The United States (US) Supreme Court is to make a decision in the case of Jamaican-born Lee Boyd Malvo, who at age 17 was sentenced to life without parole for his part in the infamous DC (District of Columbia) sniper case that claimed the lives of 10 people.

“Oral argument in the case is set for Wednesday, October 16,” a Supreme Court spokesman confirmed on the weekend in an e-mail response to the Jamaica Observer. For 47 days in 2002, a thick pall of fear and tension hung over Washington and Virginia — and a traumatised nation — as the Jamaican teenager and a man whom he saw as a father figure, drove across the District shooting randomly at people on the street, eluding perplexed authorities before being finally caught.

The youngster was said to have met his then mentor, John Allen Muhammad, in Antigua where he was allegedly left by his mother. He was subsequently taken to the US by Muhammad.Malvo, now 34, along with Muhammad, was convicted for the series of murders between September 5 and October 22 that year. Muhammad, who had served in the Louisiana National Guard before joining the regular US army and also served in Iraq in 1991, was executed in Virginia in 2009 for being the mastermind behind the rampage.(Jamaica Observer)…[+]