Maryland Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal of D.C. sniper Lee Boyd Malvo

The Maryland Supreme Court declined to hear Lee Boyd Malvo’s attempt to withdraw his guilty plea to six counts of first-degree murder in the D.C. sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington area for three weeks in 2002.

The court, without comment Friday, let stand lower court rulings that said Malvo is not entitled to have those charges vacated because of an impasse between Maryland and Virginia. That impasse, in which Virginia is refusing to hand over Malvo until he serves four consecutive life sentences for murders there, means Malvo cannot have a resentencing hearing that had been ordered the by Maryland Supreme Court.

“Looks like Malvo has exhausted all of his Maryland sentencing appeal options,” former Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler said over text. Gansler was the Montgomery County State’s Attorney who originally prosecuted Malvo in the Maryland cases.

“His only recourse for ever being released in Maryland would be a gubernatorial pardon,” he added. “That said, it is unlikely he would ever be released in Virginia so the point is essentially moot.”

Malvo was 17 in 2002 when he and John Allen Muhammad, who was then 41, killed 10 people and injured others over the course of three weeks in a series of random attacks in the D.C. area. Victims were pumping gas, waiting for the bus, cutting grass, going to school and other routine activities when they were shot with a high-powered rifle from the back of a modified car.

In separate trials in Virginia, Malvo and Muhammad were convicted or pleaded guilty to the murders there. Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009. Malvo received four consecutive life sentences and is serving that time in Virginia.

In 2006, the two were tried in Montgomery County. Malvo pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without parole for six murders in the county. Both men were returned to Virginia.

But in 2022, the Maryland Supreme Court granted Malvo a new sentencing hearing after a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that limited the ability of courts to sentence minors to life in prison without a chance of parole.

That kicked off a nearly two-year struggle by Maryland officials to get Malvo transferred from Virginia so he could appear in person for  a resentencing hearing. Despite numerous hearings in Montgomery County Circuit Court, and numerous requests by Maryland officials, Virginia refused to transfer Malvo until he has served out his four life sentences in the commonwealth.

Malvo’s attorneys said he would not appear via video conference for a resentencing hearing and argued that, since Maryland could not arrange for Malvo to be physically present for a resentencing, he was essentially being denied a hearing and he was entitled to have his sentences vacated.

Malvo’s attorneys claimed that the state of Maryland failed to uphold their end of the deal by deciding that he “had no right to an in-person sentencing until after he serves four consecutive life sentences in Virginia.”

In September 2024, the Montgomery County Circuit Court denied the motion to vacate his convictions.

That ruling was upheld on May 1, 2026, by a three-judge panel of the Appellate Court in of Maryland.

“The trial court found that the State did not have the power to transport Appellant from Virginia to Maryland, and that sentencing could not occur remotely without Appellant’s consent. In light of those immutable positions, the court concluded that a sentencing hearing could not be scheduled.” Judge Laura S. Ripken wrote for the appeals court. “The court issued a detainer for Appellant to be returned to the Circuit Court for Montgomery County to be sentenced in person when his sentences in Virginia were completed.”

In his appeal to the Maryland Supreme Court, Malvo’s argued that the Appellate Court had deemed Malvo’s case “effectively unreviewable” and “effectively deprived Mr. Malvo of his right to an Eight Amendment compliant sentencing in his lifetime.”

But Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown urged the high court to reject Malvo’s appeal. He agreed with the appellate court that the state had exhausted efforts to get Malvo an in-person trial, and the logistical hurdle caused by Virginia’s unwillingness to temporarily turn over Malvo to Maryland is not a compelling reason to overturn that decision.

“The weakness of Mr. Malvo’s petition – on both the appealability and the merits – is that the issues he presents are unique to the highly unusual procedural posture of this case,” Brown wrote in his filing to the Supreme Court. “He makes no attempt to show that his issues have salience for any other cases or that he is seeking anything more than error correction and the idiosyncratic nature of Mr. Malvo’s case weighs heavily against a conclusion that review would be in the broader public interest.”

Brown’s office declined comment on the case Tuesday. A call to the public defender’s office was not immediately returned.

— Maryland Matters reporter Bryan P. Sears contributed to this report.