Britain's top law officer is reviewing whether the jail terms handed out to Stephen Lawrence's killers are "unduly lenient".
A formal request to the Attorney General was made after the trial judge suggested he would have doubled the minimum sentence of Gary Dobson and David Norris if the law had allowed.
A member of the public applied for the review yesterday within hours of the killers being jailed at the Old Bailey.
A spokesman for the Attorney General said the individual who sparked the review was unconnected to the Lawrence family.
The Attorney General has no choice but to review the sentence as part of his public interest function.
"Anybody can request that we look at the case," the spokesman said. "We will consider it in the normal way."
The office has received just one referral so far, the spokesman said.
The development came as police assessed new information as part of efforts to hunt down other suspects in the 1993 racist murder.
Scotland Yard has denied claims the investigation was being scaled down, with Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe saying other suspects will not be allowed to "rest easily in their beds".
Dobson, 36, who is already serving a five-year sentence for drug-dealing, was sentenced to at least 15 years and two months whilst Norris, 35, was given a minimum of 14 years and three months for the murder, which the judge said was a "terrible and evil crime".