A follow up: Steven Scarborough was charged with felony murder and faced mandatory life in prison without parole in the death of 62-year-old Victor Manious.
Scarborough admitted in taped police interview that he hit Victor Manious with a bat, stuffed him in a car trunk after either 1) he was come on to, or 2) he woke up to find Manious performing oral sex on him, and in either scenario Scarborough felt that this violated his beliefs as a Southern Baptist, justifying the bat attack and all the rest of it — including the theft of Manious’s wallet and mobile phone. The Southern Baptist convictions of Scarborough also made him use the man’s credit cards for shopping sprees, gas and air fare to Texas.
Manious was alive when stuffed into the trunk — medical authorities said he would have survived if 911 had been called at the time Scarborough was “out of danger.”
The jury decided that, despite the ludicrous account and changing stories, Scarborough was indeed assaulted and the bat attack/murder/criminal spree didn’t merit a sentence of felony murder — they gave him manslaughter. It carries a 15 year max.
Related:
* Gay panic: the defense that will not die (and on Pandagon)
73 Responses to “Michigan: ‘gay panic’ verdict - manslaughter, not murder”
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Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
They just created the license to murder homos, the pink triangle won’t be necessary this time, Individualist Americans can DIY.
That is just so depressing.
How can they think leaving the guy in his trunk to die for 4 days while he was on a shopping spree with his cards was simply manslaughter?
It’s probably indiscrete of me to say this, but . . .
Knowing the prosecutor and the judge involved, it doesn’t surprise me that the prosecution was less than susccessful.
This is the ultimate danger of “othering”.
Some people are considered by (some segments of) society as inherently less valuable than people like they themselves are. Therefore crimes against “those people” - even including murder - are not as bad as they might otherwise be.
Victor Manious’s life has just been found to be worth less than others.
If it had been a pretty blond-haired, blue-eyed, college coed who was beaten to death, then robbed, and then her killer went on a buying spree - it’s difficult to imagine her death being treated as anything less than extremely serious.
In the end, this is what being treated equally in the eyes of the law is all about. This time, a group of Americans in Grand Rapids was tested - and they failed.
What was produced instead is yet another indictment against a society where all lives are not equally valuable. Shame on us…
From the Michigan Penal Code definitions:
MANSLAUGHTER: Can be a lesser-included offense to murder if the defendant acted out of passion or anger brought about by adequate cause and before the defendant had a reasonable time to calm down.
So, in essence, the thing separating this and felony (first degree) murder is premeditation vs. spur-of-the-moment. In other words, felony murder (murder in furtherance of committing another crime) would have required some evidence that this dirtbag planned to rob the victim all along. Certainly, the testimony from the Peruvian immigrant (Barbaran) who was also robbed by the defendant should have shown that.
Unfortunately, in the instant case, it seems that he killed the only other witness as to what happened. At some point, a judge has to consider excluding such garbage or properly instructing the jury, but in doing so might risk having the entire verdict overturned on appeal.
“Gay panic,” “sexsomnia…” gotta love these phony defenses being used to excuse criminal behavior. Just makes me sick that they’re becoming so successful in court.
thanks for that summarization norbizness. Does Michigan not have 2nd degree murder statute before you get to manslaughter? Forgive me, all I know about law is family law and the tv show Law and Order, to use their parlance did they backstop the murder charge with a manslaughter charge and than use the victims otherness, as mike pointed out, to secure a lesser sentence from the jury? Seems, as always, that what we think of justice doesnt match up with the law, not that it necessarily should.
He committed robbery in conjunction with felony assault and he didn’t get the death penalty?
Christ, Mike Ess, this isn’t just a license to kill gays, it’s open season. I mean, Christ on a pogo stick, why don’t they just hang out a sign, not Christ on a pony to your comment.
blitz,
sexsomnia isnt a phony defense it actually does happen/exist, its just amazing how many people develop it after the first person uses it successfully, and rightfully, as a defense/justification.
James: Yes they do; they also have an “open murder” charge where they let the jury decide rather than trying to parse out first and second degree murder.
Ginmar: It is totally implausible; the jury had to have believed that Scarborough went to the apartment without the intention of robbing him, despite his other recent robbery, and that he was provoked into killing the victim (which bumps it out of the murder range and down into manslaughter). In essence, the gay panic nonsense here was not used as self-defense, but to get him into the lesser included defense.
We’ve only got his word that he was provoked to murder, and I don’t think this guy is what you’d call reliable. Looks like he definitely got a jury of his peers.
Ginmar: More unbelievable is how they didn’t see this as being in the furtherance of another crime (his previous burglary, his spending spree), which would have rendered the manslaughter question rather moot. Which is why we need to clone enough Einsteins to make sure at least every jury has one.
I tried to leave a long comment, but the internets ate it.
Scenarrio 2: More a sexual assault panic defense. Isn’t one allowed to defend oneself from sexual assault? If Scarborough were a woman, I wouldn’t think twice: she can kill someone who is in the process of raping her. With a man, I do tend to think that reasonable force in the situation described doesn’t include killing, certainly not taking the time to find a weapon.
In scenario 1: It is murder. Unappealing people can try to pick up someone.
Scenario 3: Scarborough murdered and robbed someone, then made up the sexual assault to escape 1st degree murder, and maybe a death penalty.
It seems to me that the jury averaged 1, 2, and 3. I would have gone with second degree murder, because 3 seems the most likely. (NOT arguing that sexual assault charges are mostly made up. Arguing that people who face first degree murder convictions will lie)
Relgion: unimportant. Everyone is allowed to defend themselves.
Good thing stuff like murder and robbery aren’t against his Southern Baptist religion. Only teh gay.
rob,
alternative scenarios got a lot of play in the first thread about this. I’m always a bit weary to give a full opinion on legal cases where I did not see exactly and only what the jury did. Yes anyone who is being sexually assaulted can defend themselves its just in this case his other actions take away from his defense, the robbery preceeding these events and the spending spree after them. His story, whichever version you personally believe is in my mind at least somewhat credible, I’ll put it in the 1% range. Given my own bias in regards to his religious beliefs and the robbery before the murder I just cant believe him but at the same time, if he was assaulted i am also reticent to automatically disbelieve anything a sexual assault victim does after an assault. Kind o falong the lines of, ‘well she couldnt have been raped, after she said it happened she went on a 3-day cruise to mexico/right back to work with him etc.
As far as the bat issue, did they say he had to move a ton to get to the bat? Either way, I dont know about this guy, his size strength coordination or training but I could kill most any man or woman with a single blow of my hands let alone a bat, leverage or not, if I got lucky enough to hit just the right spot. If I was being assaulted who knows what additional strength that would bring up.
Either way this defense strategy ‘worked’ in as much as he only got manslaughter.
James,
Didn’t read the first thread till just now. As I said, scenario 3 is far and away the most likely.
Crap, missed the part about the victm being alive when he was stuffed in the trunk: Its murder no matter what happened before. Justification stops when one is out of immediate danger. Wth the age difference, I think he could have prevented further assault(if he was asaulted to begin with) without killing the man.
James, didn’t read the first thread till just now. As I said, scenario 3 is far and away the most likely.
If I was being assaulted who knows what additional strength that would bring up.
Not a question of “additional strength”, Jamespi. It’s a question of whether your response to waking up to discover an unwelcome blowjob was happening would be to lock the man who did it in the boot of his car for four days to die slowly while you had a shopping spree with his credit cards.
i am also reticent to automatically disbelieve anything a sexual assault victim does after an assault.
See above. I think you could make an argument for “I was being sexually assaulted so I hit him over the head while his head was in my crotch to make him stop”. (It kind of depends on his having the baseball bat within arm’s reach, doesn’t it?)
I don’t see how you can make an argument for “I was being sexually assaulted so after I’d hit him over the head I stole his credit cards and locked him in his own car for four days to die.”
I also wonder if this has anything to do with differing state laws. In California, if you kill someone in the course of robbing them — even if you do it accidentally — you automatically get bumped up to at least Murder Two (IIRC).
Though I suppose that was the point of this particular defense: if you can convince the jury that he killed the guy for assaulting him and then just happened to steal his credit cards and go on a four-day spending spree, you’d get this kind of result.
And, yes, boys and girls, this is why scumbags use the “gay panic” defense — because it works.
Can I invoke Southern Baptist panic? Given my personal background, I have reasons for phobia, at the very least.
Blegh. As for “sexual assault”: of course anyone has a right to defend themselves when attacked. But as others have pointed out, his accounts are inconsistent with the rest of his actions, plus selective and changing to fit whatever defense strategy might work.
The spending spree occurred afterwards, and the previous burglary was long before, so they couldn’t claim the murder as being in furtherance.On the other hand, I can’t see why the spending spree didn’t automatically invalidate the sudden passion mitigation claim. Or the locked in a trunk for 4 days bit. A “reasonable person” would certainly have had time to reconsider during that.
Ridiculous. 4 days dying in a trunk is torture. It begs the question as to whether Americans are becoming numb to the idea of torture because of the apologists in power nationally that keep downplaying its inhumanity. So clearly first degree murder.
“It begs the question as to whether Americans are becoming numb to the idea of torture because of the apologists in power nationally that keep downplaying its inhumanity.”
Dr T, we’ve had our differences on other threads, but I’m in 100% agreement with this.
Thank you for stepping up. Sometimes it feels like there are only a handful of Americans who take this stuff seriously…
The problem isn’t that he got 15 years, the problem is with almost everyone else who gets more than that, for no good reason.
Maximum sentences in European countries are far less than in the U.S. - even excluding the death penalty. This type of penalty should be nearer the standard. Of course there are some cases where the perp should never be released.
“The problem isn’t that he got 15 years, the problem is with almost everyone else who gets more than that, for no good reason.”
I don’t think he’s been sentenced yet.
15-years is apparently the maximum for the charge he was convicted on. He could very well end up with much less than 15-years when he’s actually sentenced…
So, in essence, the thing separating this and felony (first degree) murder is premeditation vs. spur-of-the-moment.
No, not exactly.
Murder (under Michigan law) requires an intent to kill, an intent to do great bodily hjarm, or the willful and wanton disregard of the fact that the natural and probable consequences of one’s acts is death or great bodily harm.
Murder becsome first degreeM murder if something qualifying as a murder (that is, a killing committed with one of the intents specified above) was committed with premeditation and deliberation or was committed in the course of certain specified felonies. Strictly speaking, Michigan does not have felony murder.
Voluntary manslaughter involves the intent necessary for murder being negated by sudden passion
This guy will get an indeterminate sentence of not more than 10-15 years, which means he can be reelased on parole after serving the minimum term but before he “maxes out.” The maximum term, 15 years, is fixed by statute; the mimium term depends on application of the sentencing guidelines, but cannot be more than 2/3 of the maximum.
Sorry jamespi, that’s what I meant. These are defenses that are being abused by defendants and then believed by juries. I can believe that a major bigot could in actuality “panic” when a gay person puts his hands on him and lose control of his actions, however I’m doubtful that occurred in this case or many similar cases.
You know, it’s not just this guy. It’s the twelve other people that agree with this asshole, are too stupid to see the pattern, and gullible enough to swallow bigotry when it’s their bigotry.
I dont know ginmar, what facts did the jury have in front of them? Perhaps rea or someone could shed some light on this, given that definition of murder in that state, the testimony we know about it, is it possible to get full transcripts? I would agree gin that theres probably a lot of bigotry involved but I’m also pretty sure theres a lot more to it, I always wonder why people berate jurors so much without seeing/only seeing what the jurors did and having to act within the confines of the law, not neceessarily justice.
Those of you who are suggesting the death penalty should be aware that Michigan doesn’t have it.
jesurg,
True, as Ive said a few times the spree and trunk make this guys story pretty much unbelievable in my eyes but hell, ive seen crazier stuff get through the courts. The only thing I know about the court system is how to get my ass handed to me with family law but I could see someone calling the aftermath of the attack a (forgive my lack of knowledge of the right terms) psychotic break or dissociative episode. How did they actually explain the 4 days and the spree? They had to have said something under oath, wonder what it was.
Even if Scarborough didn’t think to go on a spending spree with the victim’s cards till after he killed him, thus negating felony murder, I still don’t see how anyone who hangs with people who go to gay bars can assert any type of gay panic defense. (I’m shocked, shocked to find that gay bar patrons want to kiss and blow each other.) He would have a limited privilege to stop being sexually assaulted (assuming that was true) but the privilege would have ended long before he locked the elderly man in his trunk.
Come on. If we actually punish people for murdering LGBT persons, they might stop killing them!
hector can you expand upon ‘limited privilege to stop being sexually assaulted’ please? Why would it be limited?
I usually give Grand Rapids the benefit of the doubt in regards to progressiveness, but I can’t ignore this. I’m ashamed to be going to college here.
It’s simple, James, you don’t get to kill someone unless you think they’re going to kill you.
hector can you expand upon ‘limited privilege to stop being sexually assaulted’ please? Why would it be limited?
Reasonable force necessary to stop the assault. The limitation is on the force.
The limitation is on the force.
namely, that once you’ve stopped the assault, you don’t get to keep beating the guy for good measure.
ah ok, so a woman couldnt use a gun in her purse to stop being raped if she could get to it?
im sure its different state to state but its based on reasonable belief right? would it be reasonable to believe (again if we take this guys seeminly bs story at face value) that after being knocked unconscious and waking up to being sexually assaulted that your life might also be in danger? Personally I think he should have gotten a longer sentence and 4 days in the trunk is torture and murder to me but hitting a guy in the head once with a bat seems totally and completely justified and that blow could have killed him instantly.
right vegan but in stopping the assault you can kill the attacker and killing someone isnt even that difficult, one well placed blow, stab, shot, etc.
right vegan but in stopping the assault you can kill the attacker and killing someone isnt even that difficult, one well placed blow, stab, shot, etc.
Yes, the single shot kill is justified, if you reasonably feared for your life. Even if you were wrong - say someone points an unloaded gun at you, so you shoot them first - if your fear was reasonably justified, you’re okay.
However, you can’t stop, reload the clip, and keep firing.
Somewhere, the ghost of Dan White is smiling.
This sucks.
Is there any chance of an appeal?
Is there any chance of an appeal?
None. He got manslaughter, so he’s certainly not going to appeal, and the state doesn’t get to do so. Double jeopardy and all.
The family can still sue him for wrongful death, but they probably aren’t going to get much.
“Somewhere, the ghost of Dan White is smiling.”
If they’d added Twinkies to the defense ploy, the jury might have reduced it to involuntary manslaughter, suspended sentence, and community service…
I am astonished by the desire for vengeance of some posters. Justice is never really served, but looking for revenge is not an alternative.
1) the victim was 62
2) The killer met him in a gay bar…why was he there? If his religious beliefs were severe enough that he could kill because of them…
Great defense attorney, willing jury, incompetant prosecutor- no justice
Opening statements in Steven Scarborough murder trial describe 2 scenarios in Victor Manious’ death
Posted by Barton Deiters | The Grand Rapids Press March 26, 2008 14:31PM
Categories: Breaking News
GRAND RAPIDS — Two vastly different accounts of what happened before, during and after the death of a local businessman and church leader were presented to jurors today in opening statements for the murder trial of Steven Scarborough.
Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Helen Brinkman said Scarborough lured 62-year-old Victor Manious from a local gay bar to an apartment on Kalamazoo Avenue SE in July and beat him to death with a bat while robbing the older man.
Scarborough then left Manious in the trunk of his wife’s Toyota parked the wrong way on a downtown Grand Rapids street, she told jurors in Circuit Judge Dennis Leiber’s courtroom.
Brinkman said medical experts will testify that if Manious had received treatment for his wounds right away, he could have survived rather than dying in the trunk of the car.
Vengeance is an acceptable substitute in certain circumstances.
Yes, perhaps I’m bloodthirsty. But I’m sick and fucking tired of seeing my country raped to death without any consequences. Justice is wholly and completely dead, and its watchdogs have handed over their dentures (”impeachment is off the table”). It is all I can do to keep from falling off the edge of despair.
So I wish for the blood of the guilty, for some approximation of punishment for crimes committed. It makes me feel better.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to dream about building the world’s largest woodchipper.
This whole thing makes me want to throw up.
That’s the value of a human life if that life is gay - it’s not murder to lure him to your apartment to rob him, hit him with a bat, lock him in a trunk to die while you shop with his credit cards, and then claim some ridiculous story about how someone three times your age overpowered you, knocked you out without any signs of a struggle, and tried to make you TEH GAY.
ginmar asked:
This was a Michigan case; Michigan does not have capital punishment.
Mr Ess wrote:
Mr Scarborough was charged with first degree murder and prosecuted for first degree murder, so it can’t be said that the legal system didn’t treat this as less than extremely serious. It was the jury which decided that the state failed to prove felony murder.
ginmar wrote:
You don’t know that. It is entirely possible that a majority favored conviction on felony murder, but there was a minority of holdouts for manslaughter, and, in the end, they opted for manslaughter as the only conviction that they could get, rather than opt for a mistrial.
“Vengeance is an acceptable substitute in certain circumstances.”
yikes, you better hope youre the one who gets to define those circumstances.
From the article:
Classy as always.
Dana, I was first criticizing the jury, and secondarily criticizing the prosecution.
We can talk about how “fair” our justice system is from here to eternity, but the fact is the end results are often subject to who the judge is, who the prosecution is, the defense, the jury, and media coverage. Not to mention who the victim is and who the defendant is. Changes in any one of those elements can have a drastic effect on the end result.
With institutionalized bigotry, a victim who isn’t a poster-child for Virginal American Womanhood or some other dog whistle, who knows how vigorous the police and prosecution efforts were. And a jury can be an incredible crap-shoot.
One case doesn’t define us as a nation. But hundreds do, and this kind of defense has been successfully used way too many times for random chance.
Is it wrong of me to expect my country to try (much) harder to live up to the ideals we loudly proclaim to any other nation?…
Mr Ess wrote:
I’d point out here that Nicole Brown Simpson was a very pretty white man, and ‘t’was a black man accused of cutting her throat.
Our judicial systems are filled with people, people who aren’t perfect, and people who have their own prejudices. It will never be perfect. But I don’t think that we’d like the results if we took the people out of the equation.
The prosecution obviously thought that they had a solid case for felony murder; I wouldn’t put any blame on them for not trying to prosecute to the full extent of the law. Whether they did a good job in presenting their case, we don’t know.
But we did. Three of our ideals are that the accused has a right to be represented by counsel, that the accused has a right to a trial by jury, and that the accused must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. What is not one of our ideals is that the accused should be convicted automatically if the public outcry against him is great enough.
Neither of us was there, and neither of us heard the entire presentation of the evidence; we are, at best, “judging” this case through the filter of the media, second and third hand. Our system requires that a reasonably selected jury hear that evidence, and take their best decision, under the law. Sometimes that doesn’t work out in accordance with popular perceptions of what results ought to be obtained, but we most certainly did act within our stated ideals as a free republic.
And Dana defends a system where a murderer isn’t given a murder charge. No surprise there.
Classy as always, Dana.
Dana, OJ was a rich man. You should not be surprised that rich people cannot be held responsible for their crimes. That is your party’s platform.
Wait a minute, where was CSI on this one? Steven Scarborough claims that he woke up with his dick in Victor Manious mouth…shouldn’t there have been physical evidence to support that?
…and awww, I didn’t know the guy was sixty-two, surely a strapping man at the age of 21 can defend himself against an old dude without the use of lethal force?
damian,
he was charged with murder and prosecuted as such, the jury gave manslaughter.
ive sat on juries in michigan. playing the southern baptist angle + the fact that there are so may uneducated people in this state was all but a guarantee to get him off with a lesser charge. it’s maddening.
Darnian writes:
Mr Scarborough was charged with felony murder; the jury decided something else. Would you say that we ought to do away with the jury system?
Ah, nothing like two little gay-bashers sticking words in my mouth. I refuse to play your stupid little semantics games, you children, because I have better things to do than waste my life on hatemongers.
I’d point out here that Nicole Brown Simpson was a very pretty white man, and ‘t’was a black man accused of cutting her throat.
More to the point it was her husband who was accused of cutting her throat. And there’s a huge amount of victim-blaming that takes place with domestic violence trials.
One of my co-workers who was on a jury was astounded that she had to talk her fellow jurors into convicting a guy who beat his girlfriend, ripped the phone out of the wall, and locked her in a room for three hours. Because, you know, he seemed like a good guy who was, like, really sorry, and is it really that bad to be locked in a room for three hours with your boyfriend screaming at you through the door?
“More to the point it was her husband who was accused of cutting her throat.”
Her very rich, successful, celebrity, ex-husband, to be exact. Who was accused of murdering not just her but her current boyfriend as well. While that suggests motive, it also makes it easier to paint her as less than perfect.
Please help me. I live in this state.
There was a case in the Michigan supreme court that was decided a year or so ago.
I young woman was murdered and the police couldn’t find out who the murderer was. Years after the case there was a break and the murderer was caught and proven to be the one. The family sued and it was ruled that in order for the case to have been valid the family would have to have sued the person after the crime and that the poorly worded statute was interpreted to mean that the clock started at the moment of the murder, not at the time that the murderer was identified.
Well, gee. Let’s go into the ‘way back machine’ and sue the guy that the cops couldn’t find.
I thought it was a very stupid decision but it stands. The thing was that there was precedent for interpreting the statute as being that the clock starts at the moment of the identity being made so the court basically re-wrote it and threw perhaps thousands of cases into the incinerator by their fancy -reinterpreting- the law. You know, like the SCOTUS appointing Bush president in 2000…
And the gun nuts and wingnuts are just scary around here. Racism is dripping off everything that happens.
Michigan is nuts… Thanks partly to the DeVos family…
Wow, shocking, Dana is defending the right of assholes to let other assholes get off when they rob, murder, and use a bullshit white boy defense.
I am shocked, I tell you.
It’s one thing to ‘know’ your perp is guilty, it’s quite another to prove it. The playful lad from Georgia was pretty much a rapist but the prosecutor couldn’t prove that charge. However, since the ‘gentleman’ in question had sex with a minor, one could charge him with that and achieve some sort of justice.
I have great faith in our citizens and their ability to be honest jurors. The case may have been weak, poorly prosecuted, lacking evidence, or simply not proven. I can’t assume they are sick b@stards that delight in the …God..4 days…death of anyone.
OJ had decent defense lawyers, something most people can’t afford. Simply because he’s the nearest black man doesn’t make him guilty. Being the ex makes him a likely suspect but still isn’t proof. The timeline is problematic, especially in LA. Watching paparazzi video of him led me to question his ability to take on two people at the same time. Theories not explored and ruled out by the police (TMK) were that the killer was after Ron Goldman (drugs, sex, money issues) or that it was a botched attempt to extort more cash from OJ. NBS was trying to up the amount and nothing would have been more helpful than bruises/cuts and pictures.
Sorry, whiteness gives you no assumption of innocence.
Dana, for a law-and-order, lock’em-up type, I have to tell you, you’re being mighty sanguine about this.
Dana is one of the few rational people commenting here.
Unfortunately, so many think they know all, but also unfortunately they were not on the jury.
Why is it that European countries have far less severe sentences and a much lower crime and jailing rate?
Mr Scribe, I was surprised by the verdict, but, like everyone else here, my information is second-and-third hand. None of us sat through that whole trial, so we can’t know what we’d have done as jurors.
There was an episode of Deep Space Nine in which Chief O’Brien was captured and put on trial by the Cardassians. Under the Cardassian system of justice, the accused is always guilty, and the job of the “defense counsel” is to get the accused to admit his guilt, for the good of Cardassian society. It seems that, in the comments in this thread (and the previous one on the subject), many are shocked that the defendant’s counsel didn’t get him to simply admit his guilt, and confess to the most serious charge, for the good of our society. Damn it, he owed it to our society to accept the most serious punishment!
But that ain’t the way our legal system works. Sometimes the guilty are acquitted, sometimes the guilty are convicted of lesser offenses, and yes, sometimes the innocent are convicted. It isn’t perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than in most places.
Bitter Scribe: Dana, for a law-and-order, lock’em-up type, I have to tell you, you’re being mighty sanguine about this.
Dana is homophobic. It’s probably a big step for him that he’s not fulminating that the jury found that fine, upstanding, homophobic, white young man guilty of manslaughter for beating an elderly man to death. Homophobia, in Dana’s eyes, clearly excuses the sin of murder.
Dana has always been “Pro-life” only by courtesy.
“Dana has always been “Pro-life” only by courtesy.”
I think it’s pretty clear that Dana is a fairly typical Rightwing Authoritarian Cultist. And like most RWAs, he believes that “legitimate” authority is to be obeyed and not questioned.
I don’t believe he intends any harm as a result of this thinking, for what it’s worth. He sees himself as a good and moral man, who upholds the standards of society. And to large extent, he probably is, by most people’s standards.
As a conservative, and a Catholic, he believes some things that result in bad thinking. For example, I don’t think he understands LGBT people at all, and probably has a hard time seeing their rights as being just as legit as anyone else’s. This is, of course, wrong. Since he probably doesn’t examine his privilege and his biases too closely (and may not really be aware of them to large extent), it’s easier for him to discount the results in this case, rather than be outraged as he might be if the two men’s roles were switched.
That he’s stuck around Pandagon this long is in many ways a hopeful sign. Maybe we will be a good influence on him, just as many Amanda, Pam, and many of the regulars here have been a good influence on me.
I realize this is just my opinion, and I may be projecting. Dana often disappoints me, and sometime makes me very angry. I’ve exchanged harsh words with him on multiple occasions. But I don’t think Dana is a bad person. And I don’t think he’s a lost cause.
pinky.
that does sound bad but I still hesitate to decry the law itself over any one case since I lack a full understanding of why the rulings were made in such cases and how the precedent that could be set could be used in nefarious ways. Same thing applies for me to this case, from what little I know/understand, seems the defense played on some bigotry but also made a compelling argument defusing the killing in conjunction with another crime thing. I also never underestimate the relative value of witnesses in a jury trial, the one telling the truth could come off badly and the one lying/covering up can come off like a saint and the jury reacts to that.
I’m all for getting the laws themselves changed but reacting to a specific case always leaves me with more questions than answers and rarely gives me more understanding of whats going on in the courts and why it happens unless it is part of a larger pattern, such as gay bashing/gay panic defense. Even then I fall back to justice and the law are not the same and I, as far as I understand them, am all for the protections we grant any accused as well as knowing that what is shown a jury and what they are legally allowed to consider often doesnt jive with what we see/hear.
Finally, on the OJ thing and cases like it, money is a huge factor there as well as making up for past mistakes. Seems that was there in that case, along with a stellar defense team, and in cases where women kill their spouses and then claim self-defense or dv even though those claims cannot be substantiated, we default to believing them out of, what seems at times, the shitty treatment women in that position received for centuries (in this country)