21 Years In Prison For Brandon McInerney

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The Oxnard teen who shot a gay classmate he believed was flirting with him has agreed to spend the next 21 years in prison, a plea deal that ends a case that drew national attention and ignited debate on how schools should deal with openly gay students.
Brandon McInerney, who was 14 when he pulled a gun out of his backpack and shot Larry King twice in the head in 2008, has already served nearly four years in jail and would be released by the time he is 38, under terms of the deal.
“Larry had a complicated life, but he did not deserve to be murdered,” the youth’s father,Greg King, said after a court hearing Monday afternoon.
McInerney’s first trial ended with jurors split between convicting him of voluntary manslaughter and first-degree murder. Several of the jurors have since spoken in favor of a plea bargain, in order to avoid a second trial.
Prosecutors, in initially deciding to try McInerney a second time, had already dropped a key allegation that the shooting was motivated by a hatred of homosexuals, an accusation that several jurors in the original trial said they did not believe.
During the first trial, prosecutors portrayed McInerney as a budding white supremacist who hated homosexuals and was enraged by King’s sexuality and aggressive flirtations.
The defense argued that McInerney was the product of a violent and dysfunctional home and had reached an emotional breaking point in response to King’s advances.
McInerney was 14 when he carried a .22-caliber handgun to school in a backpack on Feb. 12, 2008, took a seat behind King, 15, and shot him twice in the back of the head.
Gay rights advocates were largely silent after the mistrial. A national gay rights group later said prosecutors should have done the “just and merciful thing” and reached a plea deal in the case.
“Brandon McInerney killed Larry King and should go to jail for his crime,” said Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. “However, the first trial subjected everyone — especially Larry and Brandon’s peers — to a painful spectacle that accomplished nothing.”
At trial, several teachers testified that King had become increasingly bold in his behavior in the weeks before the shooting. One of the teachers, Jill Eckman, demanded that administrators do something about rising tensions but was told to teach tolerance for King’s gender expression.
During closing arguments, Ventura County prosecutor Maeve Fox told jurors the case was a “tragedy on all levels” but that the evidence showed McInerney was guilty of premeditated murder.
“What possible chance did the boy have against this defendant?” Fox asked. “He was killed by someone who was full of hatred.”
In the end, seven of the jurors leaned toward voluntary manslaughter and five toward murder charges.

The Mean Girl Panic Defense

Dan Savage comments:

Imagine there’s this 15-year-old mean girl who goes to a middle school in California. She dresses like a slut and likes to tease the boys. There’s this one boy at her school, age 14, that she singles out and picks on. The mean girl flirts with the boy even though it makes him uncomfortable. She goes out of her way to make lewd remarks to him, she seems to relish the boy’s discomfort, and she regularly humiliates him in front of their classmates. One day the boy tells a friend that he’s going to bring a gun to school the next day and kill the mean girl. And the next day the boy walks up behind the mean girl in a computer lab, removes a gun from his backback, and points the gun at the back of the mean girl’s head. The mean girl doesn’t even know the boy is standing behind her. The boy fires two bullets into the mean girl’s head.
The sexually-charged teasing is easy to imagine—that sort of shit goes on in middle and high schools all the time (most of it directed at girls)—and so, sadly, is the shooting. What’s impossible to imagine is what happens at the boy’s trial: the jury deadlocks over manslaughter charges. Not charges of premeditated murder, which this clearly was, but manslaughter. A mistrial is declared. Prosecutors refuse to say whether they intend to retry the boy—again for manslaughter, not premeditated murder.
That’s essentially what happened in California yesterday when a jury deadlocked over manslaughter charges brought against Brandon McInerney in the slaying of gay classmate. Larry King—if you accept the arguments made by McInerney’s defense team—dressed provocatively and made lewd remarks to McInerney. McInerney responded by killing King in cold blood, a murder that was clearly premeditated. But that little faggot was hitting on boys and wearing provocative clothes, McInerney’s lawyers argued, and so he had it coming. The gay panic defense that didn’t work for the men who murdered Matthew Shepard in 1998 worked for the boy who murdered of Larry King in 2011.
It’s impossible to imagine a jury failing to convict a boy who murdered a female classmate for sexually harassing him, or a jury failing to convict a girl who murdered a male classmate for sexually harassing her, I guess that means that only gay kids can be killed for making unwanted advances and crude remarks to classmates. In California. In 2011.

Jury Unable To Reach Verdict In Killing Of Gay Student Larry King

Los Angeles Times reports:

A jury has been unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial of Brandon McInerney, the 17-year-old accused of shooting a gay classmate to death in 2008.The jury began deliberating Friday, weighing eight weeks of testimony in a trial that included nearly 100 witnesses. Many of those testifying were students and teachers at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard who saw tensions on campus rising after 15-year-old Larry King began coming to school dressed in makeup and girl’s boots.McInerney, then 14, shot King twice in the back of the head in a school computer lab on Feb. 12, 2008. The prosecution says it was a calculated murder carried out in part because McInerney was exploring white supremacist ideology and didn’t like homosexuals.Defense attorneys painted a different picture, that of a bright but abused 14-year-old who snapped after being sexually harassed by King.The trial was followed closely by gay-rights groups that have fought hard to protect gay and transgendered students from campus bullying. But as the weeks of testimony rolled on and a more nuanced portrait emerged of what was happening at E.O. Green in the weeks before the shooting, it also raised a host of thorny questions.Why didn’t the school administrators step in to quell the tensions rising on campus after King started taunting boys on campus with flirtations that he knew would upset them? Was the defense employing a “gay panic” strategy in blaming the victim for being killed? And, more broadly, why was McInerney, who was 14 at the time of the killing, even being tried as an adult?Over eight weeks of testimony, the prosecution laid out a case of premeditated murder by McInerney, who prosecutor Maeve Fox described as a bright boy from a broken and violent home who knew what he was doing when he brought a .22-caliber gun to school.McInerney was upset that King had come up to him at school the day before and said, “What’s up, baby?” Fox said.He told a defense psychologist that he found King’s attentions “disgusting” and “humiliating” and that King would have to pay for it. He told a school friend that he was going to bring a gun to school the next day, and he did, Fox said.Then, in a school computer lab, he shot King at point-blank range in the back of the head not once but twice before dropping the weapon and stalking out of the classroom.Those facts, unchallenged by the defense, constitute a clear case of premeditated murder, Fox said. The prosecution asked the jury to also categorize the killing as a hate crime because a prosecution witness had testified that McInerney was a budding white supremacist who hated gays.Defense attorney Scott Wippert and co-counsel Robyn Bramson didn’t dispute that McInerney killed King. But they argued he was pushed to an emotional breaking point by King’s attentions toward him and the school’s failure to rein in King’s conduct.They also 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.Wippert told jurors that his client killed King but should be found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, not murder.In closing arguments, he implied that McInerney should not ever have been put in front of them because the act happened when was a youth.“Use your common sense, use your heart, use your soul,” he told the jury. “Remember this is a 14-year-old child, and you’re going to do what’s right.”

Families Clash at Trial for Slain Teen

The Advocate reports:

Four weeks into the trial concerning the death of Oxnard, Calif. teenager Lawrence King, the families involved cannot help but show their emotions. 

Onlookers were touched Thursday when a photo was displayed of King happily wearing a strapless formal gown, given to him by his English teacher, Dawn Boldrin, the Los Angeles Times reports.Boldrin was on the witness stand when the photo was displayed.
The mother of Brandon McInerney, the teen on trial for shooting King in a classroom in 2008, began sobbing, as did Boldrin’s 13-year-old daughter.

The scene angered Greg King, Lawrence’s father, causing him to storm out of the courtroom. When he returned, he gathered the King family to leave for the day. As the group walked past Boldrin’s daughter and another family member, Lawrence’s mother Dawn reportedly whispered an expletive to them.

The following day, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell ejected Dawn King from the courtroom for the rest of the trial due to the whispering. Soon after, Greg King shared his anger with reporters regarding the judge’s ruling, and the tears shed in the courtroom the previous day. 

“My son is dead and they’re crying?” King said. “That’s the woman who gave him a dress after complaining that he shouldn’t be coming to school in makeup and boots!”

King was shot in the classroom at E.O. Greene Junior High School by McInerney in front of several classmates in February 2008. McInerney’s attorneys are arguing that King sexually harassed McInerney. Ventura County Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox has argued that McInerney was motivated to kill King because of a white supremacist background. McInerney is being tried as an adult. He faces 53 years to life if convicted. 

Some teachers who knew King and McInerney said they were worried that King would be harassed by classmates for wearing makeup, and high-heeled boots.

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Brandon McInerney, Teen Accused Of Killing Gay Classmate, Faces Trial

The Huffington Post reports:

Brandon McInerney was a scrawny 14-year-old from a broken home when he was accused of gunning down a gay classmate in front of stunned students at a Ventura County middle school.
Three years later – and six months shy of legally becoming an adult – McInerney is going on trial on a charge of first-degree murder in the killing of 15-year-old Larry King. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Opening statements are slated for Tuesday at a courthouse in the San Fernando Valley after a judge changed the venue.
Larry’s death has roiled gay-rights advocates and parents in Oxnard, a city about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles, where the shooting occurred in February 2008. They wondered why school officials hadn’t done more to stop the harassment toward Larry by students, including McInerney. Larry’s family sued the school district, among two dozen defendants, for failing to protect the teen.
The conflict between the two boys, who both had troubled upbringings, didn’t seem out-of-place for teens coping with adolescence. There were taunts, teasing and on at least one occasion, a scuffle between Larry and McInerney, who purportedly tried to get others to beat up Larry.
What made the discord different from routine bullying is how Larry stood up for himself.
The day before the shooting, one of McInerney’s friends told authorities that Larry uttered the words “I love you” as he passed McInerney in a hallway, according to court documents filed by prosecutors.
The friend said McInerney told him he was “going to get a gun and shoot (Larry),” according to court papers. One of Larry’s friends claimed McInerney told her, “Say goodbye to your friend Larry, because you’re never going to see him again.”

The following day, as the boys sat in a computer lab, McInerney drew a .22-caliber gun from his sweatshirt and shot Larry in the back of the head.
McInerney “then stood up as Larry collapsed to the floor, looked around at his astonished classmates and delivered a second coup-de-grace shot into the back of Larry’s head,” prosecutor Maeve Fox wrote in court documents.
White supremacist materials were found in McInerney’s bedroom, including books and drawings of swastikas. McInerney didn’t attend a school field trip to the Museum of Tolerance, the educational arm of the human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center, court records showed.
At a preliminary hearing last year, a police detective testified that Larry’s sexuality was an affront to McInerney’s ideology, and was probably the motive for the crime.
McInerney has pleaded not guilty to murder, lying in wait and a hate crime. Defense lawyer Scott Wippert has not returned calls and e-mails seeking comment. Wippert, however, told the Ventura County Star, that Larry sexually harassed McInerney and the shooting was committed in the heat of the moment.
Jurors will likely hear about the rough upbringings of both teens.
Larry, who told some people he was gay, lived at a center for abused and neglected children in the months before his death. Girls used him as a pawn to clear a table of boys at lunch, according to prosecutors. When Larry asked to sit with them, the boys got up and sometimes called him derogatory names.
McInerney came from an abusive household where his father, William McInerney, was sentenced for battery against his mother in 2000. William McInerney also was accused of shooting her in the elbow several months before his son was born.

He died in March 2009 of blunt-force head trauma at his home. The coroner ruled his death was accidental.
While McInerney will be tried as an adult because of the gravity of the alleged crime, some legal experts said the panel could be more lenient because of his youth.
“One, they recognize the younger you are, the more likely you are to be rehabilitated,” said Tom Lyon, a professor of law and psychology at the University of Southern California. “And two, they see more impulsiveness in their actions.”
Larry’s death has gained some resonance around the nation, where vigils have been held in his memory. Thousands of comments were left on Internet sites dedicated to him in the weeks following the shooting.
Lyon said the tragedy could foster discussion between adults and children about intolerance.
“This kind of case is something students can discuss to deal with prejudices and alleviate them,” he said.

A child isn’t born full of hate. It’s a tragedy how intolerance made such a twist in these boys’ lives.

UPDATE: A prosecutor in McInerney’s just-launched trial says the killing was premeditated and based on the shooter’s belief that homosexuality is an abomination.McInerney’s defense team claims that he was the victim of King’s aggressive sexual bullying.

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Larry King Live: The Final word

Thou this happened a couple of day ago, it just hit me. I few hours ago I was trying to tune in to see Larry King Live. Feels awkward.