1 Year For Slaying Gay Activist

[Cannikin]

Posted: February 5, 2004 11:03 a.m. ET

(Knoxville, Tennessee) A man who was originally given a suspended sentence for the killing of a Knoxville gay-rights activist now will spend one year in jail, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Chad Allen Conyers admitted strangling Joseph Camber to death in April 2002 after police confronted him with DNA evidence taken from Camber's fingernails. Conyers was charged with second-degree murder. Last year he was allowed to plead guilty to the reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter, after convincing authorities he was straight and had acted out of rage at being propositioned by Camber.

Camber was killed in a parking lot after he left a gay club with Conyers. Camber, an organizer of Knoxville Pride, was a bartender at the club and was celebrating his birthday when he met Conyers. An autopsy showed he was strangled with such force his larynx was broken.

Meanwhile, Conyers remains free on bond. If he appeals, Conyers can ask to remain free on bond while the case winds its way through the appellate court system.
http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/02/020504murderSent.htm

[kayell]

1. So this means this next time some rude male hits on me

I can kill him and expect to get off scot free, right??

[meegbear]

6. As long as you don't do it when I'm doing door ...

go to town.

[LisaM]

9. Stole the words out of my mouth....

I cannot tell you how angry this makes me!

[BayCityProgressive]

2. It figures...

Gay people are always shafted under the law. My car was broken into at a gay bar and the police wouldn't even coem take a look at it. When I called them they just said " we can't help you there, you shouldn't put yourself in those situations". Yet I have seen police at many other bars for break ins and lesser problems.

[Cannikin]

7. BayCity, your post has pissed me off so bad...I cant BELIEVE that...

It deserves a thread all to itself...

[LisaM]

10. is that Bay City, Michigan?

that is enraging. Did you report that to the papers?

[BayCityProgressive]

18. Yes Michigan

but I have circumstances that make it impossible for me to report to anyone.

[LisaM]

21. Understood.

I'm sorry about your incident.

[Cannikin]

3. Makes me wonder why more women dont do it at night clubs..

I feel sorry for some of them sometimes having to fend off people who just wont take a hint!

I've never heard of a woman killing a man outside a nightclub just because she was hit on and gets off with a 'rage' defense.

[Exultant Democracy]

32. Well I guess by their logic,

only a lesbian would be allowed to strangle a man to death over being hit on.

[Sapphocrat]

44. If that were so...

...99% of lesbians would be serial killers by the time they were 21.

"Heterosexual panic? Perfectly understandable. Case dismissed!"

[noiretextatique]

38. no...but it works sometimes in reverse

remember the "yuppie murderer," robert chambers? he basically said the woman he killed tried to rape him, thus his reason for killing her.

[BearFlagDemocrat]

4. WTF?

If he was so traumatized by being hit on, WTF was he doing in a gay bar?! Was he there for the buffalo wings?

[davidinalameda]

26. yum buffalo wings

but I doubt it was the wings he was after

[yella_dawg]

5. Do What?

The guy cops a plea offered because of his "rage" at being propositioned by a gay man.It couldn't be because of weak evidence, since DNA tests had him cold. Yet this poor innocent was hanging in a gay bar at the time?

This is what the hate crime statutes were meant to deal with.

What assholes.

[Taeger]

8. Outrageous ...

They had a confession and went for a plea to a lesser count. This shouldn't be allowed by law. It's not a gay issue. This shit happens all the time.

[Bertha Venation]

11. INJUSTICE!

I am dumbfounded.

[cprise]

12. It's the "gay panic" denfense resurrected

"The rationale behind the argument is that a non-homosexual person can become so offended or outraged by the sexual or romantic interest of a homosexual that he or she is driven temporarily insane..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_panic_defense

[Bandit]

19. Could we use that argument against Republicans?

They really put me into a rage sometimes because they offend me so.:shrug:

[smirkymonkey]

33. If only....

the world would be a much better place. As long as they can't reciprocate, that is.

This is so sickening - are they now going to allow women to kill men that offend them by asking them out? I cannot belive this was allowed in the defense.

[icymist]

13. What?! One year for commiting premeditated murder?

What did this guy expect when hanging out in a gay bar?

[Mari333]

14. GADS!!! this infuriates me

homophobia rampant in the court system...hatred of gay folks..
God this makes me mad...

[Cannikin]

15. I agree..I'm running out of states to move to.

[proud patriot]

16. THIS FUCKING PISSES ME OFF

:mad: :grr: :mad:

[Caution]

17. This is flat out infuriating

1 damned year!?!?!?! ONE???

This is totally incredible. I don't even have the words to describe how angry this makes me. I'm one who will in 99% of cases argue that the justice system has gone insane with over-incarceration, but this is absurd! It is cases like this that cause people to call for mandatory minimums.

[Cooley Hurd]

20. More info (From Knoxville TN newspaper)...

Slayer of gay activist gets 1-year term

<snip>
Last March, Conyers was allowed to plead guilty to the reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter as part of a plea agreement with the DA's office. The deal also called for judicial diversion, which spared Conyers jail time as long as he obeyed the law and conditions imposed by the court.

The deal angered Camber's family and friends as well as activists in the gay community.

Four months later, Conyers was charged in Virginia Beach with being a "peeping tom" for an incident in a department store bathroom. Baumgartner set aside the diversion deal, and prosecutors contended Conyers duped them into believing his conduct on the night Camber was killed was an aberration.

At last week's sentencing hearing, Assistant District Attorney General Phil Morton argued it was Conyers who broke the deal by getting in trouble. Morton insisted the four-year sentence listed in Conyers' plea deal no longer applied.
</snip>

I'm sure Fred Phelps was outside the courthouse, yelling his bullshit.

[BR_Parkway]

31. More Puke "Personal Responsibility"

<Conyers has no felony convictions on his record, was cleared of the peeping tom charge and is seeking counseling for alcoholism and sexual abuse, Eldridge said. >

"I was enranged by his conduct, but if you don't buy that, I was sexually abused as a youngster and had to react that way, but if you don't buy that, I am an alcoholic and didn't know what I was doing, but if you don't buy that your honor - I killed him because of penis envy, which is why I was scoping out comparing myself to others in that Virginia bathroom misunderstanding."

These people make me sick and the protesting DA should resign in shame for allowing himself to be so readily "duped".

[bluestateguy]

22. Should have received the death penalty

This is also one more reason why the Left should oppose gun control. Gays in the red states must be allowed to protect themselves from homophobic fundamentalistwackos, as local law enforcement will not.

[Zhade]

41. I have a gay friend who has a CCW permit and always carries a gun.

He lives in the D.C. area, and it has saved his life more than once. He's never had to point it, just point at it, and the would-be bashers turned tail and fled.

Check out www.pinkpistols.com for more on the "armed gays don't get bashed" line of thinking.

[jokerman93]

23. Apparently, hate crime is...

One year for murder. Mmmm. Apparently, hate crime is just a little more egregious than cruelty to animals in Amerikaland.

[antipov1]

24. You gotta be fucking kidding me

Gay Panic is the stupidest defense on earth, and the worst thing is, our fucked up justice system allows it, and this asshole only gets one year. BULLSHIT!!!!!

[m-jean03]

25. I am so sorry and mad ---

This ugly world makes me cry all the fucking time...:cry: :cry: :cry:

[Gemini Cat]

27. Unbelievable!

So much for liberty and justice for all. Forget about pursuit of happiness. I suppose it will eventually become allowable to kill someone if they look at you the "wrong" way too.


:dem:

[David Zephyr]

28. Well, At Least Our Lives Now Merit One Year in Jail in the South.

I guess that's progress.

Southerners keep boasting about how "things are changing" and perhaps they are right. I know they wouldn't just say things that weren't true.

Taking a homosexual's life now is punishable by one year in jail.

We've come a long way!

[slackmaster]

29. I hope he at least gets some anger management classes

:eyes:

[PROGRESSIVE1]

30. 1 year for murder. Obviously one must be a....

white, conservative, straight(a.k.a "God fearin' Christian Folk") to get justice.

:puke:

[DieboldMustDie]

34. What about federal civil rights charges?

Of course, considering who's running the "Justice" Department these days, that's probably a bit much to hope for. :mad:

[Estragon]

35. History repeats itself

The same damned thing twenty-five years ago. A crazed councilman kills San Francisco gay activist and council member Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. The guy went free after about five years, if I remember right.

Guess things haven't changed all that much.

[Zhade]

42. Welcome to DU, Estragon.

Sorry one of your first posts had to be about something this insane.

[leQ]

36. i wonder what they do to men in prison who've killed gay friends

maybe he'll get his justice yet.

[tom_paine]

37. That's horrible, but sadly unsurprising

I don't envy you gay folks if the Busheviks finish their transformation of the Old American Republic into Totalitarian Orwellian Theocratic Empire.

I get the feeling it's going to be open season on you like it was for African-Americans in the South in the 40s and 50s.

Buy guns. Learn to use them.

I know it's not a perfect solution but it is the solution for "Jews in 1936 Nazi Germany" which is what gay people are right now.

Of course, the Busheviks are "kinder and gentler" Nazis, but the other shoe will eventually drop when they feel secure enough.

[Cooley Hurd]

39. At least that's one year of being continuously raped...

...when Conyers is in prison.

Wish it were 30...

[Zhade]

40. I am ashamed to be an American.

Good to know that if someone killed ME for being bi, they'd only get a year if it happened in Tennessee.

:mad:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

43. But people rant against Hate Crime laws on this site and get away with it

This guy clearly went to a gay bar to get hit on so he could bash a gay guy. This crime FITS the very definition HATE CRIME laws were enacted to address.

[foreigncorrespondent]

45. He killed a man...

...and he has been able to walk? That is total fuckling bullshit. Where is the justice in that?