U.S. appeals court calls D.C. sniper's life sentences illegal

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied an appeal by prosecutors who said Lee Boyd Malvo need not be resentenced over his role in the D.C. sniper case, which left 10 people dead over three weeks in Washington, Maryland and Virginia. It cited recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles were unconstitutional, and that this rule applied retroactively. "We make this ruling not with any satisfaction, but to sustain the law," Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer wrote for a three-judge panel of the Richmond, Virginia-based appeals court.