Gay Panic Defense Works Again

If you're a man and want to avoid a rap for murder in this country, just claim you were fending off an unwelcome sexual advance from another man. Joseph Biedermann of Hoffman Estates, Illinois fatally stabbed his neighbor, 38-year-old Michael Hauser, 61 times last year. The 30-year-old Hauser told a Cook County jury that he only used the 7-inch dagger on Hauser to defend himself because he felt threatened by his sexual advances. "On Friday, a Cook County jury acquitted him of first-degree murder, buying his claim that he was defending himself against an unwanted sexual advance, his mother confirmed Saturday," the Sun-Times reports. Both men were drunk at the time of the killing.

Similarly, a Jackson County, Indiana court accepted manslaughter pleas instead of their original murder charges last year from two men accused of beating and then dumping Aaron Hall alive in a rural field after one of the men claimed the 5'4" Hall had made an unwanted sexual advance towards him. Hall later died from exposure and the brutal beating he sustained. His killers retreived his body and hid it in a garage until police discovered it later while executing a search warrant. The home where Hall's body was discovered belonged to a Jackson Co. deputy coroner, whose son was one of the killers. As with Biedermann's killing, Hall and his killers were drunk when his killing occurred.