WASHINGTON, March 18 — The US Supreme Court today agreed to consider whether a man serving life in prison over his role in a deadly 2002 shooting spree in the Washington area should be resentenced because he was only 17 years old at the time.

The nine justices will hear an appeal filed by the state of Virginia objecting to a lower court's decision to order that Lee Boyd Malvo's sentence of life in prison without parole in the so-called DC Sniper crimes be thrown out. If Malvo wins, he and other prison inmates in similar cases could receive more lenient sentences.— Reuters