The last Marylander to face the death penalty has been resentenced to life in prison for hi role the 2002 kidnapping and murder of a D.C. police lieutenant’s son, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland said.
Kenneth J. Lighty, 41, no longer faces the possibility of execution after the U.S. Attorney’s Office said last month it would not seek the death penalty again. A judge threw out Lighty’s death sentence last year and resentenced him Thursday to two consecutive life sentences, the office said.
Lighty was the last Maryland resident on federal death row before his sentence was vacated, according to death penalty databases and his lawyers. He continued to face the death penalty in the federal system even after Maryland abolished executions for state crimes in 2013.
Lighty was 23 years old when a federal jury recommended the death penalty for him in 2006. Federal prosecutors said Lighty and two co-defendants abducted and murdered 19-year-old Eric Larry Hayes II on Jan. 3, 2002.
Hayes was the son of a D.C. police lieutenant, though prosecutors said the crime was not related to his father’s job. Three weeks after the killing, Lighty and one of the other co-defendants also participated in a drive-by shooting that killed a 22-year-old man and injured two other people, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in 2006.
Lighty maintained his innocence at sentencing, according to reports from the time. His two co-defendants both received life in prison.
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