A 15-year-old from Mississippi was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing her mother

On September 21, a jury in Rankin, Mississippi, sentenced 15-year-old Carly Gregg to life in prison without parole for fatally shooting her mother and wounding her stepfather last March.

The jury found the teenager guilty of all charges against her, which included first-degree murder, attempted murder and tampering with evidence, rejecting the defense’s claim of insanity. The case went to trial after the defense rejected a plea deal for a 40-year prison sentence.

Gregg was just 14 when the incident occurred but was tried as an adult under Mississippi law, which automatically tries children 13 and older as adults for certain crimes, including offenses committed with a deadly weapon.

The United States has the ignominious distinction of being the only country to sentence children to life in prison without parole, a practice condemned by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as cruel and unusual punishment. Although there have been limited reforms to reduce harsh sentences for juveniles over the past 20 years, including the abolition of the death penalty for children in 2005, juvenile life without parole remains legal and is practiced in 25 states.

Moreover, the routine US practice of trying children as adults, especially in the wake of the bipartisan, harsh crime laws of the 1990s, represents social regression. The first juvenile court was established in the United States in 1899 in recognition that children were socially and developmentally different from adults and therefore would benefit from rehabilitation efforts. Modern neuroscience and behavioral research on young offenders support these ideas.

In the case of Carly Gregg, the teenager had a documented history of mental problems, including depression, for which she was treated several months before the shooting. Dr. Andrew Clark, who testified on behalf of the defense, said Gregg “had mood problems, an eating disorder, cutting himself, hearing voices and having trouble sleeping, all through January 2024.” A week before the shooting, she was prescribed the new antidepressant drug Lexapro, which Clark said worsened her symptoms.

Gregg’s stepfather, Heath Smylie, who was shot in the shoulder by Gregg, testified that the girl was in a state of severe distress when she shot at him and believed she did not recognize him. “She was screaming terribly, scared,” he said. “It was like she saw a demon or something, and at first I thought: there was an intruder somewhere and she thought he was looking for someone else.” He claims that he is not afraid of his stepdaughter and talks to her regularly on the phone.

The apparent immediate motive for the shooting was Gregg’s mother, Ashley Smylie, who confiscated a number of items from Gregg’s bedroom, including marijuana paraphernalia. A friend of Gregg’s became concerned about her drug use and had texted her mother earlier that day.

Gregg’s stepfather testified that the mother and daughter had a loving bond and that Gregg did not appear to have a history of violence.

Whatever the immediate causes of this horrific event, one must look deeper than the superficial and patently stupid narrative presented by the prosecutor’s office. In a post-trial speech, District Attorney Bubba Bramlett stated, “Carly Gregg is evil. It’s not easy to say, but the truth is that sometimes evil comes in young, small packages – and this is one of those cases.

During the trial, prosecutor Kathryn White Newman cited the teenager’s “secret life” as alleged evidence of her dangerous nature, including using cell phones and vapes, self-harming and cheating at school. By these criteria, most American youth would be suspected of having murderous tendencies.

The daily frequency of shootings in the United States shows that these atrocities are not rooted primarily in individuals but have social causes, which include the abysmal state of mental health care in the United States and the epidemic of depression and anxiety among children.

Mental Health America’s 2024 report found that 20 percent of U.S. youth ages 12-17 had at least one episode of major depression in the past year, and more than half (56 percent) received no treatment. More than 3.4 million young people, or 13 percent, have serious suicidal thoughts.

Nearly 9 percent of young people reported a substance use disorder last year, and some of the reasons given for using included: wanting to feel “calm or relaxed” (73 percent); “sleep better” (44%); and “stop worrying about a problem or forget bad memories” (43%).

In Mississippi, young people’s access to mental health care is criminally inadequate. In an interview with the state task force, state Superintendent of Education Lance Evans reported that the state’s student-to-counselor ratio is 400 to 1. Wendy Bailey, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Health, said there are only 519 in the state therapist schools statewide, half the number of operating K-12 public schools, and only 15 licensed child and adolescent psychiatrists with primary practice in Mississippi.

Beyond the issue of mental health, there are fundamental social and political features of American capitalist society, which is thoroughly marked by state violence, directed both against the working class at home and abroad through endless war.

Commenting on the recent mass shooting at a school in Georgia, World socialism website explained: “Violence is the most important action of the U.S. government abroad and one of the most important actions of state and local governments at home. Police kill over 1,000 people a year. Moreover, Colt Gray and others of his generation witnessed the death of nearly 1.5 million Americans from a preventable virus during a pandemic that the ruling class was unwilling to fight because it would hurt their profits.”

Pretending to care about the victims of mass shootings, the same capitalist politicians support the mass murder of thousands of children in Gaza with US-supplied bombs.

The United States is not only the only country that sentences children to death in prison, but also one of the few countries where the barbaric practice of capital punishment persists. Just last week, the United States executed five death row inmates, a rate unprecedented since 2003, including Marcellus Williams, who was wrongly convicted of murder.

Gregg’s harsh sentence contrasts sharply with another recent case in Rankin, Mississippi. When six local police officers, calling themselves the “Goon Squad”, pleaded guilty to charges related to their years-long campaign of terror against the local population, which included torture, sexual assault and violence that led to multiple deaths, they were sentenced to prison sentences ranging from 10 to 40 years.

Gregg’s attorneys filed a motion for a new trial.

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A 15-year-old from Mississippi was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing her mother

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