Juvenile records released in sniper case
By The Associated Press
02.24.03
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BALTIMORE — More than three months after news media organizations sought their release, most of the juvenile court records relating to teenage sniper suspect Lee Boyd (aka John Lee) Malvo have been unsealed.
About 70 lines in the 88 pages of records released Feb. 20 were blacked out. Four of the two dozen documents sought by the news media remain sealed.
Attorneys representing the Associated Press, The (Baltimore) Sun, The Washington Post and The New York Times filed motions with U.S. Magistrate Judge James Bredar seeking the federal records.
Bredar said he didn’t see a reason to keep much of the information secret any longer because it has since been made public in the case against Malvo in Virginia, The Sun reported.
Malvo and John Allen Muhammad are accused of shooting 19 people, killing 13 and wounding six in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
In making his decision to release the documents, Bredar asked the news organizations’ lawyers to provide him with transcripts of open hearings from Fairfax County, Va., where Malvo’s case has been transferred.
He said he would compare those records with items under seal to determine what has been released, what information might be harmful to Malvo and what the public has a right to know.
Bredar in December ruled the records should remain sealed. Since then, however, Malvo has been transferred out of federal custody and a Fairfax County judge cleared the way for him to be tried as an adult.
At a hearing earlier this month, Lisa Duggan, an attorney for the news organizations, told Bredar that because Malvo was being treated as an adult in the Virginia case, there was no longer a need to keep the information sealed.
Stephanie Abrutyn, an attorney for The Sun, said releasing the documents was important, especially for a case that “had such a deep and extensive impact on the populace.”
“We are obviously pleased that the judge in this case took the time to review our requests and release a great deal of material that previously had been sealed,” she said.
But Todd Petit, who was Malvo’s guardian until he turned 18 last week, said he opposed making the documents public on principle that juvenile court records are supposed to remain sealed.
“In that case, he was never certified as an adult,” Petit said. “He was charged as a juvenile, so just generally under the confidentiality of juvenile records, I believe that all of it should have been sealed.”
The documents detail uncertainty about Malvo’s identity and age after he was arrested with Muhammad in Maryland in October.
The records also include transcripts from a closed detention hearing for Malvo on Nov. 4. “We have not been able to positively identify who this person is,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Copperthite told Bredar.
Copperthite also spoke of conflicting evidence about Malvo’s age. The hearing had been closed because Malvo was believed to be a juvenile; authorities later determined he was in fact 17 at the time.
The prosecutor also told the judge Malvo was in violation of Immigration and Naturalization Service restrictions put in place after he entered the country illegally in Washington state with his mother.
Malvo is set for trial in November in Fairfax County in the slaying of FBI analyst Linda Franklin. Muhammad, 42, goes on trial in neighboring Prince William County in October in a separate slaying. Both could face the death penalty.
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