Mistrial Declared for Murderer of Gay Teen

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LOS ANGELES - A judge on Thursday declared a mistrial in the case of California teen accused of murdering a gay classmate at a Ventura County junior high school three years ago.

Jurors told Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell they were unable to reach a unanimous decision on the degree of Brandon McInerney's guilt for killing 15-year-old Larry King. The nine-woman, three-man panel said they took a series of votes with the last one being seven in favor of voluntary manslaughter, while five others supported either first-degree or second-degree murder.

From CBS News. Apparently they couldn't decide whether bringing a loaded handgun to school required forethought?

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Both sides in the case agreed that Brandon McInerney took a .22-caliber handgun to school on Feb. 12, 2008, and shot King twice in the back of the head during a computer lab class in front of stunned classmates.

Fox [prosecutor] also argued the attack was premeditated, noting at least six people heard McInerney make threats against King in the days leading to the shooting.

She said McInerney told a psychologist hired by defense lawyers that he wanted to kill King after he passed McInerney in a school hallway and said, "What's up, baby?"

The defense has argued that this, along with giving his murderer a valentine, constituted sexual harassment. And activists have pointed out that "if there is justification for murder because someone came onto someone else, every straight man would be dead. And would a ‘straight panic’ defense be acceptable in court?" Yeah, it's hard to imagine that if I lost it and shot my sleazy coworker that "he was coming on to meee!" would be an acceptable defense.

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Defense attorneys acknowledged McInerney was the shooter but explained that he had reached an emotional breaking point after King made repeated, unwanted sexual advances. McInerney snapped when he heard moments before the shooting that King wanted to change his name to Latisha, the lawyers said.

The defense psychologist said he was in a dissociative state -- acting without thinking -- when he pulled the trigger at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard.

Take away point: men coming on to women is normal and expected, but men coming on to other men is sexual harassment and justification for murder.

There is also something to be said for the responsibility of school officials in all of this...though what exactly should be said is open to debate. The victim’s family chose to sue his school district for not enforcing the dress code and "prohibiting him from wearing feminine clothing and makeup to school." No surprise that this is the angle taken by Fox News. Translation from CBS:

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The school administration has been accused of being more concerned about defending King's civil rights than recognizing that his behavior and what he wore -- high heels, makeup and feminine clothing -- made other students uncomfortable.

Maybe those "uncomfortable" students need to get the fuck over it. Same goes for the victim's family (regarding the clothing/makeup thing) who apparently singled out one of his teachers:

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...the testimony of Larry’s English teacher Dawn Boldrin on giving Larry her daughter’s strapless formal gown, which was met by his surviving family with tears, anger, and storming out of the courtroom.

An infuriated Greg King, father of Larry King, stomped out of the courtroom. He returned a short while later and rounded up the entire King family to leave the courthouse for the day. As the group walked past Boldrin’s daughter and another relative, Larry’s mother, Dawn King, whispered an expletive to them. On Friday morning, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell ruled that was egregious enough to get Dawn King ejected from the courtroom for the rest of the trial. Outside the courtroom, Greg King explained that he became angry because he considered the women’s response “crocodile tears.”

The King family claims that Boldrin was one of the teachers who complained about Larry’s presentation, who said that he shouldn’t be “coming to school in makeup and boots.” On the other hand, Boldrin claims that, essentially, Larry’s family are the ones who punished him for his clothing and style — she argued on the stand that King’s family had abused him, and that the dress was a private gift to him in recognition of the fact that he was “struggling with family and sexual identity issues,” and was meant to be worn outside of school. It’s true that at the time of the shooting, Larry doesn’t appear to have been living with his family. Reports from the weeks after the shooting in the NYT say that Larry was living at Casa Pacifico, “a center for abused and neglected children in the foster care system,” and had been there since the fall.

I'm still wondering where a 14 year old was able to obtain a loaded handgun? The most likely source was probably his father:

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[The defense] appeared to reach out for jury sympathy by calling several of McInerney’s relatives to the stand to testify to the abuse the young boy suffered at the hands of his drug-abuser father.

McInerney was a boy who couldn’t cry, because if he did his father would smack him in the face and tell him to take it like a man, his aunts testified.

Other family members said the father seemed to delight in humiliating his son in public. The father died from a fall while his son was incarcerated.

Basically a clusterfuck all around. As awful as that is, however, it's not justification for murder.

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Prosecutors now have to decide whether to re-file murder and hate crime charges against McInerney, now 17, who was tried as an adult.

And people wonder why so many gay kids spend their high school years ducking and covering, going along with the homophobic jokes and hoping no one notices they're not interested in girls. Which is how my younger son survived high school. He's not proud of what he did, but given that he saw kids who were open about their sexuality getting bullied and pushed around (and one kid who came out to his family kicked out of the house into the streets and told to go to Hell), He considered it preferable. And this was in the late 190s. It's sad how nothing seems to have really changed, despite all the media attention it's gotten.

PS-I didn't find out he was gay till after he and his brother graduated and moved out of the house. He honestly thought I was going to reject him. As if I could've.

That said, the murderer's father sounds like a real ray of sunshine. Too bad he died in a fall while his son was in jail-you'd think he would've wanted to be there so he could see what a big tough man he'd created via his abuse.

You can't even be sure of how much of the kid's insisting that the gay guy was coming onto him was true. Okay, maybe he felt threatened, but was murder justifiable?

Seriously, this kid is getting off COMPLETELY scot free! He shot another kid in the back of the head twice! Surely a punch or three would have sent the message?

This is also why America's gun control laws suck.

Heh, if he did go to juvie or whatever, then he'd feel REALLY threatened... Seriously, he was 14! HE KILLED A GUY! Would you throw the case out if it had been a guy shooting a girl for coming on to him? Or a girl shooting a guy? No, it's complete BULLSHIT!!!!! If he felt threatened, why didn't anybody do something about it before it came to this?

Man, I wish I could claim straight panic as a defense for, well, not murder, but I would love to tase creeps who hit on me with impunity.

The father is pissing me off the most here. If that kid was that freaked by being hit on by a dude I would bet the father's pressure on him to be be a 'man' had a lot to do with it.

Sad shit all around.

Fuck.

The murderer sounds like a pretty fucked-up kid. King was probably messing with him a bit because the kid was being a dick about his sexuality (sending him a Valentine, etc.), and this kid, coming from the home he did, just flipped.

Jesus Christ, what kind of parents treat their kids like this? King was kicked out, the murderer was abused. Seriously, do people not realize how badly they screw up their children when they treat them like this?

I feel pretty awful that King was murdered, but at the same time, I feel pretty awful for McInerney, who was raised to think his actions were justifiable. That kid sounds pretty messed up, and I can see him being a repeat offender.

Owlish wrote:

Yeah, it's hard to imagine that if I lost it and shot my sleazy coworker that "he was coming on to meee!" would be an acceptable defense.

Of course not, Owlish, for you are a woman, and therefore you are only allowed to retaliate to the extent that Male Moral Monitors deem fit. If you so much as raise your voice too loudly to some creep who won't leave you alone, inevitably some dipshit will scold you for making a fuss and tell you to ignore it, just as he ignores it when strangers punch him in the face for no reason which totally happened it did it did. Said dipshit will then turn around and mansplain about the importance of self-defence classes and training women how to use guns so that they can fend off rapists, with no concept of the irony involved.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

You can't even be sure of how much of the kid's insisting that the gay guy was coming onto him was true. Okay, maybe he felt threatened, but was murder justifiable?

Seriously, this kid is getting off COMPLETELY scot free! He shot another kid in the back of the head twice! Surely a punch or three would have sent the message?

Yes, physical violence is an acceptable response to words.

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Or a girl shooting a guy?

If a girl had shot a guy she'd be hung out to fucking dry as a hysterical, overreacting, murdering bitch. How dare she, he was only trying to date her, this is all feminism's fault, etc.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Owlish wrote:

Yeah, it's hard to imagine that if I lost it and shot my sleazy coworker that "he was coming on to meee!" would be an acceptable defense.

Of course not, Owlish, for you are a woman, and therefore you are only allowed to retaliate to the extent that Male Moral Monitors deem fit. If you so much as raise your voice too loudly to some creep who won't leave you alone, inevitably some dipshit will scold you for making a fuss and tell you to ignore it, just as he ignores it when strangers punch him in the face for no reason which totally happened it did it did. Said dipshit will then turn around and mansplain about the importance of self-defence classes and training women how to use guns so that they can fend off rapists, with no concept of the irony involved.

Coming from you, I'm not sure wether this is sarcasm or not.

Wow, this is just crazy on all sides. I feel a little sorry for the murderer with his family circumstances, but what he did was just... ugh. I have to wonder though - did he ever try just talking to the other kid and saying he wasn't interested?

What a tragedy. Also, I feel stupid that I forgot that a lot of schools in the US don't wear uniforms. I kept thinking "wait, why wasn't he in his school uniform?". :B Derp.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Man, I wish I could claim straight panic as a defense for, well, not murder, but I would love to tase creeps who hit on me with impunity.

The father is pissing me off the most here. If that kid was that freaked by being hit on by a dude I would bet the father's pressure on him to be be a 'man' had a lot to do with it.

Sad shit all around.

Not gonna lie. When those losers leaned out of their truck and catcalled at me in my hobopants, I fantasized about shooting out their back tires. Clint Eastwood / Gran Torino-style, with a finger-gun.

Also

"Hey Baby":

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

You can't even be sure of how much of the kid's insisting that the gay guy was coming onto him was true. Okay, maybe he felt threatened, but was murder justifiable?

Heh, if he did go to juvie or whatever, then he'd feel REALLY threatened... Seriously, he was 14! HE KILLED A GUY! Would you throw the case out if it had been a guy shooting a girl for coming on to him? Or a girl shooting a guy? No, it's complete BULLSHIT!!!!! If he felt threatened, why didn't anybody do something about it before it came to this?

Considering that there were numerous witnesses, the facts of the case are indisputable. Yes, the victim did give his murderer a valentine, yes King did behave in a teasing way toward McInerney. But the victim's behavior would not be considered threatening by any reasonable person, and the effort by some to construe it as threatening is symptomatic of the sexist, homophobic way of thinking that I think you're trying to get at.

Also, the case was not "thrown out," the jury could not reach a decision--not the same thing. And I brought up in the OP the problem of what the school could or should have done differently. No reasonable person would have taken offense to King's actions, so there wasn't a whole lot the school could do, other than cracking down on King for his unconventional presentation, which also would have been problematic.

I can't tell you how much restraint it took not to :facepalm: in this post. Harley, I'm honestly curious here, do you actually read threads before you post in them? Do you have a reading comprehension problem? Or are you so anxious to say your piece that you only skim?

Lapin wrote:

I feel pretty awful that King was murdered, but at the same time, I feel pretty awful for McInerney, who was raised to think his actions were justifiable. That kid sounds pretty messed up, and I can see him being a repeat offender.

Same here. When I first heard about this I was incensed at the cruelty of it--because it's not just the kid he murdered, but the trauma to all of those students who witnessed it, a bunch of 14 year olds seeing their classmate shot point blank in the head. But McInerney is a victim here too. I don't want to say he's simply a product of his upbringing, but his actions were not unpredictable. And now he's got a miniscule chance of ever recovering from the pain inflicted upon him, and will probably go on to commit more crimes. My hope is that he has the chance to obtain some kind of mental health services at some point.

the asylum wrote:

Coming from you, I'm not sure wether this is sarcasm or not.

Spoiler:

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Yes, the victim did give his murderer a valentine, yes King did behave in a teasing way toward McInerney. But the victim's behavior would not be considered threatening by any reasonable person

Put a Coldplay track behind it and make Robert Pattinson the recipient.
Instant stirring romantic dramedy.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought this was Hollywood.

You know, I don't personally care what the victim did to King. Murdering him was STILL not rationalised. No, not in ANY circumstances.

Not that I encourage the punch or three, but it's a preferable option to shooting somebody.

Ye gods, how does anybody get the idea that killing somebody is acceptable? Especially coming up behind somebody in a full classroom and shooting them twice like that? And at 14? It's barely comprehensible how anybody can think it's acceptable.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

You know, I don't personally care what the victim did to King. Murdering him was STILL not rationalised. No, not in ANY circumstances.

No one's said that, or even implied it.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Ye gods, how does anybody get the idea that killing somebody is acceptable? Especially coming up behind somebody in a full classroom and shooting them twice like that? And at 14? It's barely comprehensible how anybody can think it's acceptable.

Being raised in a household where both parents are abusive and violently homophobic would probably be how. It's not really his fault that he was raised that way but he is to blame for the murder.

...Ok then. I'm gonna go with "didn't bother reading the thread." Yup.

Sakurelf wrote:

Not gonna lie. When those losers leaned out of their truck and catcalled at me in my hobopants, I fantasized about shooting out their back tires.

Oh God I know. Hobopants = do not fucking come on to me you fucking assholes! I had to take to shoving my hair up under my hat in addition to the 2nd hand sweatshirt and 3rd hand cargos to finally get left alone when I lived in a city. What is with dudes and their inability to take obvious cues?

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Sakurelf wrote:

Not gonna lie. When those losers leaned out of their truck and catcalled at me in my hobopants, I fantasized about shooting out their back tires.

Oh God I know. Hobopants = do not fucking come on to me you fucking assholes! I had to take to shoving my hair up under my hat in addition to the 2nd hand sweatshirt and 3rd hand cargos to finally get left alone when I lived in a city. What is with dudes and their inability to take obvious cues?

Obvious cues are never obvious.

Only thing that ever really worked for me was leaving the area and chopping my hair off. Mind you, I didn't chp my hair off so people wouldn't bother me, but it sure helped. I was called *he* pretty often.

Jesus. wrote:

Only thing that ever really worked for me was leaving the area and chopping my hair off. Mind you, I didn't chp my hair off so people wouldn't bother me, but it sure helped. I was called *he* pretty often.

Something about hair length really throws people off. My hair was short in Jr. High and all kinds of people mistook me for a dude. I was wearing a dress once and some guy was convinced I was a man, and yet, with long hair random assholes will hoot at me from their cars.

Of course! The kid was obviously murdered for wearing hobopants!

Oh wait...