Lee Boyd Malvo, one of the so-called Beltway Snipers who terrorized the Washington region with 10 killings in a three-week stretch in 2002, has asked Maryland’s highest court to declare his six sentences of life without the chance of parole unconstitutional and allow him to petition a state judge for a new sentence.

Malvo’s request comes in the wake of two Supreme Court rulings over the last decade that reined in the use of life sentences without the chance of parole for juveniles. Malvo was 17 when he took part in the killings, six of which took place in Maryland, three in Virginia, and one in D.C. (John Allen Muhammad, his mentor and co-defendant, was found guilty of murder and executed in 2009.)

Speaking to Maryland’s Court of Appeals on Wednesday, Kiran Iyer, Malvo’s public defender, argued that the six life sentences handed down to his client violate both the U.S. Constitution and Maryland’s Constitution, and contravene the 2012 Supreme Court ruling that prohibits the use of life sentences without parole for all but the worst of juvenile offenders.

“The Supreme Court didn’t make this very complicated,” said Iyer during oral arguments to the court. “They just said if you have the capacity for change you are corrigible. The judge recognized that, and that means these sentences are substantively unconstitutional.”

Iyer said that Malvo’s current sentences should be tossed out and that he should be re-sentenced by a Maryland judge to a term in prison that allows him “meaningful opportunity for release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.”

Attorneys for the State of Maryland have opposed the request, saying that Malvo’s sentencing judge considered but rejected his age as a mitigating factor. They also argue that Maryland allows judges flexibility in deciding when to sentence a juvenile to life in prison without the chance of parole, and that Malvo — despite his age at the time — merited the sentences he got.

“Mr. Malvo murdered three people in Virginia and attempted to murder a fourth, in multiple counties on multiple days over a two-week period. He then murdered six people in Montgomery County, Maryland over three separate days in six separate places with shootings that involved separate planning, separate setup, and separate execution. He did those nine murders and one attempted murder during a crime spree that lasted 22 days, included multiple attempts to extort the government for millions of dollars, and notes to the police to be disseminated to the public that our children were not safe anywhere at any time,” said Carrie Williams, an assistant Maryland attorney general. “Mr. Malvo had multiple opportunities to reflect upon each one of his 10 bad decisions.”

Malvo’s request also comes against the backdrop of changes to juvenile sentencing in Maryland. Last year, the General Assembly passed the Maryland Juvenile Restoration Act, which allows people convicted for crimes committed when they were juveniles to petition a court for a sentence reduction after they have served 20 years of their sentence.

In his arguments before the court, Iyer noted that Malvo may not benefit from any relief under the Juvenile Restoration Act, largely because as written he would have to serve 20 years of each of his life sentences — which run consecutively, not concurrently — before asking for a new sentence, meaning he would end up serving 120 years in prison even if he were eventually granted re-sentencing. Williams said the state would oppose any effort to change his sentences so that they ran concurrently.

The 2012 Supreme Court case has had an impact on Malvo in a separate way, though. In 2020, Virginia officially abolished life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, allowing them to petition for a new sentence after serving 20 years in prison. Malvo has been serving three life sentences in Virginia for the killings he committed there; he will become eligible for parole later this year under that new law. But even if that is granted, it would merely mean that he’d have to start serving his existing life sentences in Maryland.