellow suspect Lee Boyd Malvo's trial, an attorney for Malvo said Monday, and the judge refused to bring Muhammad into court for a silent appearance.

Attorney Craig Cooley told the judge as Malvo's capital murder trial resumed after the holiday break that Muhammad's lawyers would resist a subpoena issued to Muhammad by Malvo's attorneys.

Cooley said he accepted that Muhammad, as a result, will be unable to testify as Malvo's lawyers had hoped.

In spite of that, Cooley said he wanted Muhammad to appear in court so the jury could see him, but Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush refused to approve such a move.

"Transporting (prisoners) around the state willy-nilly should be done sparingly" because of security risks, she said.

Asked last week what information he wanted from Muhammad, Cooley had said: "We'd like to hear the truth." Malvo's lawyers are presenting an insanity defense, claiming Muhammad brainwashed their teenage client and molded him into a killer.

Muhammad, whose trial ended last week with a Virginia Beach jury recommending the death sentence, still faces prosecution in several other states.

His attorneys don't want to do anything to aid those prosecutions, in the hope they can get the Virginia death sentence overturned on appeal or reduced by the trial judge when Muhammad is formally sentenced in February.

Muhammad, 42, and Malvo, 18, are charged in or linked to the killing of 10 people and the wounding of six in the Washington area in September-October 2002, plus shootings in Washington state, Arizona, Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana.

Prince William Circuit Court Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. has the option to reduce Muhammad's sentence from death to life in prison, although Virginia judges rarely overturn a jury's recommendation in a capital case.

Malvo's jury has been sworn to avoid any publicity in the Muhammad case. That may be difficult, however, given the intense media coverage of the cases and the two trials held in courthouses just 15 miles apart.

The Virginian-Pilot, the local newspaper, ran the headline "IT'S DEATH" in type large enough to be read from many yards away the morning after the Muhammad jury reached its decision.

Cooley said he takes jurors at their word that they have avoided any news accounts of the trials, but he also said he does not know how the Muhammad decision would influence jurors if they were aware of it.

On the one hand, a jury might feel pressure to reach the same verdict that was given to Muhammad. But if they are reticent to recommend execution for a teenager who was 17 at the time of the sniper spree, the Muhammad verdict may in a sense let them off the hook.

"I think you could make a good argument both ways whether it's a benefit or a detriment," Cooley said.