I’m also kinda curious what sort of 27, 25, or 24 year old is having sex with 17 year old girls. Isn’t that illegal in most places? And, yes, oral sex does count.
I think this lot are all clear candidates for a life ticket at San Quentin. Unfortunately, I suspect they’ll get off a lot lighter than that, for exactly the reasons MGibson sets forth. I wish there were fewer people who thought like him out there. The world would be a much nicer place.
KellyM, I don’t think that MGibson is suggesting in any way, shape or form that what happened was not murder. What he seems to be suggesting is that posters are saying “I don’t know why anyone would murder someone just for being different” and that dosen’t appear to be the case here: this poor girl wasn’t murdered only becasue she was a transexual, but because of a personal relationship she had with her murderers. She wasn’t targeted by strangers. That in no way, shape, or form justifies murder, but it does make it more comprehensible, in the same way an evil man who shoots his wife is more comprehensible than an evil man who shoots a stranger on the street. It’s no less or more evil.
Manda JO, he said he saw how they could be upset. The defense will use that they were “reasonably upset” as a wedge to get them out of the death penalty and to argue for a lesser sentence. And the prosecution will probably offer a deal where they get a few years in prison instead of the life sentence they deserve.
It frightens me that there are people who believe that any murder is comprehensible. It means there are people who believe in the justification of irrational violence. What happened here was irrational violence. It neither has, nor needs, any justification.
Manda JO, he said he saw how they could be upset. The defense will use that they were “reasonably upset” as a wedge to get them out of the death penalty and to argue for a lesser sentence. And the prosecution will probably offer a deal where they get a few years in prison instead of the life sentence they deserve.
It frightens me that there are people who believe that any murder is comprehensible. It means there are people who believe in the justification of irrational violence. What happened here was irrational violence. It neither has, nor needs, any justification.
Realize that the world does not revolve around you or for any other transgendered individual. Many of us do not deal with TG issues on a yearly basis let alone a daily one. You’ll notice that in my initial post I also referred to Eddie as both he, she, and even as Gwen and I didn’t even realize I was doing it.
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So transsexuals can go through periods of ambiguous identification but heaven forbid the rest of us make any ambiguous indentifications.
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That’s a cheap shot as I specifically said I didn’t think being upset excused them of the murder. Maybe if you weren’t so blinded by whatever crusade you’re on you’d see that.
Marc
Investigators attept to comprehend why a murder happened all the time and in fact I think they have a special word for it. Motive. It is possible to understand why someone murdered another human being without it absolving the person who committed the murder.
Marc
Referring to a transgendered individual by their “mind” gender rather than by their “body” sex is considered to be good manners and politeness. It’s not a question of the world revolving around anyone or anything, it’s just the polite, done thing. If you didn’t know then OK, fair enough, you’ve learnt something.
My apologies for not including this in my other post. The state of mind of the defendant during the murder or his intent is often brought up during murder trials. No doubt the defense will attempt to use their emotional state as a way to avoid the death penalty or a long prison sentence. So what, that is their job after all.
Marc
Nut see, MGibson hasn’t done any of those things, and to accuse him of having done them when he hasn’t has to enrage him. It would enrage me, and I’m pretty godamned mellow. Perhaps you didn’t mean to accuse him of those things, but it really sounded like you did.
To me it seems like classifying all acts of violence or even just all murders as “irrational violence” is a dangerous thing to do. Violent murders are not committed by animals or forces of nature, they are commited by people. They are often commited by fairly normal people. By seeking to understand why people explode into rage, it seems to me we have a much better chance of restructring society in such a way that fewer murders occur.
If we simply wave our hands in the air and say “senseless violence, senseless violence”, then we can’t ever move towards preventing it, we can only punish it.
Furthermore, the idea that murderous rage should be absolultly incomprehensible to all rightous people sends the message that if you ever experience murderous rage you had best hide it, never mention it to anyone, never seek help, never discuss the problem, becasue the fact that you even have those feelings, that you could begin to understand how someone could be so overcome with emotion that they lashed out makes you frightening to rightous poeple.
I may have overreacted with respect to MGibson’s comments, and for that I apologize. I may have misread his comments.
But I do worry about anyone finding a justification in the fact that the perps had sex with her without knowing in advance that she was a trannie. I’m quite certain the defense will argue that they were “justified”, and there’s a good chance at least someone on the jury will buy it. Voir dire will probably decide this trial, if it doesn’t get bargained away.
I worry about it too–I just think that the effective way to deal with it is to acknowledge that people have strong emotional attachments to their sexual identitys and have strong emotinal reactions when they feel that that identity has been corrupted or compromised. Pretending that this isn’t the case and that this murder had no more internal logic to it than just walking up to someone on the street and shooting them denies us the ability to see that there is a desperate need for the issue of transexuality to be brought into the light of mainstream America. It makes this story one of moral degenerates (the attackers) doing morally degenerate things as a reflection of some sort of inherent sub-humanity, and means that we can’t learn from this that any of our sons might do this if they aren’t properly educated and enlightened.
A quick scan of one page I found on the net seems to indicate that it’s legal in over half the states in the US.
At the risk of descending to semantics, I think it’s possible that Kelly’s position may be a result of the ambiguity of the word “understand.” In many, contexts, to say that you “understand” someone implies a degree of sympathy. One of the definitions of “understand” is “to be sympathetic or tolerant of or toward.”
The twisted thought-processes that led to this crime are drearily common in our society. We’ve probably all had the opportunity to observe homophobics or other haters enough to predict what sort of mechanistic behaviour will result from placing them in certain situations, and in that obvious sense we can say that we “understand” the consequences. There is a danger of misinterpretation there, but generally we expect people to “get” which sense of the word we are using from the context in which it is used.
I may not understand[sup]7[/sup] a bigoted and hateful belief-system, but it’s easy enough to understand[sup]1[/sup] how someone who subscribes to such a simplistic system will react in a certain situation.
Anyone who denigrates homosexual expression to the point that the worst insult they can imagine is to call another person, regardless of their actual sexual orientation, a “fag,” is going to be very, very, upset to learn that they’ve had sex with someone of their own sex, and enjoyed it. To let that stand, particularly in a situation where their entire peer-group knows what has taken place, is going to upset them, obviously. They’re going to want to reassert their heterosexuality in no uncertain terms.
That someone can understand how such a simple mechanism works shouldn’t alarm anyone, and on the contrary, it’s important that people understand this sort of behaviour.
I “understand” the sort of senseless hatred that took the life of Aaron Webster in my hometown last year, enough that I think I may have avoided at least two beatings from suspicious characters who were following me while I was walking downtown who probably “didn’t like my looks.”
It’s important to try to understand these things, in the same way that it’s important to try to understand cancer.
:previews & sees Kelly’s latest post:
Uh, I suspected I was stating the obvious. Ah well.
California’s Assembly Bill #1999 provides protection against that possibility.
Larry Mudd: That bit of legislation will not stop the defense from arguing that their acts were “understandable”. At most, it’ll result in a jury instruction, but jurors, as often as not, ignore jury instructions. And all it takes is one juror who decides that killing a lying SOB fag isn’t so bad to get a hung jury, which in California is as good as an acquittal.
There’s little danger of that in this situation, Kelly.
The jury is required to play by the rules and justify their position based on the evidence presented. The prosecution has a confession, and numerous witnesses. No one will be allowed to argue that the killing was in any way mitigated by the victim’s behaviour, except in the unlikely event that the defendants’ were acting in self-defense.
The jury will be asked to decide whether or not the events alleged to have taken place unfolded as the prosecution describes them. The most difficult part of their task is that they will also be asked to decide whether what happened occurred because of the perps’ bias against the victim’s sexuality, making the guilty parties subject to the additional penalties indicated by the hate-crime legislation, based on the evidence provided in court. There isn’t any room for personal prejudice, they have to make their decisions based on the evidence, and justify them based on that. In a worst-case scenario, the defense might present a patently unconvincing argument, and prejudiced jurors may accept it. It appears as though the prosecution will have a pretty solid case, not only for the homicide, but also for hateful motivation. How can the defense argue that the perpetrators were innocent of the crime, based on the circumstances? That leaves them with the task of trying to manufacture some other motivation for the murder, in order to reduce the sentence. This is also a lost cause, given the immediacy of the act after the revelation. At a glance, it’s such an open-and-shut case that it’s very hard to imagine these people not going away for a long, long time. If there were an intolerant juror who refused to convict (or allow that it was a hate crime,) based on the evidence that will be presented, a mistrial would be an inevitability.
While my faith in the Criminal Justice system of both your country and mine is somewhat lower than average, I think that in this situation, I can’t imagine any outcome apart from long prison sentences for these scumbags.
Not exactly “Justice,” but as close as we’re going to get.
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Of course, what I had meant to type was “…in the unlikely event that they argue that the defendants’ were acting in self-defense.”
:smack:
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Of course, what I had meant to type was “…in the unlikely event that they argue that the defendants’ were acting in self-defense.”
:smack:
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Gee thanks, I’m simply underwhelmed by your sincere apology. If you don’t think you misread them then don’t apologize. I’d respect that a lot more then an insincere apology for something you “may” have done.
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I can appreciate that this topic stirs up some strong feelings since it hits so close to home. You’re certainly not going to win any friends or prove to be a positive influence if you choose to keep your snotty attitude. I didn’t say anything negative about TG or TS individuals and I specifically went out of my way to say that Gwen certainly didn’t deserve to be murdered. If you’re this hostile towards me I can only imagine your reaction towards someone who actually has a problem with TS or TG individuals.
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I seriously doubt the defense will argue that their actions were justified. I imagine the defense will argue that because of certain factors their clients don’t deserve death (assuming that’s on the table) or the maximum time in prison.
Marc
MGibson, learn some fucking manners. She apologized for flying off the handle, and it sure sounded sincere to me. And you wonder why people often think you’re a jackass around here? “Snotty attitude” indeed. Christ.
As to the OP - 
Not the first thing I wanted to read on the Dope after an exciting weekend.
Esprix
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Actually she didn’t aplogize for flying off the handle nor did she aplogize for saying I’m the type of person who’d want them to have a light sentence because of who the victim was. She apologized because she “may” have overreacted and she “may” have misread my comments. Maybe I’m seeing something that isn’t there but when someone apologizes for something they “may” have done it seems to me that they don’t really think they did anything wrong at all.
Marc