Posted on 11/19/2009 2:10:58 PM PST by BuckeyeTexan
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- The man charged with first-degree murder in the killing of a gay teenager in Puerto Rico will likely use "gay panic" as a defense, a police report said.
Juan A. Martinez Matos, 26, a married father of four, confessed he was cruising the "red light" district of Caguas, a city south of San Juan, looking for women and picked up 19-year-old Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado thinking he was a woman, the report said.
When the two went into a house "the suspect (allegedly) found out that Lopez was a man, after Lopez made sexual advances, and as a result of the rage, Matos did what he did," the report quoted in the newspaper El Nuevo Dia said.
Lopez Mercaco's dismembered, beheaded and burned body was found Friday on a road in Cayey, Puerto Rico, near Caguas.
A gay panic defense argues a person acted in a state of violent temporary insanity.
The U.S. attorney's office weighed the possibility of charging Martinez Matos under a new federal hate crimes law, spokeswoman Lymarie Llovet told CNN.
U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law last month the Matthew Shepard Act extending federal protection to illegal acts motivated by a person's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
Shepard was a University of Wyoming student found to have been tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyo., in 1998. During the trial, witnesses testified Shepard was targeted because he was gay.
If Martinez Matos is charged under the new hate crimes provision, it would likely be the first such case under the latest addition to the law.
A vigil is to be held Sunday in Oakland, Calif., where Lopez Mercado lived and was active in the gay community.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
I wonder if there’s such a thing as “liberal panic?”
I wonder if we can claim Islamic Panic ...????
Hmm.. seems to me that a guy pretending to be a woman would be a case of fraud.. perhaps not a crime punishable by death.. but certainly a deception that put all following acts into motion.
Sooooo.......
In a “gay panic” he still found the time to dismember, behead and burn the body?
Good luck on that “excuse”.
This is why we don’t need hate crime laws.
He murdered someone... which is horrible. Why can’t he be tried based on what he did (not what he thought)?
He should be punished for murdering someone, but not because he didn’t like gay people (and that might not even be true.. he might have just not liked being fooled).
The two idiots at first seemed to think a gay panic defense might work for them and that suited the MSM agenda just fine. Didn't work, though, they are both in prison for life without parole.
I think that one falls under the plain old common sense thing.
I agree; he needs to get punished to the full extent of the law for murdering someone... he’s a monster
but he shouldn’t be punished for hating gay people.
“In a ‘gay panic’ he still found the time to dismember, behead and burn the body?”
Gay panic could only protect him from 1st degree murder, not whatever he did after killing him that might be considered a crime in itself (unless he also went crazy before those acts).
To think that 100 years ago, he would have been lauded for doing the community a service as were lynchers.
I like this. I had a ‘Wife Panic’ this morning, and this evening I had a ‘Boss Panic’ as well as several ‘Co worker Panics’. Then as I was going to go dump the results of my ‘panics’ in the river, I had ‘Random Guy Walking Dog’ panic.
I bet Osama Bin Laden just had an ‘American Panic’ for a little while. Pali’s just got some ‘Jew Panic’ going on.
I can go on and on and on.
“She looked like a girl but talked like a man,
L-O-P-EZ Lo-Pez,
L_O-P-EZ Lo-Pez.”
Twinkie defense? ;-)
“Gay panic could only protect him from 1st degree murder”
Or any crime connected to the act of murdering him, since he was temporarily insane. I doubt the defense would argue that the insanity spread to covering up the crime, because it’s not very plausible. They probably figure a murder charge is more important to avoid than, what?, illegally disposing a body.
As for the notion that his covering up the crime demonstrates conciousness of guilt, or that it somehow establishes he was in control of his actions at the time, I don’t see it. If temporary insanity is real, it does not deny people the ability to realize that they may be in trouble after they regain their sanity.
“To think that 100 years ago, he would have been lauded for doing the community a service as were lynchers.”
Not necessarily. People could tink he was a closet-case, and might wonder what he was doing with a dude in his car in the first place. Public opinion is suspicious, when it’s not fickle.
Thank goodness we aren't like that anymore.
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