State’s highest court to take up the Beltway sniper case
Maryland’s highest court has agreed to take up the case of convicted Beltway sniper Lee Boyd Malvo and two others serving life sentences for crimes committed as youths.
The Court of Appeals granted a “bypass” review in Malvo’s case, according to an order issued Wednesday, and will hear arguments in January.
Malvo has claimed the six life-without-parole terms he received in Montgomery County have been rendered illegal by U.S. Supreme Court decisions saying mandatory life-without-parole sentences are unconstitutional for juveniles except in rare cases.
The case also may have new standing in light of the General Assembly’s move in the past session to abolish life without parole for youths. Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed the bill, called the Juvenile Restoration Act, but the legislature overrode the veto.
Malvo had appealed his convictions in Virginia to the U.S. Supreme Court but withdrew that challenge in 2020 after a change to Virginia state law made him eligible for parole.
Malvo was a 15-year-old from Jamaica who had been sent to live in Antigua when he met John Allen Muhammad and latched onto him as a father figure. Muhammad trained and indoctrinated Malvo, and in 2002, when Malvo was 17, the pair embarked on a nationwide killing spree that concluded with a three-week rampage in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia that left 10 people dead and three wounded.
Muhammad was sentenced to death in Virginia and executed in 2009.
Maryland’s Juvenile Restoration Act allows prisoners convicted as juveniles to petition a judge to be released if they’ve served at least 20 years. They must convince a judge that they no longer pose a threat to the public and that their release would be in “the interests of justice.” Supporters said the new law gives prisoners a chance to show they’ve changed in the decades since committing terrible crimes.
In vetoing the legislation, Hogan said that the most heinous crimes — first-degree murder, first-degree rape and certain gun crimes — deserve strict punishments.