Mississippi needs to explain why inmate rehab is invalid

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 until Tuesday to explain to the U.S. Supreme Court why 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, some of which neuroscience explains. The part of the brain that stimulates anger and aggression is larger in males than in females (for evolutionary reasons). And the part that restrains anger is smaller in males. 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.” Hence “a lifetime in prison is a disproportionate sentence for all but the rarest of children, those whose crimes reflect ‘irreparable corruption.’”

Now, there is spirited disagreement among thoughtful people about what the modern court has done in incrementally circumscribing states’ discretion in punishing juveniles: 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 has not been a discipline problem. He has earned a GED and completed college-level coursework in Bible studies. He has 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:

“Nothing in the record” suggested that Chandler “suffered from a lack of maturity” when he shot his cousin. (Science demonstrates a physiological basis of varying maturities of male adolescents.) 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 17-year-olds are allowed to get driver’s and pilot’s licenses, and abortions, and because he fathered a child, and because in World War II a 17-year-old won a Medal of Honor.

Really. And the court simply ignored the evidence of Chandler’s efforts at rehabilitation. 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.”