The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the case of one of the “D.C. snipers,” who was given life without parole for murder in 2002 shooting rampage.
Lee Boyd Malvo, now 34, admitted he was the triggerman in a series of shootings in the D.C. suburban area that left 10 dead and many wounded. He was convicted of the murders of Linda Franklin, 47, an FBI analyst, and Kenneth Bridges, 53, a businessman and father of six, as well as the attempted murder of Caroline Seawell, now 60, who was shot in the back.
He was found guilty by a jury for Franklin’s murder, and the jury recommended a sentence of life without parole. Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the rampage, pleaded guilty to the murder of Bridges and the attempted murder of Seawell, for which he agreed to sentences of life without parole.
In June 2013, Malvo appealed the life sentences, arguing they violated the Eighth Amendment in light of a decision from the Supreme Court that found mandatory life sentences without parole for those under the age of 18 are unconstitutional.
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled against Malvo, but the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the sentences and found Malvo should be resentenced because he was a teenager at the time of his crimes.
Malvo, a native of Kingston, Jamaica, and John Allen Muhammed committed “one of the most notorious strings of terrorist acts in modern American history,” according to Virginia officials. Muhammed was a Gulf War veteran amd convert to Islam who in turn converted Malvo to the Muslim faith.
Muhammed was executed in 2009.
