https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X18812540
International Journal of
Offender Therapy and
Comparative Criminology
2019, Vol. 63(6) 896 –918
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X18812540
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Article
Lifetime Punishments for
Mentally Ill Juvenile Rampage
School Shooters: No Hope
for the Future?
Kathryn Farr1
Abstract
This study examines the roles of age and mental health in the processing of 10
adolescent rampage school shooters who had shown signs of mental instability prior
to their rampage, but were tried and convicted as adults and sentenced to life or
almost life in prison. Findings from court transcripts show that expert witnesses
for the defense provided evidence of mental illness in all cases; however, the court
determined that the diagnoses failed to meet the insanity standard or did not qualify
as a significant mitigating circumstance. The reality of the boys’ actual guilt, the low
competency standard, and the transfer of jurisdiction from Juvenile Court to criminal
court all worked against their defense. Although in recent years the Supreme Court
has ruled that because of the lesser development of children, life sentences for
juveniles constitute cruel and unusual punishment, appeals on behalf of these boys
have been routinely denied. Cross-national comparisons reveal the rarity of school
shootings outside the United States and suggest that juvenile justice processing in
many countries is far less punitive than that in the United States.
Keywords
lifetime, punishments, mentally ill, juvenile, school, shooters
“In a civilized society, we cannot lock up our mentally ill, neurologically impaired
fifteen-year-old offenders and throw away the key without a hope for the future.”
—Mark Sabitt (1999), attorney for Kip Kinkel, at sentence hearing
1Portland State University, OR, USA
Corresponding Author:
Kathryn Farr, Professor Emerita, Department of Sociology, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751,
Portland, OR 97207, USA.
Email: farrk@pdx.edu
812540IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X18812540International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyFarr
research-article2018
Farr 897
Introduction
Just 15 years old when he committed a school shooting in 1998, Kip Kinkel was pro-
cessed as an adult and sentenced to over 111 years in prison—a de facto life sentence.
Indeed, he had committed egregious crimes, shooting to death both of his parents in
the family home before going to school the next morning and shooting 24 of his class-
mates and teachers, killing two of them. Kip had begun suffering from dangerous and
damning auditory hallucinations several years before his rampage. He noted that the
first voice he heard issued a command: “You need to kill everyone, everyone in the
world”; it also confirmed his self-loathing, as in, “You are a stupid piece of shit. You
aren’t worth anything” (Kinkel, n.d., in Langman, 2009, p. 88). His thoughts about the
source of the voices exemplified the paranoid component of his mental illness—per-
haps the government had placed a computer chip in his brain, or the devil had targeted
him. Moreover, his preshooting journal entries revealed his awareness of his psychiat-
ric problems: for example, “I don’t know who I am . . . . My head just doesn’t work
right . . . . I need help” (Langman, 2009, p. 90). Or, “God damn these VOICES inside
my head. I want to die. I want to be gone. But I have to kill people. I don’t know why”
(Langman, 2009, p. 91).
Although aware of the very low success rate of the not guilty by reason of insanity
(NGRI) defense (employed nationally in less than 1% of felony cases and successful
in only about one quarter of those cases, Lilienfeld & Arkowtiz, 2011), Kip’s defense
team initially considered such a plea. Eventually, upon the advice of his team, Kip
entered a guilty (G) plea in exchange for the state’s agreement to recommend that the
mandatory sentences of 25 years for each of the murders be served concurrently. Then,
in a move that came as a surprise, the sentencing judge, while accepting the state’s
recommendation for concurrence on the murder charges, ruled that the sentences for
the attempted murders would run consecutively, resulting in a total of 220 years.
Although the prosecution now favored this maximum, the judge reduced it to 111.67
years, saying that he saw “little point in sentencing much beyond the normal lifetime”
(Mattison, 1999). In pleading guilty, Kip was required to sign a petition that read in
part, “By entry of pleas of guilty to these charges, I expressly and knowingly waive the
defense of mental disease or defect, extreme emotional disturbance, or diminished
capacity” (Mortimore, 1999, quoting Kinkel’s Plea Petition, p. 4). This waiver worked
against him as appeal after appeal filed on his behalf was denied.
Kip is one of a number of mentally ill juvenile school shooters in the United States
who were tried and convicted in criminal (adult) court and sentenced to life or almost
life in prison. The American criminal justice system has been equivocal at best regard-
ing both the role of mental illness in gauging criminal responsibility and the place of
rehabilitation in its more punishment-oriented prison model. However, the American
juvenile justice system, originating in 1899 with the establishment of Juvenile Court
in Cook County, Illinois, was based on the belief that juvenile offenders are children,
and as such, are best served by a system that provides them with rehabilitative treat-
ment. Children, the new Court reasoned, are still developing emotionally and cogni-
tively and thus are less capable of guilty intent (mens rea). Moreover, as they are not
