Some say gay teen should face hate charge in slaying

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2002-11-26 01:07pm

Some say gay teen should face hate charge in slaying

Ellen Sorokin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 11/26/2002

A homosexual teenager was arrested in Chicago for killing a Catholic woman who tried to persuade him to change his sexual orientation — a case that critics argue should be labeled as a hate crime that deserves national attention.

Nicholas Gutierrez, 19, was charged Nov. 16 with first-degree murder and burglary after police said he beat, kicked, stabbed and strangled 51-year-old Mary Stachowicz, then placed her body in a crawl space under the floor in his apartment. Her body was found three days after she was killed.

Prosecutors said they will most likely seek the death penalty.

Critics of the homosexual movement, however, said yesterday the case should be treated as a hate crime against Christians because Mr. Gutierrez killed Mrs. Stachowicz after she shared her religious beliefs with him.

They also blasted the national media for not giving the same amount of coverage to Mrs. Stachowicz's slaying as it did to the murder of homosexual University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in 1998.

Mr. Shepard, 21, was lured by two men he met at a bar to a remote field where he was tied to a fence and beaten to death. Hundreds of media outlets covered the case, including the trial where Mr. Shepard's attackers were convicted.

However, only local media like the Chicago Tribune and Illinois television stations have covered Mrs. Stachowicz's slaying.

"If a gay man had been murdered for trying to convince someone to be gay, it would be a national news story and be deemed a hate crime," said Peter LaBarbera, a senior policy analyst with the Culture and Family Institute, which is affiliated with the conservative Concerned Women for America.
"But when a gay man murders a woman who tried to convince him to change, the media spike the story," Mr. LaBarbera said.

"There seems to be a politically correct hierarchy of victims, and at the top of the list are gay victims. If Matthew Shepard's murder deserved national media attention, then why not Mary Stachowicz's?"

Officials with the conservative Family Research Council agreed. "Mrs. Stachowicz was witnessing to her religious faith and was murdered for it," said Peter Sprigg, senior director of culture studies for the FRC. "If that's not a hate crime, then I don't know what is."

Police officials said Mr. Gutierrez has not been charged with a hate crime because the State's Attorney's Office most likely did not find enough evidence to file such a charge against him.

"It's the state's attorney's call on whether to charge someone with a hate crime," said Officer JoAnn Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department. "If they don't have enough evidence to support the charge, they won't touch it."

The State's Attorney's Office declined to discuss the case or the state's hate-crime laws yesterday.

Hate crimes are criminal actions intended to harm or intimidate people because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or other minority group status.

Mr. Shepard's killers were convicted in Wyoming, which did not have a hate-crime statute. In fact, prosecutors never characterized Mr. Shepard's murder as a hate crime; they portrayed the killing as a robbery-gone-bad.

Homosexual-rights groups condemned Mrs. Stachowicz's slaying but stopped short of calling it a hate crime.

"We condemn this murder, like we do all murders," said Laura Montgomery Rutt, spokeswoman for Soulforce, a national homosexual activist group. "A hate crime needs to have an intent to intimidate a whole class of people. If in this case, it was directed at this person and intended to intimidate Christians, that would be a hate crime in my mind."

Police said Mr. Gutierrez confessed that he became enraged after Mrs. Stachowicz started asking him questions about his sexual orientation, shortly after she came back from attending Mass on Nov. 13. Mr. Gutierrez lived in an apartment above a funeral home where Mrs. Stachowicz worked for about a year.

Mr. Gutierrez told police the argument with Mrs. Stachowicz reminded him of debates he had with his mother, and he started having flashbacks to those quarrels. Mrs. Stachowicz's family said the married mother of four was probably trying to help Mr. Gutierrez.

"Those of us who knew her immediately hear her soft voice saying something like, 'God wouldn't approve of the way you're living your life,'" neighbor Mary Coleman told the Chicago Tribune. "That's how Mary did things."

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2002-11-26 04:20pm

Little fuck should fry for killing that lady, and I also think hate crime laws should be a two way street, but there's something wrong here I can't put my finger on.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-11-26 04:40pm

Frank Hipper wrote:Little fuck should fry for killing that lady, and I also think hate crime laws should be a two way street, but there's something wrong here I can't put my finger on.

Let me help you:

1) He did not seek her out. She was harassing him. No excuse for murder, of course, but it does factor into whether this is a hate crime. She was not killed for being Christian; she was killed for getting in his face and telling him that his sexual orientation is a sin.

2) Suppose a Muslim had accosted him in the same manner. Would his reaction have been different? Suppose an atheist approached him and told him that homosexuality was against Nature. Would his reaction be any different?

In order to qualify as a hate crime, a crime must specifically target a gender, race, gender, or creed. This crime did not satisfy those criteria. He did not run out and look for a Christian to kill or beat up (as in a typical hate crime); some stupid bitch who just happened to be Christian got into his face and tried to harass him about being gay, and he went berserk. There was no deliberate targeting of any race, religion, gender, or creed. This is just another case of right-wingers trying to peddle their "media is against us" sob story.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2002-11-26 04:49pm

It's a crime for sure, and should go punsihed, but not a hate crime.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2002-11-26 04:57pm

Murder is murder is murder. The end result is the same. It's why don't agree with a lot of hate-crimes legislation. One could likely interpret any crime to be a hate-crime (with enough money and lawyers.) And yet, the end result of putting a bullet through somebody's head because you wanted their wallet and putting a bullet through somebody else's head because they happened to be <insert non-majority group here> is the same. Somebody got killed, because somebody else willed it so. In cases like that, the punishment should be the same.

Rhadamanthus · Post by **Rhadamanthus** » 2002-11-26 05:03pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:And yet, the end result of putting a bullet through somebody's head because you wanted their wallet and putting a bullet through somebody else's head because they happened to be <insert non-majority group here> is the same. Somebody got killed, because somebody else willed it so. In cases like that, the punishment should be the same.

Thank you for pointing out the worst flaw in hate crime legislation. It basically says the lives of selected minorities are more valuable than others. As far as I'm concerned all hate crime legislation should be repealed.

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-11-26 05:24pm

Frank Hipper wrote:Little fuck should fry for killing that lady, and I also think hate crime laws should be a two way street, but there's something wrong here I can't put my finger on.

As Wong said, he did not seek her out as a Christian. So therefore, it is not a hate crime. The prosecutors are making HUGE leaps in logic by assuming that he killed her becasue she was Christian.

As in the first statement, he killed her after she tried to persuade him to change his sexual orientation. Not because she was Catholic, as said later.

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-26 05:33pm

A couple years or so ago (?) there was a black man who went on a shooting rampage and targeted only whites. In fact, he told a black woman that was hiding in terror something like, "Don't worry, sister, I'm only shooting whites today". The story was not on the national radar scope for a day or two before criticism came in that the media was ignoring an 'anti-white' hate crime. Eventually he was tried on hate crime charges.

If someone is attacked and killed because of their beliefs as well as race or sex/sex orientation, it is a hate crime. I am not going to say that's what this was, I will say it warrants investigation. If our just intent is protecting people from attacks due to ideology, then justice must flow both ways. It can not be a politically correct waterfall that drowns the 'majority' for the crime of being distasteful.

Yes, white Christians can be victims of hate crimes, and this may be one of those cases. It should be investigated as a possible hate crime rather than just dismissed out of hand.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-11-26 05:52pm

This doesn't sound like a hate crime. However the laws must either go both ways or be repealed. As it stands a great many don't allow for a hate crime to be committed against a white heterosexual male and generally a similar female.

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-11-26 05:55pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:This doesn't sound like a hate crime. However the laws must either go both ways or be repealed. As it stands a great many don't allow for a hate crime to be committed against a white heterosexual male and generally a similar female.

That's because society is so sexist towards females. Females are put on a pedastel(sp?) while males are ground into dust. People fail to realize that there are sexist crimes against males. Guys are just so prominent in society that everyone thinks that they are less able to perform actions such as parenting than women are, and are more able to take pain, which, a lot of the time, is not the case. *shrug*

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2002-11-26 06:48pm

Sometimes people snap. Do yiou have any idea how many times people have tried to get me to change my sexual orientation? I have come close to wanting to kill people. It isnt because they are christians. It is because they are harrassing me. That stupid bitch got up in his face and harrassed him, this is the sdame reason teen suicide is higher in gays thannit is in straight people. because they have to deal with fucking bullshit like that woman. He simply took it a step further when he snapped, instead of killing himself, he killed her.

C.S.Strowbridge · Post by **C.S.Strowbridge** » 2002-11-26 07:05pm

Alyrium Denryle wrote:Sometimes people snap. Do yiou have any idea how many times people have tried to get me to change my sexual orientation? I have come close to wanting to kill people. It isnt because they are christians. It is because they are harrassing me. That stupid bitch got up in his face and harrassed him, this is the sdame reason teen suicide is higher in gays thannit is in straight people. because they have to deal with fucking bullshit like that woman. He simply took it a step further when he snapped, instead of killing himself, he killed her.

And you know what? I can't blame him. I bet with the right lawyer and a charismatic psychologist he could off on a temporary insanity plea. It would set a good precedent. Tell someone they're going to hell enough times and they get to kill you.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2002-11-26 07:16pm

That would be amusing. I would start a fund, to help pay his legal fees.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-11-26 07:35pm

C.S.Strowbridge wrote:And you know what? I can't blame him. I bet with the right lawyer and a charismatic psychologist he could off on a temporary insanity plea. It would set a good precedent. Tell someone they're going to hell enough times and they get to kill you.

I'd like to see that precedent. He just got fed up with some sanctimonious bitch and he snapped. That's just an I'm pissed crime. Frankly, I don't blame the guy.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-11-26 07:38pm

Hate crime legislation is potentially useful, but it has no relevance in murder cases. A murder is the ultimate crime (or it should be; since second-degree murder can carry a lighter sentence than armed robbery in many places, it would appear that not everyone agrees on this). It supersedes hate crimes and any other kind of crime.

Hate-crime laws were invented to create strict penalties for things such as painting swastikas on synagogues (ordinarily punishable only as mere misdemeanour "vandalism"), bullying of gays in school, inciting people to racial violence, etc. These are specific crimes which don't fall into any other category but "hate crimes". That is why the laws exist.

When someone is murdered, it is a murder first, and if applicable, a hate crime second. We should not throw the baby out with the bathwater and declare that hate crimes should be deleted from the books just because they're a secondary concern in murder cases.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-11-26 07:48pm

Darth Wong wrote:Hate crime legislation is potentially useful, but it has no relevance in murder cases. A murder is the ultimate crime (or it should be; since second-degree murder can carry a lighter sentence than armed robbery in many places, it would appear that not everyone agrees on this). It supersedes hate crimes and any other kind of crime.

Hate-crime laws were invented to create strict penalties for things such as painting swastikas on synagogues (ordinarily punishable only as mere misdemeanour "vandalism"), bullying of gays in school, inciting people to racial violence, etc. These are specific crimes which don't fall into any other category but "hate crimes". That is why the laws exist.

When someone is murdered, it is a murder first, and if applicable, a hate crime second. We should not throw the baby out with the bathwater and declare that hate crimes should be deleted from the books just because they're a secondary concern in murder cases.

They also apply to such things as beatings and destructive of property. If somebody beats me up or wrecks my car because I'm white and there black, that’s no less of a hate motivated crime then the opposite. Yet in many cases only the only would be charged as such. That’s where the problem is.

I do see a place for hate crime laws in murder cases, but only in terms of how severe the punishment for the murder is.

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-11-26 07:50pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:They also apply to such things as beatings and destructive of property. If somebody beats me up or wrecks my car because I'm white and there black, that's no less of a hate motivated crime then the opposite. Yet in many cases only the only would be charged as such. That's where the problem is.

I do see a place for hate crime laws in murder cases, but only in terms of how severe the punishment for the murder is.

So in vandalism cases, is it candalism first, hat crime later, as well?

C.S.Strowbridge · Post by **C.S.Strowbridge** » 2002-11-26 11:12pm

I disagree about murder beign the ultimate crime, there's shades of murder.

Killing a person cause of who they are (Jew, Arab, Gay, Straight, Black, White, etc.) is different than killing a person for practically any other reason.

It's different in the same way a serial killer is different than a hitman. The difference is the ability to rehabilitate / recidivism rates. If you're killing people just cause their gay, then every gay man is a target. On the other hand, killing people cause someone paid you 50 G's is another matter. A person is only a target if they cheated on their rich husband or squelled on the mob.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2002-11-27 12:04am

C.S.Strowbridge wrote:On the other hand, killing people cause someone paid you 50 G's is another matter. A person is only a target if they cheated on their rich husband or squelled on the mob.

Tell that to James Perry. He's gonna fry eventually for being a Hitman
in the State of Maryland.

********

If it weren't for the very real suffering of the individuals involved, the events resemble a made-for-tv melodrama. Recently divorced Mildred Horn had full care for her disabled eight year old son, Trevor. Young Trevor had had a tragic life. Born premature, he suffered health problems. These were made worse when his tracheotomy tube became dislodged during a routine hospital checkup. This dislodgement went unnoticed by hospital staff, resulting in eight minutes of oxygen deprivation and severe brain damage to the child. The family, represented by attorney Howard Siegel, sued the hospital and recieved a large settlement.

Unfortunately Mildred Horn's ex-husband, Lawrence T. Horn, coveted this money. A down on his luck Motown Music sound engineer, Lawrence stood to inherit the money if his child died. And he didn't want to wait. Horn hired James Edward Perry, a man who listed his occupation as "spiritual advisor", to murder his ex- wife and child.

On March 3, 1993, Perry entered Mildred Horn's Maryland home. He shot Horn and Janice Saunders, the child's nurse, with a silenced .22 caliber rifle. Next, he used a pillow to smother the crippled child. He then left the residence, took steps to try to conceal his crime and, having completed the ghastly acts as specified, collected his fee from his employer.

Although it required a lengthy investigation, James Edward Perry and Lawrence T. Horn were ultimately caught and are paying the price for their crime. Perry was sentenced to death on three counts of first degree murder and one count of conspiracy. He is currently awaiting execution. Lawrence Horn was convicted of the same crimes and given life imprisonment.