Sean Kennedy's murderer released one week early

Ridiculous

I wouldn't be surprised if Moller does it again, after THIS slap on the wrist.

A drunk driver gets a harsh sentence, and I'm sure they didn't intend on killing anyone.  This guy might have not intended on killing Sean either, but he did.

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by: bluegrassfool @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 14:41:58 PM CDT

can't comment on this directly without losing it (rage, grief), but ...

Is any blog keeping a tally of LGBT attacks and murders?  Just a simple table, six columns ...
name of victim:  Sean Kennedy
crime:  murdered
date:  May 16, 2007
name of perp: Stephen Andrew Moller
sentence: 5 years suspended w/ two month reduction and one week early release

And Angie Zapata, and Matthew Shepard, and those I'm forgetting in my adrenalin rush, and everyone whose cases didn't garner broad attention.  That will be one explosive, tragic, powerful accounting of the victimization, persecution, and dismissal of the LGBT community, and it should be required reading for all elected officials at state and national levels.  Not to mention all the aiders/ abettors/ accessories/ enablers in religious and conservative communities who demonize us and speak out against LGBT legal protections.

Perhaps a minor point, and maybe I'm being dense.  If the sentence was suspended, why was Moller in prison at all?  If he was jailed prior to and during the trial, and then given a suspended sentence, wouldn't he have been released?

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by: 555catnap @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:17:04 PM CDT

I'd like to know that, it would be interesting

and by that I mean, almost certainly infuriating, to compare and contrast the sentencing and serving time of people who commit crimes against GLBT individuals, versus the average.

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by: Clarknt67 @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:50:50 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

That's part of the issue

Without federal protections only the larger cases are recorded and analyzed by groups like the FBI.

So only the most extreme crimes are recorded, by private groups. There are thousands of cases each year that are never reported as hate crimes because the individual states don't protect the LGBT community.  

Help defend equality, visit One Kalamazoo http://www.onekalamazoo.com/

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by: Mattkazoo @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 22:19:56 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Judicial homohatred is alive and well...

Even after a federal hate crimes bill is finally passed, the bigger battle will still need to be fought against the kind of homohatred that led to this premeditated attack and the light sentences so many continue to get [if they are sentenced at all].

Many worthy LGBT-advocacy groups are struggling during these harsh economic times. For those who can, I urge donations to the group that Sean's mother has worked with: the Gay American Heroes Foundation.

http://www.gayamericanheroes.i...

Their sole purpose is to educate about hate crimes for which they hope to construct a traveling exhibit of victims of such crimes. A three dimensional representation of the exhibit can be seen here:

http://www.vimeo.com/2334727

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting." - E. E. Cummings

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by: Michael Bedwell @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:19:05 PM CDT

WTF

Less than 5 years for cold-blooded murder.

This sickens me to no end. I live in the very same town, and this really scares me.

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by: shaz4005 @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:22:26 PM CDT

WTF,,,FFFFFFFFF

WHERE is the G*D DAMN White Night Riot?

I can't imagine this family's grief coupled with the INSULT of NO JUSTICE.

What have you done today, to make ya feel PROUD?


~Heather Small

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by: peteyPornpig @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:49:57 PM CDT

So Madoff gets 150 years...

and someone who kills gets less than five?!?  It's outrageous.

And I'm sure this guy is leaving prison with an even wore animosity against GLBT people.  Sad.

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by: flyerfier @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 15:57:13 PM CDT

Why not give the boy a medal instead?

This story, like the Jamie King case, infuriates me in ways I cannot properly express. I'm aware that hate crimes are at least more likely to go unpunished in South Carolina, but this, this is an absoloute miscarrage of justice. Beyond the cold comfort the victim's family gets from this brush under the rug, society at large gets the message that we only punish violence and intimidatation against some segments of our society at a very negligible rate. That marajuana peddling is more important, and more punishible than violent crimes againsts our citizens, provided they're not white heterosexual men, that is. Nobody's done remotely enough in this case and there's scores of shame to go around. I'm sick over this.


"So. What have we learned? We have learned the first lesson. They will always hate us... We must give the ordinary humans respect, compliance, and understanding. And we must never mistake that for trust." - Emma Frost, Astonishing X-Men, 1

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by: g_whiz @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 16:12:26 PM CDT

Law not properly enforced?

In this case, it's not a matter of needing hate crime law. It's more about properly enforcing the law, isn't it? How can someone get away with murder for less than 5 years in jail? Don't people who accidentally kill their attackers while defending themselves get sentenced even longer jail terms?

Calvin (Oil Rig Jobs blog)

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by: lohwengk @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 16:33:12 PM CDT

I'll probably take some heat but....

This was not a murder.  Although I beleive the sentence was much too lenient the fact is that this was a case of manslaughter.  Murder convictions in the U.S. depend upon intent, not result.  The offender's actions in this case, though heinous, were not intended to be fatal.  This is one more reason why hate crimes enhancements are crucial.  It is obvious that this was an act predicated on hate and should be more thoroughly punished to send a message that targeting a person because they are gay is unacceptable.

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by: sammyseattle @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 16:40:04 PM CDT

Here's some heat....

How do you know what his intent was? Clearly this was premeditated as the killer waited in his car specifically for Sean to come out of the bar. Then he disarmed him by asking for a cigarette. If he used a baseball bat instead of his fist to hit him, would that be murder? He hit him hard enough to disconnect his brain from the brain stem. But what? He didn't mean it. He just wanted to look cool to his friends by cold cocking a fag.

U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), may you burn in hell.


Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving."
-Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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by: T2inDC @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 17:17:02 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

... punched so hard that the blow broke his facial bones ...

I'm sure this was the defense's argument—that Moller didn't intend to kill.  Yet he used enough force to break Sean's face.  I wonder how the defense soft-pedaled that.  "Poor Mr. Moller didn't know his own strength."  "Poor Mr. Moller was a little tipsy and couldn't judge the amount of force he was using."  "Poor Mr. Moller has punched lots of people in the face before, but until now no one has actually died."  

Yet Moller's intent was to cause pain and injury.  And he did, in the most extreme way possible.  Manslaughter should be reserved for when the car's brakes fail and for similar tragedies.  But this wasn't some random accident.  When someone initiates a physical assault, obviously intending to cause harm, by that fact alone he should no longer qualify for a manslaughter plea.  The attacker can't know exactly how their victim's bones will break, how they will fall and land, what they will land on, what pre-existing conditions might make their victim particularly vulnerable.  Should a perp have a reasonable expectation that his attack won't result in the victim's death, when the assault itself introduces any number of indeterminate variables that could easily result in death?

Sounds a lot like depraved indifference murder to me.  Perps should be held accountable not just for their attacks, but for all consequences of those attacks.  I realize all my "should-ing" doesn't amount to squat.  I'm just sick to death of our freakin' "Wild West" cultural tolerance for violence, whether directed at LGBTs or not.

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by: 555catnap @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 17:53:04 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

It's not manslaughter, it's terrorism

I hope no one ever randomly targets you for a terrorist act.

# Duty, duty -- honor is, is --
Honor, Creideiki -- alertly
# Shared, is -- Honor #

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by: MileHighDawg @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 18:19:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

He pleaded guilty to manslaugher because

South Carolina has nothing but manslaughter and first degree murder, nothing in between.  Also the prosecutor wasn't interested in taking this case to trial.  Its been a disaster all the way around.

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by: annwsc1 @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 18:23:38 PM CDT

Bingo! This is why the federal hate crimes law must pass.

The local prosecutor wasn't interested in taking the case to trial.  So this ridiculous plea was accepted after the murder TAUNTED THE DEAD KID IN A VOICE MAIL.

The Local Law Enforcement Act (aka the hate crimes bill) would let federal prosecutors take jurisdiction when nonsense like this happens.

For any "progressives"  out there who don't think there's a need to pass the Hate Crimes bill in Congress -- including some folks at Bilerico -- here ya go.

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by: HunterC @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 20:57:15 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Murdering a gay person is less heinous than killing someone's pet

Less than two years for hate motivated attack that killed someone? In most states, you get a tougher sentence if you neglect a horse or beat someone's dog to death.

I cannot believe that this has happened. Does the legal system of South Carolina value human life so little? Or is it that South Carolina does not consider gay people to be human?

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by: TechBear @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 00:23:42 AM CDT

I would never advocate this, or encourage anyone to do it, but...

It would give me great pleasure to read in the paper that unknown assailants attacked Mr. Moller, and very skillfully, agonizingly, and slowly, tortured him to death and left behind a 5 hour long video of Moller screaming in agony the entire time.

When gay bashers consistently receive that treatment, the bashing will stop.

After all, The Bible does say, "An eye for an eye."

Of course, I would be equally pleased if Sean Kennedy had pulled a gun and shot Moller dead in self-defense.

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. -- John F. Kennedy (inspired by Dante's Inferno)

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by: oldbrit @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 22:36:38 PM CDT