Two Teenaged Killers Sentenced To Decades In Prison

The Los Angeles Times reports that Brandon McInerney was sentenced yesterday by a judge to 21 years in prison (without the possibility of early release due to the terms of the plea agreement with prosecutors) for the brutal killing of his middle-school classmate on February 12, 2008 so that he will be almost 39 years old when he leaves prison, having spent more than half his life behind bars.

Lawrence King's father Greg King read a statement in court before the sentencing in which he lambasted various groups and entities:

Though he holds McInerney responsible for shooting his son, King said the school's response since the shooting has been despicable.

District leaders have made no changes in policy or procedures, saying they are unnecessary because the school's staff followed the law in allowing Larry to augment his school uniform with women's accessories. To date, no formal changes have been made, although the school district paid $25,000 toward a $255,000 civil lawsuit settlement for King's family.

"It is obvious the school did something wrong," King spat out at the hearing. "Rather than learning from it and striving to make a safer environment for our children, they hid behind lawyers."

McInerney's neck grew flushed as King spoke. The teenager, whose feet were shackled and who wore a white T-shirt and baggy blue pants, declined to make a statement. But his attorney, Scott Wippert, said his client was remorseful.

"He has stated repeatedly that if he could go back and take back his act, he would do it in a heartbeat,'' Wippert said as his client sat silently. "He lives with this every day, every night."

The attorney said McInerney also apologized to the King family, to his own family and to classmates in the computer lab where he pulled a .22-caliber handgun out of a backpack and shot King at point-blank range. Some of his former classmates were in court Monday, wiping tears from their eyes.

Greg King also addressed his son's killer directly, saying: “You took upon yourself to be a bully and to hate a smaller kid, wanting to be a big man on campus,” Greg King told McInerney. “You have left a hole in my heart where Larry was and it can never be filled.”


Bizarrely, today, just one day after the McInerney sentencing, another teenage killer, Tom Lore Vinson was sentenced to 155(!) years for the accidental killing of 16-year-old high school honor student Melody Ross while shooting at two rival gang members October 31, 2009.

Is what Vinson did 7 time worse than what Brandon McInerney did? Why is his sentence 7 times longer then?

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm!

'Basically it was your fault... you were thick enough to leave your window open': 'Apology' from shameless burglar, 16, blames his victims

I read this article online and decided to blog it....A young kid stole from a house and later he got arrested. He was asked to write an apology to the family It was supposed to be an exercise in remorse and rehabilitation. Instead the 16-year-old burglar used the opportunity of writing a letter to his victims to shamelessly rub salt into their wounds.....Click read more below to read the letter.




Instead of apologising for stealing valuables from a family home, the teenager told the owners ‘to be honest I’m not bothered or sorry about the fact that I burgled your house.’
He arrogantly said the raid was their own fault and went on to tell themoff for the ‘dumb mistakes’ they made in making their property a targetfor thieves such as him.

Image Courtesy Google.com

Prosecutor Decides To Retry Brandon McInerney (As An Adult)

Lawrence King (left) and the person who shot him to death, Brandon McInerney 

Well, this is interesting news. Last month a mistrial was declared in the first trial of Brandon McInerney for the murder of Lawrence King. MadProfessah was ashamed at the result and implored prosecutors to retry McInerney for the point blank shooting of his middle school classmate in February 2008.

Today comes word that prosecutors will again try McInerney as an adult for the crime, but will drop the hate crime charge, basically making the wrong choice TWICE. Many LGBT activists like myself insist that the murder was a hate crime, because it is clear that McInerney targeted King for death because of his gender identity. However, since both boys were under 18 years old (McInerney had barely turned 14 at the time of the crime) there are also many LGBT activists who disagree with the decision to try him as an adult.

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

Prosecutors on Wednesday announced their intention to pursue a murder charge in adult court against 17-year-old Brandon McInerney. However, a hate crime charge will be dropped, Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox said.

Last month, a judge declared a mistrial after a nine-woman, three-man panel couldn't reach a unanimous decision on the degree of McInerney's guilt for killing 15-year-old Larry King. After a series of votes, seven jurors were in favor of a voluntary manslaughter conviction, while five others supported either first-degree or second-degree murder.

Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell set a Nov. 21 trial date, according to Fox, but it's unclear if it will be held in Ventura County. The first trial was moved to Los Angeles County due to pretrial publicity.

McInerney was 14 in February 2008, when he is accused of killing King at E.O. Green Junior High School during a computer lab class.

Prosecutors contend McInerney embraced a white supremacist philosophy that sees homosexuality as an abomination. Police found Nazi-inspired drawings and artifacts at his house, and a white supremacist expert testified at trial the hate-filled ideology was the reason for the killing.

Authorities maintained the shooting was premeditated and deserving of a murder conviction. During the trial, Fox noted at least six people heard McInerney make threats against King in the days leading to the shooting.

Defense attorneys acknowledged that McInerney was the shooter but explained that he had reached an emotional breaking point after King made repeated, unwanted sexual advances. They also have argued that juvenile court would be the best venue to try their client.

The reactions from the LGBT community to this news will not be good.

Rash Of Violent Anti-Gay Hate Crimes In Long Beach

Long Beach has been the location of at least three attacks on gay men in the last two weeks.  Long Beach is the third largest city in California and is well-known for a prominent LGBT community. They have an openly gay, Latino city councilman named Robert Garcia who is quoted saying that "These incidents have no place in our city."

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Avila, who was walking ahead of the group, passed a man arguing with a woman on the sidewalk. The man stopped long enough to use a slur against Avila as he passed, he said.
[...]
The man ran away, but Avila and another friend chased him several blocks until police arrived, he said.

The suspect, Jorge Jhovanoy Ibarrias, 21, was arrested and charged with felony battery in addition to a hate crime. He has pleaded not guilty, authorities said.

Three days later, near East 4th Street and Orange Avenue, another man was beaten and called slurs. That case is being investigated as a battery and a possible hate incident, though not a hate crime, Fernandez said. The difference, he said, is that police do not believe that hatred specifically against gays was the initial motivation.

Four days after the second attack, on Sundayabout 1:30 a.m., several men walking on Broadway, two blocks from the site of the initial incident, were approached by another group that used slurs against them, police said. A fight broke out before the groups separated. But the group that made the insults returned shortly afterward with several other people and assaulted three of the men who had been walking down the street, police said.

Hat/tip to Rod 2.0 who posted the video of a local ABC affiliate coverage of the story shown above.

POLL: CA Voters Reject "Tough On Crime" Policies

Excellent news from California! In the midst of a financial meltdown California voters are beginning to realize that they can not continue to spend billions of dollars locking up non-violent criminal offenders in more and more prisons.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The ailing economy far outweighs crime as the top concern for most people today, the pollsters said. That, along with the court order, could help explain voters' new receptivity to changes long sought by prisoner-rights advocates:

— More than 60% of respondents, including majorities among Democrats, Republicans and those who declined to state a party preference, said they would support reducing life sentences for third strike offenders convicted of property crimes such as burglary, auto theft and shoplifting.

— Nearly 70% said they would sanction the early release of some low-level offenders whose crimes did not involve violence.

— About 80% said they approve of keeping low-level, nonviolent offenders in county custody — including jails, home detention or parole — instead of sending them to state prisons. The same percentage favors paroling inmates who are paralyzed, in comas or so debilitated by advanced disease that they no longer pose a threat to public safety.

The pollsters noted that people don't generally favor the release of convicted criminals. But "when it comes to prisons," said Linda DiVall of American Viewpoint, "voters are looking for solutions that don't raise taxes or take money from other priorities like education."

Only 12% of respondents said they'd be willing to accept less state spending on healthcare or education to pay for more prisons. And less than a quarter of voters want to pay higher taxes to build prisons or ship inmates to private lockups in other states to comply with the courts.

This year the state plans to spend $9.8 billion on prisons, making it the third-highest general fund expenditure, behind education and healthcare.

"We spend such a large portion of our budget on crime and prison systems, and we get so little for it," said Amanda Hixson, 59, a Democrat from Sacramento.

Politicians determined to burnish their law-and-order credentials try to scare the public about releasing inmates early, Hixson said, "but some guy who's got three pot busts just isn't going to be that terrifying on the street."

I look forward to voting on ballot measures in 2012 which will finally end this madness which seeks o bankrupt the state by spending ridiculous amounts on criminal justice as compared to education.

Larry King Murder Trial Opens With Anti-Gay Arguments

The long-awaited trial of Brandon McInerney for the February 2008 execution-style murder of Lawrence King opened on July 5th with the prosecution and defense painting very different pictures of the two teenagers involved.

The los Angeles Times is covering the trial (quite well) and started by summarizing prosecutor Maeve Fox's opening statement.

Fox, a veteran Ventura County prosecutor, led the jury through a 90-minute outline of the case, starting by flashing a large photograph of a cherubic-faced King on a projector. She next showed the defendant's booking photos, portraying a tall and muscular McInerney with shaved head, taken within hours of the killing.

McInerney was angry with King, she said, because King had decided he was no longer going to take the bullying that he had been subjected to for years. Slight and "very effeminate," King had only girls for friends and was shunned by the boys, Fox said.

But after King was removed from his home and placed into a children's shelter, he underwent a change in attitude, the prosecutor said. He became more confident in school and started wearing high-heeled boots, makeup and jewelry along with his uniform. School rules did not prohibit this.

King knew it was within his rights to assert a budding feminine identity, and he took full advantage, she said.

"Larry King for the first time in his life wasn't taking it anymore," Fox said. "He started to give people what I prefer to call the proverbial chin, only it was more profane."

The defense attorney is Scott Wippert who has already been held in contempt by the judge for mentioning McInerney's statements to police that Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell had previously ruled would not be heard by the jury.

Wippert's 30-minute opening statement focused on both of the boys' troubled backgrounds and on McInerney's inability to deal with the humiliation of having an openly gay boy flirt with him at school. In contrast to the district attorney's slide show presentation, Wippert simply stood before the jury and talked, occasionally consulting his notes.

McInerney reached an "emotional breaking point" and saw no other way to stop the sexual harassment by King, Wippert said. His own violent and dysfunctional family offered no help, and school officials had made it clear that King was permitted to flaunt his sexuality, even if it was disruptive, the defense attorney said.

He called the prosecution's allegation that McInerney was acting out of white supremacist beliefs a red herring. He said that the Nazi iconography and copies of Hitler's speeches found in the boy's room were related to his work on a World War II paper.

There was no hate crime, just the frustration of an adolescent with nowhere to turn, he told the jury. "Why would a student complain when everyone knows about it and no one is going to do anything about it?" he posited.

Wippert suggested that a psychologist will testify that McInerney was in a dissociative state at the time of the shooting, not in touch with the reality of what he was doing. He also told the jury there is evidence that King had been making inappropriate sexual comments at school since the fifth grade.

"He did shoot Larry King," Wippert said of his client. "He did this out of a heat of passion, and that is voluntary manslaughter."

MadProfessah has been following this case very closely for years. Involuntary manslaughter would be a travesty of a result. I am a strong opponent of the death penalty and also do not approve of trying 14-year-olds as adults but since California passed Proposition 21 passed allowing the practice McInerney should be tried to the fullest extent of the law. There is no question McInerney executed Larry King (with a gun, no less!), and that the boy's sexual orientation and gender identity was involved in Mcinerney's decision to end Larry King's life.

Buju Banton Sentenced To 10 Years

Buju Banton, the notoriously homophobic, Grammy-winning Jamaican reggae star, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in the United States  following his conviction earlier this year on federal drug charges.

The Jamaican Gleaner reports: 

Jamaican reggae superstar, Buju Banton, 37, has been sentenced to 10 years, followed by five years of probation, in the Florida District Court in the United States this morning.

US District Judge, James Moody imposed the sentence when Buju, whose real name is Mark Myrie, appeared in a Tampa Federal Courtroom this morning.

MadProfessah has participated in public protests against appearances by Banton, due to his song "Boom Bye Bye" which had horrendously homophobic lyrics. Of course, one never likes to see anyone go to jail but Banton has been unrepentant in his disdain for the LGBT community. Karma is a *****!

Cop Serves 220 Days For Killing Unarmed Black Man

Johannes Mehserle claimed that he shot Oscar Grant by mistake,
using his gun instead of his Taser, and a jury with no Black members agreed

The former BART police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Black man while holding him restrained face down on the ground on New Years Day 2009 has been released from prison this morning after serving an astonishing (and sickening) 220 days in prison after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter (as I blogged about last fall).

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

E-mail and phone notifications made at 12:01 a.m. today said Mehserle had been released, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's online inmate locator also said he had been freed.

[...]

Mehserle, 29, was sentenced to two years for shooting Oscar Grant in the back while the 22-year-old Hayward man lay face down on the platform at Oakland's Fruitvale BART Station after being pulled from a train.

Mehserle has been imprisoned in Los Angeles County Jail since being convicted July 8. He was eligible for release with credit for time served before his trial and what is known as "good time" credit: one day for every day spent behind bars.

[...]

Mehserle testified that he had thought he was firing his Taser stun gun instead of his pistol as he was trying to arrest Grant for allegedly resisting an officer. The case drew widespread outrage, prompting the trial to be moved from Alameda County to Los Angeles. The jury there acquitted Mehserle of murder.

[Mehserle's attorney] Rains said at least eight other law-enforcement officers across the country have similarly mistaken their Tasers for their service weapons and were never criminally charged "and, in some cases, not even disciplined."

On Sunday, several hundred protesters marched peacefully from the Fruitvale BART Station to 14th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland.

The saddest part of this case is that it must be considered progress that Mehserle was even charged with murder, since as the lawyer says, this was one of the rare times that the "peace officer" offending actions were caught on video and a public outcry finally lead to a criminal prosecution for murder.