Prosecutor seeks to quash 'gay panic' defense in Oxnard slaying

[The Straight Story]

The trial of an Oxnard teenager accused of gunning down a gay classmate he thought was flirting with him marks the first test of a state law allowing judges to admonish jurors that a victim's sexual orientation should not influence deliberations.

Attorneys for Brandon McInerney argue that their client, who was 14 when he gunned down Larry King in an Oxnard junior high school computer lab, was so humiliated by King's flirtation that it provoked him to kill his classmate. Gay rights advocates say the argument is a classic "gay panic" defense.

The panic defense became a flashpoint following the 2002 slaying of Gwen Araujo, a Bay Area transgender teen who was beaten and strangled by three men. Defense attorneys for the suspects argued that their clients panicked after learning Araujo was a biological male and won a mistrial.

When the suspects escaped first-degree murder convictions, legislators responded by passing a law designed to blunt the use of panic defenses.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0721-gay-panic-20110721,0,6004986.story