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Fifteen years after he was convicted in the murder of a young manager at a Hunt Valley Burger King, a man appeared in a Baltimore County courtroom Friday to ask a judge to reconsider his life sentence because he was a juvenile at the time of the crime.

Andre Lawson, now 32, was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life without parole the following year after being found guilty of first-degree murder and other charges in the 2000 death of 21-year-old James Stambaugh Jr.

Public defenders are challenging Lawson's sentence because Lawson was 17 at the time of the murder. They say Lawson should get a new sentencing hearing, arguing that Supreme Court rulings handed down since then have found juveniles have special legal protections against sentences of life without parole.

Prosecutors opposed the move, saying the sentence was legal and appropriate. They say Stambaugh was tortured before his death and pointed to horrific details of the murder. Two days before Christmas 2000, they say, Lawson bound Stambaugh with duct tape, stabbed him and beat him with a heavy metal object during a robbery. Lawson was one of four teens convicted in the death.

After the hearing in Baltimore County Circuit Court, Judge Robert E. Cahill Jr. said he would issue a ruling in the next two weeks on the defense lawyers' motion, which argues that Lawson was given an illegal sentence.

Lawson, who is incarcerated at a state prison in Cumberland, smiled when he was brought into the courtroom and saw a row of family members filling a bench.

Judith Jones of the public defender's office said the defense “is not trying to minimize the seriousness of the crime,” but that the Supreme Court decisions have created a new standard for sentencing juveniles to life in prison. Youths must be found to be beyond rehabilitation to be sentenced to life without parole, she said.

In a January decision called Montgomery v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court ruled that people who were given mandatory sentences of life without parole should have a chance to have their sentences reviewed if they were juveniles at the time of the offense.

That ruling built upon a 2012 decision known as Miller v. Alabama, which found that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional.

Assistant State's Attorney Adam Lippe argued that the Supreme Court rulings don't apply to Lawson's case because they focus on mandatory life sentences, which Maryland does not have. He said the judge who sentenced Lawson used his discretion and considered many factors.

“It was not an illegal sentence,” Lippe said. “It's still an appropriate sentence today.”

After the hearing, Lawson's mother, Cherel Lawson, said her son has changed in the years he's been incarcerated.

“Andre is not the child they locked up that day,” she said. “I've watched him grow from a kid to a grown man.”

The court hearing was the first in an effort by the Maryland public defender's office to challenge lengthy juvenile sentences across the state. The office is evaluating dozens of cases in which juveniles were sentenced to life or extremely long prison terms.

In addition, the ACLU of Maryland in April sued the state in federal court, claiming that Maryland's parole system for juvenile lifers is unconstitutional because none of them have been paroled in decades.

Russell Butler, executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims' Resource Center, said the legal challenges have triggered emotional anguish for victims' families. He is representing Stambaugh's father in the Lawson case.

“He's horrified,” Butler said. “It makes him relive what happened to his child.” alisonk@baltsun.com

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