A California judge postponed the arraignment Thursday of 14-year-old Brandon McInerney, charged with murdering 15-year-old gay schoolmate Lawrence King in February.
Ventura County superior court judge Kevin McGee continued the arraignment until June 12 after McInerney's public defense attorney, William Quest, requested more time to prepare his case.
The district attorney’s office has charged McInerney with premeditated murder with a special allegation of a hate crime. The boy allegedly shot Lawrence King on February 12 in front of fellow students in a classroom at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard. Citing a controversial 2000 law, Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox also decided to try McInerney as an adult, which could carry a sentence of 50 years to life in prison if he is convicted.
Defense attorney Quest told the Ventura County Star that he is preparing a “very in-depth” legal motion challenging the constitutionality of trying McInerney as an adult, which he wants to submit before arraignment.
Outside the courthouse, Quest blamed school officials for ignoring the two-way bullying but said he was “very happy” that lesbian and gay groups issued a statement calling on the D.A. to try McInerney in juvenile court, the Star reported. Quest noted that his client turned 14 years old on January 24, less than three weeks before the shooting; 13-year-olds cannot be prosecuted as adults.
The statement to which Quest referred was a letter to D.A. Gregory Totten sent April 14 by a coalition of 27 LGBT groups. They said they were “saddened and outraged” by King’s murder, but “at the same time, we call on prosecutors not to compound this tragedy with another wrong” by trying McInerney as an adult.
In an extensive phone interview with The Advocate after the hearing, Fox said she hasn’t “seen anything that would make me raise an eyebrow about how the school handled” the situation.
Fox said that she is collecting and reading with Totten everything on the case, including the letter from the LGBT groups.
“The boss and I read them all, and we think about them,” she said. “It is interesting to me that people have such strong opinions about this case when they really don’t know anything -- not only about Mr. McInerney but, really, about Larry King either. They don’t know what the facts are. But we consider them all, and we’re willing to keep our minds open.”
The decision about whether to try McInerney as an adult or move him to the juvenile court will be a collaborative decision involving the D.A., senior management, and herself, Fox said.
Since the investigation is ongoing, Fox would not discuss specifics of the case. In fact, she will not introduce all the elements of the case during the preliminary hearing, where the judge decides if the prosecution has met a very low burden of proof and can proceed to trial.
Fox said it is “way too early” to discuss whether she might offer a plea bargain, giving McInerney the opportunity to accept a deal that may be less than maximum time in prison.
“We don’t generally plea-bargain in this county,” said Fox, who specializes in homicides. “Ninety percent of the cases go to trial. But we are open to listening to anything that will convince us of what the right thing to do is -- so that is certainly a possibility in the future. It’s way too early to speculate.”
A plea might be reached, she speculated, “if there were something that both sides could agree on, that made both sides relatively secure and satisfied in terms of protection of the public and, from the defense perspective, the best deal they think they can garner for their client -- then that’s what it would look like. But I don’t know yet.”
Asked to elaborate on what she meant by "protection of the public," Fox said, “When you kill someone, to me, you need to be incarcerated away from the public for a long time. Because, to me, you’ve demonstrated that you’re dangerous. That’s why we have such lengthy sentences for murderers, because you don’t want to just say, ‘Now, don’t ever do that again!’ They’re dangerous people in most cases -- unless it’s some extreme case where the person was under duress; in those cases we generally work out some kind of plea or arrangement. What I’m thinking of is battered women, people who kill under extreme circumstances.
“But if it’s a situation where it’s unprovoked and premeditated,” Fox continued, “then I would say in pretty much all of those cases that public safety is a tremendous concern for me. And punishment is very high on my list of priorities. I’m very big on personal responsibility. And unless you can show me that you had a really, really, really good reason for doing what you did, I think you should stand up and be accountable for it. And you should be punished, because otherwise we would live in pure chaos. These are the rules we’ve set up for each other, and to me, it’s a very important part of this job.”
In an April 20 interview with the Star, Quest said King dressed differently, sometimes wearing makeup and women’s clothing to school. Additionally, Quest said, students witnessed King teasing McInerney, telling him that he liked him. Quest told the Star that McInerney perceived King’s treatment as harassment.
Fox declined to say if she thought Quest would mount a “gay panic defense” -- that is, that McInerney murdered King because the gay boy came on to him. However, Fox scoffed at any “blame the victim” defense as an “absolute failure to acknowledge personal responsibility.” Any “heat of passion” defense, Fox said, requires an immediate, unforeseen reaction to an objectively overwhelming provocation and the absence of malice of forethought -- the exact opposite of premeditation, which is what McInerney is charged with. (Karen Ocamb, The Advocate)
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