Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act Advances in CA Senate

Bay Area Reporter, CA, USA

Vol. 36 / No. 27 / 6 July 2006

'Panic' bill clears Senate panel

by Cynthia Laird
c.laird [at] ebar.com

A state Senate committee last week approved a bill that would limit
the use of so-called panic strategies by criminal defendants in
murder cases.

The 4-2 approval by the Senate Public Safety Committee means the
bill – AB1160 – now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee
next month. The June 27 vote by the public safety committee was a
victory for the bill's author, Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D-
Mountain View), who has been working on the matter for more than a
year.

"I'm very glad the committee approved the bill," Lieber told the Bay
Area Reporter June 30. "It's definitely been a long haul."

AB1160 – the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act – has three main
components, Lieber told the committee during last week's hearing,
according to a video of the hearing. It would declare that it's
against the public policy of California for defendants to play upon
the bias of a jury or the jury to allow bias to enter into its
decision making; it would mandate a revised jury instruction to
ensure that a juror's duty to operate free from bias is clearly
stated; and it calls for the attorney general to develop and
distribute materials to prosecutors to educate them on the panic
strategy.

The panic strategy – also known as the gay-panic or trans-panic
defense – is a tactic whereby defendants attempt to blame their
victims for the crime committed, usually claiming that the victim's
real or perceived homosexual advances provoked an attack. In murder
trials, the panic strategy often manifests as a "heat of
passion" defense to argue for a manslaughter rather than a murder
conviction.

Lieber's bill is named in memory of Araujo, a transgender teenager
who was murdered in October 2002 in the East Bay city of Newark.
Araujo, 17, befriended several young men, who later turned on her at
a house party after discovering she was anatomically male. During
two trials (the first ended with a hung jury) the defendants
employed the panic strategy, claiming that Araujo's undisclosed
transgender status amounted to "sexual deception" and "rape" of the
men who had relations with her. Last year, two of the defendants
were found guilty of second-degree murder; the third accepted a plea-
bargain after two hung juries and pleaded no contest to voluntary
manslaughter.

At last week's hearing, Sylvia Guerrero, Araujo's mother, testified
in support of the bill. She was critical of the tactics used by her
daughter's killers and their attorneys during the lengthy criminal
case.

"They used obscene stereotypes and misinformation about transgender
people to blame my daughter for her own death," Guerrero said,
adding that it was her opinion such tactics were used by the
defense "to get the Alameda County District Attorney's office to
back off prosecuting the case or to appeal to the jury's anti-trans
bias."

"Since my daughter was killed, my family and I have spent literally
thousands of hours working hard to make sure that California is a
state where everyone is respected and treated fairly," Guerrero
added. "The Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act will really help us
in our work."

But during the committee's discussion, Chairwoman Senator Carole
Migden (D-San Francisco), an out lesbian, pointed out that it likely
will take more than AB1160 to change society.

"The truth is, hatred is taught," Migden said. "Intrinsically, we
permit it – in churches, in religious institutions. We permit it in
church, we permit it in a host of ways. We can't pretend those
prejudices don't exist.

"We can't pretend it ain't real. There is panic. There is revulsion.
I think we have our work to do," Migden added.

Migden said she has attended different houses of worship as part of
the community's effort to build bridges. "I am sometimes just
shocked by what is said at the pulpit," she said.

Then, Migden misspoke, referring to the murder of Guerrero's "son."
Guerrero immediately corrected Migden, who immediately apologized.

"I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean your son," Migden told
Guerrero. "I was just looking at different images in my mind."

"We're going to be with you," Migden added.

Migden apologized again for misspeaking at the conclusion of the
hearing a few minutes later.

Asked about the incident, Lieber attributed it to a long day of
hearings on numerous bills. "I thought it was great Sylvia jumped in
and made the clarification," she said. "I think it was the case of a
very long meeting."

07/06/2006

Copyright © 2005, Bay Area Reporter, a division of Benro
Enterprises, Inc.

http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=974

__._,_.___

N.Y., Calif. target "gay panic" defense

Ann Rostow
PlanetOut Network
Friday, July 7, 2006

http://www.planetout.com/news/election/article.html?2006/07/07/1

Lawmakers in California and New York are looking for ways to
discourage the "gay panic" defense in criminal courts, an ugly
phenomenon that may be impossible to eradicate through legislation.

One thing they can do is to declare that the state's public policy
frowns on the use of prejudice as a tool to influence juries. Both
the California and New York proposals oblige criminal courts to read
specific jury instructions, ordering the panel to avoid making
decisions on the basis of bias against victims or witnesses.

In California, the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act has passed
the Assembly, and also survived a 4-2 vote in the Senate Public
Safety Committee late last month. The bill is now pending in the
Senate Appropriations Committee.

Sponsored by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, the bill
is named for the transgender teenage victim of a shocking murder in
October 2002, when several young men beat and strangled the young
woman after learning she was born male. The killers' lawyers argued,
with some success, that the men were acting in a state of
"diminished capacity" brought on by the revelation of Araujo's
biological gender.

In New York, Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr. introduced a measure based
on the California bill in the wake of three anti-gay hate crimes in
early June. The most prominent was the attack on singer Kevin
Aviance, who wound up with a broken jaw, several fractures and
numerous bruises after being bashed by a group of youths June 9.

According to press reports, it appeared as if at least one of the
suspects planned to say that the attack was provoked by Aviance, who
made a pass at him -- the classic scenario in the "gay panic"
defense.

Under Diaz's bill, juries would be instructed as follows: "Do not
let bias, sympathy, prejudice, or public opinion influence your
decision. Bias includes bias against the victim or victims or
witness or witnesses based upon his or her race, color, national
origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age,
disability, gender identity or sexual orientation."

The chances that a jury would actually be able to operate in such an
emotional vacuum may be remote, but perhaps instructions like these
would decrease the extent to which raw bias informs criminal
verdicts.

"The truth is," said openly lesbian California state Sen. Carole
Migden during the latest Senate hearing, "hatred is taught.
Intrinsically we permit it, in churches, in religious institutions.
We can't pretend it ain't real. There is panic. There is revulsion.
I think we have our work to do."

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