There's a riddle.

Probably the most famous riddle in history, called the riddle of the Sphinx.

According to Greek mythology, the Sphinx was a mythical creature with the head of a human

and the body of a lion.

The Sphinx guarded the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes.

As the myth goes, she would devour all travelers who couldn't answer a riddle that when something

like, what is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and

three in the evening.

The answer is man, or a person, who literally crawls in all forces of baby and metaphorically

crawls through a childhood, then walks on two legs well into adulthood and finally gets

around the assistance of a cane upon becoming elderly.

Today, I could ask a modern variation on the riddle of the Sphinx.

What is the only state in the country, the only place in the world, in which a 16 year old

convicted of murder is guaranteed to experience all three cycles of the riddle of the Sphinx

in prison, entering as a child, remaining throughout adulthood, and not having any chance

of being released until after she's hit retirement age.

As is demonstrated by the case of Centoya Brown, the answer to this riddle is Tennessee.

Hi, this is Colin Miller.

I'm an associate dean and professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law,

and I blog at Evidence Prof. Blog.

For the past two months, I've been blogging exclusively about a single case, this

Centoya Brown case.

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