Judge tosses life terms for Beltway sniper
The life sentences Lee Boyd Malvo received for his role in the 2002 sniper shootings that occurred in Virginia were thrown out Friday by a federal judge, because Malvo was 17 at the time of the attacks.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole were unconstitutional for juveniles, and in 2016 the court decided that ruling should be applied retroactively.
So even though Malvo entered pleas in Spotsylvania County, Va., and agreed to serve two life sentences without parole, in addition to being convicted by a jury and sentenced to two life terms in Chesapeake, Va., U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson vacated all four sentences and ordered resentencings.
The ruling does not apply to the six life sentences Malvo received in Maryland after he pleaded guilty to six murder charges there. His Maryland lawyers are appealing in both state and federal court on the same grounds, and a hearing is set for next month.
The ruling also does not vacate Malvo’s convictions. Instead, the courts in Fairfax and Spotsylvania must resentence Malvo, according to the new standards devised by the Supreme Court in 2012, and he could still receive life sentences again. But before that happens, the Virginia attorney general could appeal Jackson’s ruling, which would postpone any resentencing hearings.
Malvo, now 32, and John Allen Muhammad were both convicted of 10 murders committed in a three-week period in the Washington area, beginning with trials in Virginia in 2003. Muhammad was sentenced to death for the killing in Prince William County of Dean Meyers; he was executed in 2009.
Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Malvo as well, for the killing in Fairfax County, Va., of Linda Franklin outside a Home Depot in the Falls Church area. But a jury in Chesapeake, where the trial was moved because of pretrial publicity, chose a life sentence for Malvo, and Fairfax Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush imposed that sentence in March 2004.
Malvo’s lawyers, his original trial team of Craig Cooley and Michael Arif, argued that because the jury was given only two options — death or life without parole — when they chose life, Roush’s sentence was mandatory. The Virginia attorney general responded that Roush could have suspended some of Malvo’s life term. Jackson rejected that argument.
In October 2004, Malvo entered Alford pleas to two more shootings in Spotsylvania County, Va.: the wounding of Caroline Seawell in Fredericksburg, and the slaying of Kenneth Bridges at a gas station in Massaponax. An Alford plea means a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges there is enough evidence to convict. Malvo then was found guilty and as part of a plea agreement was sentenced to two more life sentences without parole.