ABA Unanimously Passes Resolution Condeming "Gay Panic" Defense

Time and time again we have sadly seen those who murder gays use the "gay panic defense" - i.e., that they panicked and flipped out and acted unintentionally - to justify murder and convince juries to acquit them of what is by any other standard noting less than cold blooded murder.  Now, the American Bar Association ("ABA") has adopted a resolution condemning the "gay panic defense" and seeking to have its use curtailed.  It goes without saying that the "godly Christian" folk will be condemning the ABA just as that constantly condemn gays.  Here are highlights on the ABA's action via The Edge:

As reported in the ABA Journal, yesterday during the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in San Francisco, the House of Delegates - the ABA’s governing body, unanimously passed a resolution urging federal, state, local and territorial governments to pass legislation curtailing the availability and effectiveness of the use of "gay panic" and "trans panic" defenses by criminal defendants.

In a press release issued by the National LGBT Bar Association, executive director D’Arcy Kemnitz said "The ABA’s adoption of this measure sends a clear message to state legislatures that legal professionals find no validity in the sham defenses mounted by those who seek to perpetuate discrimination and stereotypes as an excuse for violence." Further stating, "The ’gay panic’ and ’trans panic’ defenses have been used to try and excuse some of the most heinous violence exacted against innocent victims. State legislatures should immediately move to enact the ABA’s recommendation by passing laws banning ’panic’ defenses."

The full language of the adopted resolution reads as follows:

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges federal, state, local and territorial governments to take legislative action to curtail the availability and effectiveness of the "gay panic" and "trans panic" defenses, which seek to partially or completely excuse crimes such as murder and assault on the grounds that the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for the defendant’s violent reaction. Such legislative action should include:

(a) Requiring courts in any criminal trial or proceeding, upon the request of a party, to instruct the jury not to let bias, sympathy, prejudice, or public opinion influence its decision about the victims, witnesses, or defendants based upon sexual orientation or gender identity; and

(b) Specifying that neither a non-violent sexual advance, nor the discovery of a person’s sex or gender identity, constitutes legally adequate provocation to mitigate the crime of murder to manslaughter, or to mitigate the severity of any non-capital crime.

 The theory of "gay panic" goes back to 1920 when the term was first coined by psychiatrist Edward J. Kempf in his textbook "Psychopathology", in which he describes an acute, brief reactive psychosis suffered by the target of unwanted homosexual advances.

"Gay panic" has been used as a defense in recent years on a number of high profile assault and murder cases, most notably the 1995 trial of Jonathan Schmitz, who killed his friend Scott Amedure after learning, during a taping of "The Jenny Jones Show," that Amedure was sexually attracted to him. Schmitz confessed to committing the crime, but claimed that Amedure’s homosexual overtures angered and humiliated him. Three years later, the defense would be used during the trial of the two men accused of killing university student Matthew Shepard. The strategy proved ineffective or inadmissible and in both cases, ended with convictions for the defendants.

"Too many people have hidden for far too long behind baseless ’panic’ defenses," Kemnitz said. "Judges, lawmakers and juries must demand that these practices come to an end and juries must be provided with instructions advising juries to make their decisions free of improper bias and prejudice. Today’s ABA resolution is an important first step towards realizing that goal."

The reality is that anyone who doesn't have issues with their own sexual orientation - which rules out Ken Cuccinelli - isn't going to react violently to the discovery that some one is gay or that said individual finds them attractive.  The defense is in a word bullshit.

Murder of Black Gay Mississippi Mayorial Sparks Old Civil-Rights Fears

I have held off weighing in on the story of the murder of gay Clarksdale, Mississippi mayoral candidate Marco McMillian (pictured above) whose body was found late last week near a levee after being reportedly dragged, beaten, and burned.   The alleged killer is another young black man, 22-year-old named Lawrence Reed, who is in police custody.  Some reports indicate that Lawrence may use a "gay panic" defense, but something just doesn't seem to add up in the whole sad story.  As a result, the FBI is monitoring the situation.   Having lived in Alabama and seen small rural towns in both Alabama and Mississippi first hand, when a young black man, especially one who s openly gay, is murdered, it is hard not to wonder what the real story might be and whether Lawrence is telling the truth.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the unfolding story.  Here are highlights:

In Clarksdale, Miss. — When Marco McMillian decided to move back to his home town and run for mayor, the 33-year-old aspiring candidate knew he needed the blessing of the silver-haired oligarchy that ruled quietly from church pews. It was familiar turf for McMillian, who grew up singing in the choir at New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church a half-mile from his small house near the railroad tracks in this grindingly poor city in the Mississippi Delta.

A week and a half after McMillian’s body was found in the mud on an isolated stretch of levee outside Clarksdale, his death remains a mystery. It has roiled old suspicions and fears from Mississippi’s dark history of racial brutality, although both McMillian and the man charged with his murder are African American. McMillian was also gay, adding fire to demands by civil rights groups for the killing to be investigated as a hate crime. The FBI said this week that it is “monitoring” the investigation.

The Coahoma County Sheriff’s Department has charged Lawrence Reed, 22, in the crime. He told police that he killed McMillian and where to look for the body, according to two people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss its early findings.
Reed’s family has yet to address publicly the allegations against him. The sheriff’s department has released almost no information on the case, adding to conspiracy theories and guessing over what exactly happened the night McMillian and Reed, who worked at Domino’s Pizza, were together.

McMillian’s bid for mayor was an audacious move. He had lived away from Clarksdale for 10 years, graduating from Jackson State University, working as the executive assistant to the president at Alabama A&M University and until 2011, serving as the executive director of Phi Beta Sigma, the black fraternal organization headquartered in Washington. 

He moved back to Clarksdale late last year. Known as the birthplace of the blues, the city of 18,000 has a 38 percent poverty rate. Tourists from around the world pour in to visit Muddy Waters’s shack and listen to the music of Pinetop Perkins. But black Clarksdale has existed in a separate realm from the New Bohemian South the city wants to be.

Little of what happened that night is known. On Tuesday morning, on a rural highway out near the Tallahatchie County line, McMillian’s sport-utility vehicle was involved in a collision with another vehicle. A distraught Lawrence Reed was driving the SUV alone.  

McMillian’s body was found the next morning near the levee between the communities of Sherard and Rena Lara. The spot was completely isolated. A steep embankment of pasture dropped down to the barbed-wire fence that went along the water, and that is where the body was, shoved partway under the wire.

“Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Marco McMillian, one of the 1st viable openly #LGBT candidates in Mississippi,” tweeted the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a national political action committee.  It was a bombshell on top of a bombshell. 

Three days later, frustrated by a lack of contact with the Coahoma Sheriff’s Department, the Ungers released a statement saying McMillian had been “beaten, dragged and burned (set afire),” and that his death could not have been a random act of violence.

There's more in the story.   Hopefully, with more time answers to the swirling questions and speculation will be found.

Spanish Jury Acquits Brutal Killer of Gay Couple

This is a very sad case from Spain that confirms that the USA is not the only allegedly progressive country where gays all too frequently cannot receive justice in the courts. The facts of this case are so egregious that it is hard to believe that any rational juror could have believed the killer's bizarre, unbelievable story. According to forensics, Jacobo Piñeiro Rial (pictured at left) murdered 27 year old Isaac Ali Dani Peréz Triviño and 32 year old Julio Anderson Luciano in their apartment in the early morning of January 13th, 2006. The bodies showed a total of 57 stab wounds. Piñiero's defense? That the couple with whom he went home after meeting in a gay bar had allegedly propositioned him during the night. Incredibly, the jury believed the bullshit story and acquitted Piñiero. What better evidence that in the minds of some the lives of gays have no value. Blabbeando has all the sick details - here are some highlights:

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27 year old Isaac Ali Dani Peréz Triviño (left) was born in Spain. 32 year old Julio Anderson Luciano (right) was born in Brazil. They lived together in the Spanish province of Vigo and were planning to get married.Both were stabbed to death by Jacobo Piñeiro Rial in their apartment in the early morning of January 13th, 2006. The bodies showed a total of 57 stab wounds, according to forensics.

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After killing them, Piñeiro took a shower and cleaned himself up. He filled a suitcase with some of their belongings to make it look like a robbery and then spilled clothing all over the place. He poured alcohol over everything, including his victims' bodies, turned on the gas spigot on the stove, and set everything on fire. The local fire department said that little evidence would have survived if it wasn't for their prompt response to the 5-alarm fire.

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Piñeiro hardly knew the men. Testimony revealed that Piñiero had spent the previous afternoon consuming cocaine and drinking at a gay bar called Strong at which Pérez Triviñio happened to work as a bartender. When his shift ended at 4:30pm, the bartender invited Piñeiro home. They spent the afternoon together until Anderson Luciano arrived around 10:30pm with two friends. . . . Anderson Luciano's friends left after the late dinner but Piñeiro stayed overnight.

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There are no independent witnesses, but police and forensic experts say that the murder rampage began around 4:00am. Apparently, Pérez Triviñio was stabbed first but did not die. Piñeiro then stabbed Anderson Luciano twice while in the couples' room, and 22 more times as he followed his victim out of the room, into a corridor and out to the living room - where he died. Pérez Triviñio, in the meantime, had locked himself in the room and records show that he was able to call local authorities. The call was cut short when Piñeiro was able to break back into the room and finish him off by stabbing him 35 more times.

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His defense? . . . . His lawyer argued that Piñeiro was overcome by an "insurmountable fear of being raped and being murdered" and that his judgment was clouded by the alcohol and cocaine he had consumed in the previous two days (forensic experts had stated earlier said the effect of the cocaine would have rubbed off long before the killings and that, once he was arrested, there were no traces of alcohol in his body which did not match up with the huge amount of alcohol that Piñeiro said he had ingested). In other words, his lawyer used the well-known 'gay panic' defense.

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The jury bought it! La Voz de Galicia says that Piñeiro almost walked out of the courtroom free. He was acquitted of murder charges, . . . Marta Pérez Triviñio, Isaac's mother, is heartbroken. She says that the jury's verdict is "homophobic, racist and brainless" and spoke of Jacobo as being almost like a second son. She broke down after the verdict, but has steadfastly demanded justice to whoever will listen.

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This is a despicable crime with an unfortunate court ruling. It might yet become Spain's very own Matthew Sheppard moment.

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Up to now, I've always wanted to visit Spain.