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)
