I’m sure you were NEVER a jerk when you were 14.
Maybe I was in some other way. While I never whistled at nor made disrespectful comments to a married woman, I'm sure I probably did things to anger some adults at the time. And if/when I did, I didn't deserve to be beaten to death for them either.
But if I was murdered by a bunch of thugs for disrespecting one of their wives to show off to my friends, it wouldn't make me less of a jerk for doing it.
There's a common saying about people who act like jerks that goes, "One of these days, he's going to do that to the wrong person." That's what Till did.
Again, as I stated twice in my original post, it doesn't excuse the thugs for murdering him. But it doesn't justify Till's behavior either.