WHY ISN’T PAROLE AN OPTION?
In the previous 50 years, the state of Mississippi has validated Lord Tennyson’s belief that “men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things.” Now the state has asked the U.S. Supreme Court for 20 more days to provide the court with a defense of the proposition that a state court was sufficiently serious in ruling that Joey Chandler is so depraved that he could never undergo a regeneration comparable to what Mississippi has managed.
In 2003, Chandler, then 17 and seeking money to support his pregnant girlfriend, tried selling marijuana. When his supply was stolen from his car, he believed the thief was his cousin Emmitt, 19. Chandler fatally shot Emmitt and fled the scene, but later that night he surrendered to authorities.
Convicted of murder, Chandler was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.
Parents who have raised sons understand that civilization’s primary task is to civilize adolescent males, a task that is difficult for many reasons.
The Supreme Court has noted that adolescent brain anatomy can cause “transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences,” thereby diminishing “moral culpability” and, more important, enhancing “the prospect that, as the years go by,” offenders’ “deficiencies will be reformed.”
Now, there is spirited disagreement concerning whether such disproportion constitutes a violation of the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment proscription of “cruel and unusual punishments.”
There is disagreement concerning whether the Eighth Amendment was intended to forbid only certain methods of punishment, or to assign to courts the task of enunciating standards of proportionality in sentencing.
There is disagreement about what the modern court has done in incrementally circumscribing states’ discretion in punishing juveniles: It has held that the Eighth Amendment forbids capital punishment for children under 18. And that it forbids life imprisonment without parole for juveniles convicted of non-homicide offenses.
And that it forbids — this is the issue in Chandler’s case — mandatory life imprisonment without possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders unless they have demonstrated “such irretrievable depravity that rehabilitation is impossible.”
While incarcerated, Chandler earned a GED and completed college-level coursework in Bible studies. He earned certificates in construction trade skills and made substantial progress toward a certificate in automotive repair. Nevertheless, the resentencing court’s almost flippant reasons for reaffirming Chandler’s sentence to die in prison included the following:
“Nothing in the record” suggested that Chandler “suffered from a lack of maturity” when he shot his cousin. The 17-year-old Chandler was “very mature” because he planned his crime. (His prompt surrender suggests more bewilderment than planning.) He was mature because he came from a nuclear family. (How does a family’s attribute prove the existence of a different attribute in a family member?)
The court simply ignored the evidence of Chandler’s efforts at rehabilitation.
Fifty years ago, many Americans thought Mississippi itself exemplified irretrievable depravity.
Today the state has more African-Americans in elective offices than any other state.
The state’s self-rehabilitation was not impossible.
The Supreme Court should hear Chandler’s case in order to provide standards requiring sentencing courts to be serious when making an extraordinarily serious judgment about someone’s “irretrievable depravity.” Will is a Washington Post columnist. Send email to georgewill@washpost.com.
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