Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer by Phil Chalmers

Author:Phil Chalmers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2011-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

SEVEN

“WE, THE JURY, FIND

THE DEFENDANT—”:

THE PUNISHMENT

OF TEEN KILLERS

While a fourteen or seventeen year old knows the difference between right and wrong, they don’t have the same abilities to control their behaviors and assess risks the way adults do.

—STEVEN DRIZIN,

Northwestern University law professor,

commenting on juvenile brain development

Rejecting an insanity defense, on June 12, 1998, a jury found Luke Woodham guilty of two counts of murder and seven counts of aggravated assault. Jurors deliberated for about five hours before reading their verdict. At the sentencing hearing, Luke spoke these words: “I am sorry for the people I killed and hurt. The reason you see no tears anymore is because I’ve been forgiven by God. If they could have given the death penalty in this case, I deserve it.”1

Judge Samac Richardson gave Luke two consecutive life sentences for the murder convictions and seven twenty-year sentences for the aggravated assault convictions. Luke will never leave the Mississippi State Prison alive.

Here is what Luke had to say about his sentence:

It is hard to say what I deserve. Anyone in prison wishes that they had a lesser sentence, but I guess that I have to ask myself if I really deserve it. I am guilty of the crimes that I am in here for. I was out of my head when I did them, but I still did them. Would a mental institution have been fair? Considering my age and the mental state that I was in at the time that I committed my crime, I have to say that it could have been. I was the first person that I know of to be sent to prison for a school shooting and I still don’t think anyone else has been given as much time as I have. (I have seen people get a life sentence but none of them got three life sentences plus one hundred and forty years.) . . . I would say that a lesser sentence could have been fair.

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