A Maryland appeals court has ruled that Lee Boyd Malvo, who was convicted for his role in the shootings, twenty years after terrorizing the Washington D.C. area and killing 10 people, must be resentenced.
According to CNN, Lee Boyd Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, was given six consecutive life sentences in Maryland without the possibility of parole and four further life terms in Virginia in 2003. Malvo should receive a new sentence, the Maryland Appeals Court said, in light of the Supreme Court’s instructions for dealing with juvenile offenders.
In rulings the High Court has made since Malvo’s sentencing, it determined life without parole for juvenile offenders is not permitted under the Eighth Amendment “if a sentencing court determines that the offender’s crime was the result of transient immaturity, as opposed to permanent incorrigibility,” Judge Robert McDonald wrote according to CNN.
In Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison, Malvo is serving his life term. John Allen Muhammad, his accomplice in the shootings, was put to death in Virginia in 2009 for his involvement. Lee Boyd Malvo, who is now 37, is qualified for release, according to Yahoo News.
It has been discussed before whether Malvo should receive a life sentence. On the basis of the Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama, which prohibited mandatory life sentences for minors, he filed his first appeal in 2019. After Maryland and Virginia established laws banning life without parole for children, Malvo filed a motion to have his sentence reduced.
Lee Boyd Malvo and Muhammad
In 2001, when the teen and his mother visited Antigua, Muhammad met Lee Boyd Malvo and took him under his wing. Malvo split his senior year of high school between Washington, D.C. Florida, where his mother lived, and Muhammad. In 2006, the teenager pled guilty to six counts of first-degree murder after willingly testifying against Muhammad.
In its judgment, the Maryland Court of Appeals also noted that Malvo would probably never be freed.
“As a practical matter, this may be an academic question in Mr. Malvo’s case, as he would first have to be granted parole in Virginia before his life sentences in Maryland even begin,” Judge McDonald added.
Lee boyd Malvo and his story were featured in Vice’s eight-part documentary, I Sniper, where he discusses the planning and executions of the murders they committed.
