SFGate.com – Wyatt Buchanan
A gay Atlanta man was bludgeoned to death and his confessed killer walked free after claiming he was forced into a sexual act and responded in self-defense. The killer of a Kentucky man whose body was stuffed in a suitcase and dumped into a lake also claimed he acted to thwart a sexual advance and was convicted of manslaughter instead of murder.
And a Newark man argued in an Alameda County courtroom that his killing of transgender teen Gwen Araujo was motivated by the discovery of her gender identity. A jury rejected that argument and convicted him of second-degree murder.
Thursday, prosecutors and law enforcement officials from across the nation will gather in San Francisco to discuss strategies to counter the “gay panic” or “transgender panic” defenses used in courtrooms to gain acquittals or reduced punishments for violent crimes.
“We need to be able to understand who the victims are and explain why who they are can never be argued as a justification for their demise,” said San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who organized the conference. As many as 200 prosecutors and law enforcement officers are expected to attend the event, which is sponsored by gay, lesbian and transgender groups along with the state and national associations of district attorneys.
State Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, will talk about a bill she authored that would require judges, at the request of an attorney, to specifically instruct jurors not to let their biases based on gender identity or sexual orientation influence their decision.