Given the difficult circumstances surrounding Gina Grant’s case, she and her boyfriend, Jack Hook, were only given one-year-long sentences. Grant served just eight months of hers and was later released on probation to live with her aunt and uncle.
An exceptionally bright young girl with an IQ of 150, Grant was offered a place at Harvard in 1995, but it was quickly rescinded again when they discovered what she had done less than five years earlier. After Grant was rejected, the case was debated in the press, with journalists and academics weighing in on both sides. The New York Times reported that Grant’s parole board felt that six months after the killing, the young girl showed no remorse. The case was made by some that Grant’s great intelligence had helped her get out of trouble, that she was a manipulator and not a victim. That same year, the Times also published an opinion piece in defense of Grant, arguing that her excellent academic credentials were evidence enough of her rehabilitation (via The New York Times).
Among those who came to Grant’s defense were staff at Harvard itself. Harvard Law professors, Alan Dershowitz and Charles Ogletree, both argued that the university had acted unfairly. Nonetheless, the university refused to reverse its decision. Grant had told Harvard that her mother had died in an auto accident, which meant they had grounds to reject her for lying, if not for the murder itself.
