Tag: Heath High School

Court rejects claims from Paducah school shooter:

The Kentucky Supreme Court rejected a request from Paducah gunman Michael Carneal to have anew competency hearing. The now 25-year-old Carneal recently claimed, 11 years after the Paducah shootings, that at the time he shot up Heath High School he was mentally ill and that his lawyer was ineffective counsel at the time of his guilty plea

Carneal argued that he was unable to reveal that he was hearing voices at the time of the shooting and guilty plea because of his mental illness. Justice Bill Cunningham, writing for the court, was unpersuaded, saying the claims rest solely on what Carneal says, not any outside evidence creating “a conceptual ‘Catch-22’.”

It’s always nice to see that some judges still have common sense. Especially considering that the kids he killed, Nicole Hadley, Jessica James, and Kayce Steger, don’t have the luxury of appealing their death sentence.

Carneal will be up for parole in 2023.

High court hears arguments on Carneal’s competency:

Michael Carneal was the then 15-year-old gunman who killed 3 and wounded 5 at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky in 1997. At his trial, he pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the murder charges and was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole in 25 years.

Of course, he claimed he was bullied but again as most cowards do he shot and killed innocent bystanders, a group of students who were in a prayer circle.

Now it’s being argued in the Kentucky Supreme Court on whether or not Carneal was too mentally ill to plead guilty. Now, through the wonders of modern junk psychology, Carneal is claiming that at the time of the shooting he was schizophrenic and was hearing voices.

The Kentucky Supreme court is expected to rule in three to six months.