USA: Young "Washington sniper" at the heart of Supreme Court debates

By his own admission, he was "a monster". Lee Malvo was 17 when, with an accomplice and an old Chevrolet, he sowed death and terror in the Washington area early in the fall of 2002.

The fate of the youngest of the "snipers of Washington" will be discussed Wednesday at the US Supreme Court during a hearing that arouses much emotion given the gravity of his crimes.

Lee Malvo and John Muhammad, a 41-year-old Gulf War veteran, shot and killed ten people in three weeks before being stopped in a parking lot after a grueling manhunt.

The duo opened fire on randomly selected targets: mowing their lawns, reading on a bench or filling up on gas. One or the other was hidden in the trunk of their vehicle and pulled by a hatch arranged for this purpose.

John Muhammad, considered the leader, was sentenced to death and executed in 2009. Given his young age, Lee Malvo escaped the death penalty and was sentenced in 2004 to several life sentences. incompressible, in the state of Virginia and Maryland.

In 2012, however, the Supreme Court banned this type of punishment for minors on the grounds that their immaturity diminishes their perception of the consequences of their actions.

The Court has stipulated that this sanction remains possible for the perpetrators of "crimes reflecting an irreparably corrupt nature", but it now requires judges to take into account the age of the convicted before making a decision.

In 2016, she stated that this decision was retroactive.

Based on these rulings, Lee Boyd Malvo appealed sentences in Virginia, where his age had not been a part of the debate. Courts have proved him right, but the state has asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

It has agreed to take the case and could take the opportunity to clarify its case law, which concerns hundreds of inmates in the United States.

"Throw the key"

According to the Lee Malvo defenders, even if the Court makes a decision in its favor, their client is not guaranteed to find freedom again.

The Virginia justice could still sentence him to an irrepressible life sentence by decreeing him "irreparably corrupt". The sentences of Maryland are still valid.

Nevertheless, the mere prospect that he could snatch a small victory has sparked a strong mobilization, starting with that of Donald Trump's government.

The court must not "offer an escape route" to Lee Malvo who would allow him to have the sentence "imposed for his hateful crimes" set aside, the republican administration wrote in a document attached to the proceedings.

Similarly, a Maryland Victims Association has asked the High Court to take into account their suffering. "If the victims have recovered slowly after years of psychotherapy (…), can we ignore their desire not to relive their trauma?", She wrote to the Court.

Paul LaRuffa, who was wounded by the two snipers, has instead associated his voice with many law professors, lawyers and professionals of juvenile justice who ask the Court not to go back.

"After what happened to me, I thought that the sentence inflicted on Malvo was absolutely justified and that at 17, he knew (…) that killing people at random was bad," he explains. AFP. "It was obvious for me to support a position of the kind + put him in jail and throw the key +."

"But since then I've changed, not necessarily about Malvo but, more generally, about all young people sentenced to life imprisonment," he continues, explaining that he was touched by stories of minors who have been transformed during their life. detention. "I feel that our justice system has better answers than sending young people to jail for 40, 50, 60 or more years without any hope of going out."

16/10/2019 07:35:47 –
Washington (AFP) –
© 2019 AFP