Dismantling the Homosexual Panic Defense
Aaron McKinney was recently convicted of second-degree murder for his role in the fatal bludgeoning of Matthew Shepard on October 6th of last year. During the opening statements of his trial, McKinney's attorneys argued that a homosexual advance from Shepard brought back a traumatic childhood experience which triggered "five minutes of emotional rage and chaos" (Cart "Rests" 1). The claim invoked, which was ultimately rejected by the judge presiding over the case, is known as the "homosexual-panic" or "gay-panic" defense. According to the Harvard Law Review, this defense, a manifestation of the temporary insanity plea, is "premised on the theory that a person with latent homosexual tendencies will have an extreme and uncontrollably violent reaction when confronted with a homosexual proposition" (Stryker 2). The homosexual panic defense-based on the premise that internal homophobia justifies cold-blooded murder-is one of the sad symptoms indicative of the homophobia that exists in American society today. Homophobia is one of the few prejudices that is still very visible in modern society. Only recently have gay rights become a topic of national concern. Thirty years ago, police raids on gay ba
Black, Robert. "Defendant Adopts 'Gay Panic' Defense in Student's Death." San Hammer, Joshua. "The 'Gay Panic' Defense." Newsweek. 8 November 1999. Unfortunately, jurors are still accepting this defense of temporary insanity due to gay panic. Such cases are travesties of our justice system. Just two years ago, after meeting Kenneth Brewer in a gay bar, Stephen Bright, a former hotel executive, went home with him. After an alleged sexual advance, Bright then beat Brewer to death. Although he was charged with second-degree murder, a Hawaiian jury found Bright guilty only of third-degree assault (a misdemeanor) in the killing and sentenced him to one year in jail, with $2000 dollars in fines (Stryker 2; Janofsky 3). He has been out of prison for over a year. Although this incident caused great dismay within the gay community, it failed to make national headlines. The implications of the homosexual panic defense are elucidated by this case; there are too many potential societal costs associated with letting a jury make a biased decision. Attacks against gay men tend to be excessively violent and irrational. Motivated by extreme hatred, they are "vicious in scope and the intent is to kill and maim" (Winer 30). One striking feature of such hate-motivated homicides is their gruesome nature. Seldom is a homosexual victim simply shot; he "is more apt to be stabbed a dozen or more times, mutilated and strangled" (Miller 169). This apparent brutality suggests that the attackers are losing control of reality, and are therefore suffering some sort of temporary insanity or diminished capacity. The inability to maintain control is the premise for the homosexual panic defense. On its face, suffering from any type temporary insanity should warrant the use of an insanity defense. However, the societal implications in allowing this defense are too great. Proof of insanity would be far too hard to demonstrate; thus this claim has the potential to be severely abused (Hunter interview). While it may be that these attackers have lost their ability to think rationally, by allowing the homosexual panic defense to bear weight in a court of law, the justice system is not only allowing hate crimes to exist, but is also excusing these murders.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2261
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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