Mathena v. Malvo
Justia · Docket · oyez.org
Argued on Oct 16, 2019.
Petitioner: Randall Mathena.Respondent: Lee Boyd Malvo.
Advocates: Toby J. Heytens (On behalf of the Petitioner)
Eric J. Feigin (for the United States, as amicus curiae, supporting the Petitioner)
Danielle Spinelli (On behalf of the Respondent)
Facts of the case (from oyez.org)
In 2002, Lee Malvo and John Allen Muhammad killed 10 people in sniper attacks in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009. Malvo, only 17 years old at the time of the attacks, was sentenced to life in prison by judges in Virginia and Maryland. He challenged his Virginia sentences based on two recent US Supreme Court decisions.
In Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the Court held that “mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on ‘cruel and unusual punishments.’” Four years later, in Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. __ (2016), the Court held that its decision in Miller was a “substantive rule of constitutional law” and therefore must be given “retroactive effect” in cases where direct review was complete when Miller was decided.
Malvo argued that his sentence must be vacated because Montgomery modified a “substantive rule of constitutional law” and was thus retroactively applied to his own sentencing. Under this reading, sentences that were legal when imposed, as Malvo’s was, must be vacated if they were imposed in violation of the Court’s new rules. The district court found Malvo’s arguments persuasive and vacated his four sentences of life imprisonment. The Fourth Circuit affirmed.

Question
Does the decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana modify a “substantive rule of constitutional law” such that it must be given retroactive effect, requiring the respondent’s sentences of life without the possibility of parole to be vacated?