Scotuscast

On October 16, 2019, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Mathena v. Malvo, a case which concerns the scope of a new constitutional rule when applied retroactively on collateral review.In 2004, respondent Lee Boyd Malvo was convicted in Virginia on various counts of capital murder due to his participation in the “DC Sniper” attacks of 2002. As he was 17 years old at the time, he avoided the death penalty and was sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment without parole. In 2012, the Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama that sentencing a person younger than 18 to mandatory life imprisonment without parole violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. In 2016, the Court then held in Montgomery v. Louisiana that Miller had announced a new substantive rule applicable retroactively in cases on state collateral review.When Malvo raised these issues on collateral review, the Fourth Circuit held that his sentences of life without parole must be vacated base