15-Year-Old Killer of Lawrence King To Be Tried As Adult

Brandon McInerney, the person who (allegedly) shot 15-year old Lawrence King in their 8th grade class in February 2008 is going to be tried for the crime as an adult, a judge ruled on Wednesday at a preliminary hearing. The court proceedings were delayed from earlier this year when McInerney's father was found dead the day before the trial was supposed to start.

According to prosecutor Maeve Fox, McInerney faces up to 53 years in prison, if convicted.

The prosecutor has offered McInerney a plea of a reduced sentence of 25 years if he pleads guilty. McInerney's defense attorneys have said they will appeal the judge's ruling that the now-15-year-old should be tried as an adult for a crime he allegedly committed days after he turned 14.

The defense has also been criticized by LGBT organizations for attempting to use a form of the "gay panic" defense for McInerney's actions:

In the preliminary hearing, the defense suggested that McInerney had been sexually abused as a child. They said he felt threatened by King, who returned taunts from him and other boys with sexual overtures and declarations of love.

At Wednesday's hearing, McInerney attorney Robyn Bramson summed up the defense strategy. In exasperation, she asked an investigator: "What if you talked to Brandon and he said, 'I did it because this kid was sexually harassing me and I felt panicked, freaked out and uncomfortable'?"

The judge ruled the question improper, and the investigator did not have to answer.

If that's not an attempt to get "gay panic defense" admitted, then what is it?

The judge also ruled that the special circumstance of "lying in wait" be added to the charges because the crime occurred 15 to 20 minutes in to a computer class on the morning of February 12, 2008. He also agreed that the crime should be classified as a hate crime.