Kentucky parole board orders school shooter to serve out the remainder of his life sentence

In this post last month, titled "Grappling with parole possibilities a quarter-century after horrific school shooting by young teen," I flagged an article discussing the first modern teen school shooter who was due to receive parole consideration 25 years after his crime.  This new lengthy CNN piece reports on the results of the process, and here are excerpts:

The Kentucky Parole Board on Monday denied parole to Michael Carneal, a man serving a life sentence for killing three students in a school shooting in 1997 when he was 14 years old. The ruling by the full parole board to have Carneal serve out his sentence comes after a two-person panel failed to reach a unanimous decision about Carneal’s release last week.

“Due to the seriousness of your crime — your crime involved a weapon, you had lives taken, and the seriousness, again — it is the decision of the parole board today to allow you to serve out the remainder of your sentence,” Parole Board Chairperson Ladeidra Jones said Monday. Carneal, who attended the hearing via video conference, responded, “Yes ma’am,” and stepped out of frame.

Carneal has served nearly 25 years in prison for opening fire at Heath High School in Paducah on December 1, 1997, killing the three students and wounding five others just after the students’ prayer circle in the lobby said “Amen.” Carneal pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder, and a count of first-degree burglary. While he was sentenced to life in prison, Kentucky law requires that minors be considered for parole after 25 years.

Many survivors and families of the victims were opposed to Carneal’s requested release.  But now 39, Carneal pleaded his case to members of the parole board in a hearing last week, saying that if he were released, he planned to live with his parents, continue undergoing mental health treatment and eventually get a job.

Carneal’s public defender, Alana Meyer, asked the board to remember Carneal was a teenager when he opened fire, was suffering from undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia and was struggling with bullying and the transition from middle to high school. In the quarter century since, Carneal “has committed himself to his mental health treatment, to participating in available educational and vocational programs, and to being a helpful and positive person within the prison,” Meyer wrote....

Carneal told the panel he has received multiple mental health diagnoses and has long heard voices in his head – including on the day of the shooting.  He said that before opening fire he heard a voice telling him to “pick up the gun out of the backpack and hold it in front of me and shoot.”

“There’s no justification or excuse for what I did,” Carneal said. “I’m offering an explanation. I realize there’s no excuse for what I did.”  Carneal said he still hears voices in his head, but now knows when to ignore them.

A colleague has informed me that there is litigation in lower courts contesting the legality of the Kentucky parole board converting a life with parole sentence into a life without parole sentence via this kind of "serve out" order.