Count me Out of the July 19th Protests Against Iran for their Death Penalty!

In answer to your question, no matter how unfair the death penalty is in the US as far as I know no one has been executed for the crime of being gay.

My question to you is shouldn't evil be protested where ever it is found ? Are you will to stand up for what is right or wrong or is politics more important to you. What you call adding kindling just sounds like a cop out and a rationalzation. Trust me the present gov't certainly would not use gay rights as an excuse for invading Iran. So if you feel it's ok to be silient when people are hung because of there sexual preference well tht's your choice, I sure those two boy's feel better knowing you were upset about their murder, but not upset enough to want to lift a finger to prevent the next two from the same fate.

http://www.ccadp.org/deathpenalty-homophobia.htm

Queer on Death Row
In Murder Cases, Being Gay Can Seal a Defendant's Fate

You may never have heard of Calvin Burdine, but his case should be familiar.
Burdine is the Texas death-row inmate whose lawyer allegedly fell asleep
during his trial. (The lawyer claimed he was merely concentrating.) The
story surfaced during last year's presidential campaign as a stunning
reminder of why Texas is known as the execution capital of the free world.
The fact that Burdine's trial took only 13 hours did not seem unusual.
But a federal court found the evidence of his attorney's naps disturbing
enough to grant Burdine a stay of execution so his case could be
reviewed. It is still pending.

Yet, another aspect of Burdine's appeal has gone unaddressed. His gayness
was used by the state in ways that may have marked him for death.
Jurors - several of whom admitted animus toward gays-heard the prosecutor
say during closing arguments that "sending a homosexual to the
penitentiary certainly isn't a very bad punishment for a homosexual."
Burdine's lawyer did not object, but then, he had no problem calling the
codefendant in the case a "tush hog." He didn't object when the
prosecutor described Burdine's "homosexual life" as "voluntary." Making
that point was an effective way to counter any sympathy that might arise
from testimony that Burdine had been raped as a child by his father, a
truck driver who took him along on runs.

Burdine's victim, too, had been a dark father figure. He took Burdine in
only on the condition that he turn over his salary. Burdine testified that
when his earnings didn't cover his rent, the benefactor insisted he hustle.
When he refused, Burdine contends, he was beaten by the victim's friends.
The result was murder in the commission of a robbery-a capital crime in
many states, but one that doesn't necessarily lead to death row. Indeed,
only 1.2 % of murder cases end in death sentences. Executing someone
requires a separate proceeding in which aggravating factors are weighed
against mitigating ones. When the defendant is gay, sexuality can become
one of those aggravating factors-with fatal consequences.

In Burdine's case, the jurors were urged to order his execution by a
prosecutor who told them that sending this man to prison would be like
setting a kid loose in a candy store.

* * *

Calvin Burdine is not the only queer on death row. In the past few years,
5 capital cases involving gay or lesbian defendants have raised charges
that homophobia played a role in sentencing. But no one knows how many
queers await execution in America. Though extensive data exist on the
race, age, and gender of such inmates, there are few statistics about
their sexuality. No one knows how often gayness is raised by prosecutors
as a snide implication, an unfounded assertion, or a fact that may or may
not be relevant to the case. But it comes up with such frequency and in
such predictable ways that the allegations of antigay bias cannot be
dismissed.

There are high barriers against injecting race into a trial, and rape-
shield laws that prohibit introducing a victim's prior sexual history.
But no such restrictions exist when it comes to homosexuality. "The
courts are not there yet, especially in capital cases," says Richard
Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. As
Burdine's trial illustrates, the rules against statements that might
inflame a jury are not necessarily enforced when the defendant is gay.
Ambitious prosecutors are often free to play to stereotypical beliefs
about homosexuals. And they have reason to single out gay defendants when
deciding which cases might convince a jury toopt for execution.

After all, a death sentence is never mandatory. No matter how heinous the
crime, a jury can choose to spare the murderer's life. "It's all about
emotion," says Dieter. "There's no legal formula for who gets the death
penalty. And anyone who seems outside the bounds of what's acceptable is
more likely to end up being executed." Race, class, and reduced mental
capacity all play a major role in capital punishment. The queer defendants
in the following cases also fit into one or more of those categories.
Their sexuality was hardly the only factor in their fate. But in each
case, it was used in ways that played to the most negative assumptions
about gay people. And in the God-fearing counties where these trials took
place, their gayness may have sealed their fate.

* * *

Sometimes, the mere mention of homosexuality is enough to spell death.
That's what activists say happened to Stanley Lingar, who was executed in
Missouri last month for the murder of a young man he and a friend had
picked up. According to the friend, who pled guilty to second degree
murder (and served 6 years), they forced their victim to undress and
demanded that he masturbate. When he failed to perform, Lingar shot him,
beat him, and ran him over twice. The friend was the only witness to the
crime, but the jury bought his testimony, and in the penalty phase, they
sentenced Lingar to die.

This second verdict followed a startling piece of evidence that the
prosecutor had abruptly introduced. It was something even the defense was
unaware of. Lingar and his friend had been lovers. But what did that
have to do with the case? The prosecutor maintained it would help explain
Lingar's motive - though he never made that point to the jury. No matter.
The prosecutor had convinced the judge that Lingar's sexuality spoke to
his character-and in Missouri a "depraved mind" is an aggravating factor.

Lingar's appeal was partly successful. The court ruled that discussing his
homosexuality would have been unconstitutional if it had influenced the
jury. But the court also concluded that it had not. Missouri's attorney
general called the charge of bias "absurd."

In fact, 12 % of jurors say they could not be fair to a gay defendant,
according to a survey by the National Law Journal. This suggests that
homophobia will likely be present on any jury, not to mention one in rural
Missouri. Yet because the prosecution chose to keep Lingar's sexuality a
secret until the last minute, the defense had no way to deal with it, or
even to poll the jury about homophobia. Situations like this are why
activists urge defense lawyers to be proactive when their clients are gay.
Yet in places like Missouri, attorneys will often pretend the issue isn't
there-until it's too late.

* * *

Wanda Jean Allen's sexuality was never far from the surface of her case.
She had killed her female lover in front of a police station; there was no
disputing that. The issue was motive, and the defense demonstrated that
Allen and her lover had a tumultuous, violent relationship requiring
frequent interventions by the police. At her arrest, Allen bore scratches
on her face, allegedly from being assaulted by her lover with a rake. This
was a crime of passion, the defense argued, and in such cases the death
penalty is rarely invoked.

But Allen had several strikes against her. For one thing, she was black and
poor. (Her lawyer was paid only $800.) For another, she had killed before,
albeit in a case so ambiguous that she was allowed to plead guilty to
manslaughter and received the minimum sentence of four years. A prior
homicide can be grounds for death. But according to the Death Penalty
Information Center, only 8.4 % of inmates awaiting execution have
previous murder convictions. What made Allen's crime so shocking that she
became the first woman put to death in the state of Oklahoma?

Possibly it was the prosecution's assertion that Allen "wore the pants in
the family." Spurred on by testimony from the victim's mother, the state
claimed that Allen was the man in the relationship, noting that she even
liked to spell her middle name G-E-N-E, in the masculine way. The
implication that Allen dominated her lover overwhelmed the evidence that
both women had abused each other. And it raised the specter of the killer
dyke that often haunts female defendants in murder cases. In the
documentary Perverted Justice, CUNY law professor Ruthann Robson
estimates that 40 % of women accused of murder must contend with "some
implication of lesbianism."

In capital cases, the prosecution aims to convince the jury that the
defendant is inhuman. It's harder to do that when a woman is in the dock.
"Before we can dehumanize her, we have to defeminize her," says Victor
Streib, who has studied lesbians on death row. It's easier to kill a
masculine woman, especially if she is what Streib calls "a tough
customer."

Ana Cardona was hardly that. She was frail and feminine, according to her
defense. Cardona claimed it was her domineering female lover who had
killed her child. But the strategy backfired: Her lover got 40 years
while Cardona got sentenced to death. After all, she was the child's
mother - or "lesbian mother," as the prosecution called her. She was also
accused of being sadistic enough to have beaten and starved the child.
But the image of the killer dyke gave her culpability added weight. As
Streib notes: "The death penalty is fairly rare for mothers who kill
their children." Susan Smith's life was spared, though she had watched
her children drown in the car she rolled into a lake. But Smith was
not a "lesbian mother."

* * *

Gay defendants, too, must deal with the image of the predatory queer,
especially when the accomplice is a younger man. Even Calvin Burdine's
dozing lawyer knew enough to base his defense on allegations that the
victim was a "middle aged, king homosexual" who had victimized young
boys.

Gregory Scott Dickens was 26 when he was charged with killing a couple
outside Yuma, Arizona. He had been traveling with a 16-year-old who,
according to Dickens's current attorney, was the most important person in
his life. The youth admitted to firing the gun, but he testified that
Dickens had given him the weapon and put him up to the crime. When the
defense moved to present evidence that this teen fit the profile of a
violent and impulsive liar, Judge Tom Cole intervened. If the defense took
that route, said the judge, he might allow the prosecutor to raise an
issue that had been kept from the jury: Dickens and his young friend were
lovers. Then the nature of Dickens's 2 previous convictions-for fondling
minors-might also come out. "The state could say that in this homosexual
relationship, the older partner had control over the kid," says Dickens's
current attorney. So the defense backed down.

This time it wasn't the prosecutor's tactics but the judge's behavior that
figured in the appeal. Court papers filed on Dickens's behalf claim that
Judge Cole had reacted with rage to his own son's homosexuality. He had
written a letter expressing the hope that his son would "die in prison like
all the rest of your faggot friends." Cole denies writing the letter,
but he would not comment on the allegation that he believes his son was
turned gay by unscrupulous friends. "It's insignificant," Cole says.

But the defense contends that such an attitude could have induced Cole to
allow homosexuality into the trial-especially when the accused might appear
to be a sexual predator. In Arizona, the judge decides when a killer should
be sentenced to death, and though Dickens was acquitted of premeditated
murder, Cole found other grounds to condemn him. Dickens had committed a
multiple murder that resulted in pecuniary gain. But so had his young
friend, whose life was spared.

* * *

Assume that all these defendants are guilty. Grant that their sexuality may
have some relevance to the case. The question, then, is not whether the
subject should have come up but how it was used. Homosexuality was seen as
a marker of perversion or pathology, the sign of a murderous bent. In these
cases, the pretense of tolerance is ripped away, and one can see monsters
from the homophobic id. But one can also recognize the biases that underlie
ordinary life.

"Anyone can end up in court," notes Ruth E. Harlow, legal director of the
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. "And any time a gay man or lesbian
goes into court, they have to be afraid that sexual orientation may play a
role in their case." It might come up in family court, when the judge
assumes a gay parent would expose a child to sexual activity. It could
influence a prosecutor's decision about who gets to plea bargain and who
must stand trial. It could even determine who is charged with a crime
in the 1st place. "We tend to think of gay people as crime victims, not
prisoners," says Bill Dobbs of Queer Watch. "But in fact, the criminal
justice system touches us in many ways."

In New York, court clerks are required for monitoring purposes to list the
sexual orientation of each defendant in a capital case. But the law does
not address the way homosexuality can be used at trial. "I don't think
there is any particular protection," says Pauline Toole, spokesperson for
New York's Capital Defender Office. But at least homosexuality is not a
crime in this state. In the South and West, where sodomy laws are common,
the presumption of innocence for gay people is compromised to begin with.
And when they are charged with murder, their sexuality is "like a powder
keg," says Dobbs. "It can easily cause a jury to light the match."

Calvin Burdine knows how homophobia was used against him: from the jurors'
pretrial comments to the prosecutor's closing remarks. "I did hear it,"
Burdine told the Voice from his cell on death row. "But it just kind of
went over my head. I was scared to death."

Mr Burdine wasn't on trial for being gay but for being a robbery during which the victim was murdered. Not only wasn't he exicuted but he was granted a new trial when a higher court ruled he got an inadiquite defense.

Try again. I'm sure there is something you can come up with to rationalize your stance.

http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/newab008/report.html

By Michael Stark


There is a stronger link between race and the death penalty than between smoking and heart disease, according to a newly released report by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). The report - titled "The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides" - adds to the overwhelming evidence that the death penalty in the U.S. is racist.

The report includes two new studies on race and capital punishment. In one, researchers cite examples of black defendants being treated in an openly racist manner in the courtroom. One such example reads, "In preparing for the penalty phase of an African-American defendant's trial, a white judge in Florida said in open court: "Since the nigger mom and dad are here anyway, why don't we go ahead and move to the penalty phase today instead of having to subpoena them back at cost to the state.'" Anthony Peek was sentenced to death, and the sentence was upheld by the Florida Supreme Court in 1986 when it reviewed his claim of racial bias.

Law professor David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth examine the effect of racial bias on Philadelphia's death row - one of the largest death rows in the country at 118. The study shows, among other things, that the odds of receiving a death sentence in Philadelphia are nearly four times higher for black defendants than for others. It also shows that the "racial combination which was most likely to result in a death sentence was a black defendant with a non-black victim, regardless of how severe the murder committed."

The second study, by Professor Jeffrey Pokorak and researchers at St. Mary's University Law School, examines key decision makers in death penalty cases across the U.S. and finds that they are almost exclusively white males. For instance, the study showed that 97.5% of District Attorneys in the U.S. are white, and almost all of them are men.

Another startling section of the report reveals how Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Jack McMahon trained new prosecutors on how to keep blacks off juries without giving the appearance of racism. McMahon's statements in his training video included, "Young black women are very bad" and "Blacks from low-income areas are less likely to convict." His tape went so far as to threaten to fire new prosecutors who did not follow racist practices: "If you go in there and any one of you think you're going to be some noble civil libertarian... you'll lose, and you'll be out of the office."

This report offers powerful arguments to anyone who still needs convincing that the death penalty is racist to the core.

Now your changing your arguement no one made the claim that the death penalty was applied fairly.
Your just creating a straw man.

You claimed in your last post that people were executed in the US for the crime of being homosexual like those boys in Iran. You still haven't given any evidense that this is the case.

Why don't you answer the questions I posed to you in my first post?

Face it your just trying to rationalize the fact the politics is more important to you then people.

I wrote about the IDAAHOPI and Fischer's response to it. A commenter on my own blog hit the nail on the head:

Mr. Petrelis believes the act to be wrong because of what it was, murder. "Nameless No. 2" (Fischer), typical of many on the collectivist left, is only outraged by acts committed by the wrong people.

Let's give a pass to the enemy of our enemies no matter what they do.