Lee Malvo v. Randall Mathena

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

In Virginia in 2004, a defendant convicted of capital murder, who was at least 16 years old at the time of his crime, would be punished by either death or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, unless the judge suspended his sentence. After a Virginia jury convicted Lee Boyd Malvo of two counts of capital murder based on homicides that he committed in 2002 when he was 17 years old, it declined to recommend the death penalty, and he was instead sentenced in 2004 to two terms of life imprisonment without parole, in accordance with Virginia law.

Thereafter,…