A Jury May Have Sentenced a Man to Death Because He's Gay. Now, the Supreme Court Could Hear His App

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

A Jury May Have Sentenced a Man to Death Because He’s Gay. Now, the Supreme Court Could Hear His Appeal.

By Adam Liptak
April 1, 2019

WASHINGTON — It was 1993, and a South Dakota jury was debating whether to sentence a gay man to death. Life in prison, one juror said, would be no punishment at all. Allowing the defendant, Charles Rhines, to spend his days surrounded by men would, the juror reasoned, be a kind of reward.

“If he’s gay, we’d be sending him where he wants to go,” the juror said, according to a 2016 sworn statement from Frances Cersosimo, who also served on the jury. She did not name the juror.

Another juror, Harry Keeney, said he was convinced that Mr. Rhines deserved to die for killing Donnivan Schaeffer, who encountered Mr. Rhines in 1992 while he was robbing a doughnut store in Rapid City, S.D. “We also knew he was a homosexual and thought he shouldn’t be able to spend his life with men in prison,” Mr. Keeney said in his own 2016 sworn statement.

A third juror, Bennett Blake, described the deliberations to an investigator. “There was lots of discussion of homosexuality,” he said. “There was a lot of disgust. This is a farming community.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/us/politics/supreme-court-gay-bias-charles-rhines.html

[elleng]

1. 'This is a farming community."'

[PupCamo]

4. they can go screw sheep then

just no words

[elleng]

6. Right

[tymorial]

2. Because we are gay or bisexual, we simply want to have sex with everyone

It is astounding just how fucking stupid far too many people in this country are..

[FBaggins]

3. Should be easy enough to determine

If it can be argued that a ‘93 jury in SD would not have have sentenced someone else to death for the same crime... then they can move on the evaluate other reasons.

For some reason, the article doesn’t seem to want to tell us what crime he committed.

[PupCamo]

5. reading is fundamental

Another juror, Harry Keeney, said he was convinced that Mr. Rhines deserved to die for killing Donnivan Schaeffer, who encountered Mr. Rhines in 1992 while he was robbing a doughnut store in Rapid City, S.D. “We also knew he was a homosexual and thought he shouldn’t be able to spend his life with men in prison,” Mr. Keeney said in his own 2016 sworn statement.


fundamental

[FBaggins]

7. Duh... of course he killed someone

Last edited Tue Apr 2, 2019, 11:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Everyone executed or currently on death row was convicted of killing someone, but not everyone who killed someone got the death penalty.

The author appears to want to avoid discussing the details of the particularly brutal stabbing he was convicted of. It isn’t unreasonable to assume that’s because it undermines the claim that his sentence was driven by his orientation (IOW that a straight man would not have received the DP for the same crime).