D**S 发帖数: 24887 | 1 http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/19/justice/california-gay-student-ki
Ventura, California (CNN) -- A Southern California teen who pleaded guilty
to killing a gay classmate was sentenced Monday to 21 years in prison.
Brandon McInerney, 17, will serve time in a juvenile detention center until
he turns 18, at which point he will be transferred to the custody of the
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He will get no
credit for time already served, and was ordered to pay $10,000 in
restitution.
In September, a judge declared a mistrial in the case of McInerney after a
nine-week trial when jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked on whether
he should be found guilty of manslaughter or murder in the death of Lawrence
King. He was set to be retried as an adult.
But last month, McInerney agreed to plead guilty to killing King "under the
penal code sections for both murder and voluntary manslaughter," as well as
to using a firearm in that crime. He will serve 11 years for manslaughter
and 10 years for the use of a firearm.
McInerney was 14 years old when he brought a handgun belonging to relatives
to E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, prosecutors said.
He shot the 15-year-old King twice at point-blank range in the back of the
head, while both were typing papers in a computer lab for their English
class along with two dozen students and their teacher, authorities said.
Friends said King, an eighth-grader who lived in a group home called Casa
Pacifica, was proud of being openly gay. He liked wearing jewelry and makeup
to school and he often wore high-heeled boots with the school uniform. He
asked his teachers to call him Leticia instead of Larry. Some students
bullied him, pupils said.
Other students said McInerney was also subject to some harassment because
King had a crush on him and made it publicly known.
The victim's father, Greg King, read a statement in court Monday on behalf
of Larry's mother.
"I will never forgive you for what you did," she wrote. "You have left a big
hole in my heart where Larry was." | D**S 发帖数: 24887 | 2 The 21 years do not include the near 4 years he already spent in prison
since the killing occurred.
This sentence is said to be the harshest possible in California's legal
frame (for degree 2 homocide).
As if it was a ill-natured joke, the slain gay student's name was Larry
King. |
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