steven-simpson-gay-teen-burned-birthday

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/2 ... ostpopular

Simpson had Asperger's syndrome, a speech impairment and epilepsy, the Yorkshire Post noted. The teen had reportedly been dared to strip down to his underpants before being doused in tanning oil, after which Sheard set him aflame at the party. Other reports said that anti-gay messages, including "gay boy" and "I love d*ck," had been found scrawled across Simpson's body.

I think he had more than enough problems with out as#$%^&* being as#$%^&*
things like this make me sick?

This has already been posted in the LGBT forum: https://www.wrongplanet.net/postt226880.html

A few people seem to be taking the view that the action was homophobic (a hate crime) and the perpretrator should even have been convicted of murder, but I don't think the facts published justify that conclusion. It seems at least as likely that the guy was just an idiot (and a drunk idiot, to boot) and acted without thinking throught the consequences, then panicked. It's possible that he intended to seriously hurt the victim, but we can never know for sure. The prosection obviously thought so, too, and did not pursue a murder charge.

Uh, excuse me, but I would assume that someone who burns somebody else to death and scrawls anti-gay messages across the corpse, that the someone who perpetrated the crime intended to hurt the other person.

The punishment in this case hardly fits the severity of the crime. It would have been a cakewalk for the prosecutor in sending this kid up the river with a harder sentence if he had rejected the notion of accepting a plea deal, and just prosecuted the crime.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Yes - assume being the key word. Your assumption may be correct and it may not be. Such an assumption is not enough to convict a person of murder, thankfully.

Firstly, it's a matter of interpretation that the messages were "anti-gay". Depending on the context, they may have been jokes among friends. Secondly, even if they were intended as anti-gay, we cannot infer from that that he intended to seriously hurt the victim. To put things in context, remember that drunk guys that age commonly do some ridiculously stupid and dangerous things - we just don't tend to hear about them until someone dies.

and he wrote the messages before setting fire to him, not after, that would be more morbid than one could imagine?
this is a very bad event, but his intentions are not positively known, and inferring anything from them is not reasonable.

Gotta say, I cant fully agree with that. According to this thousend of murderers, robbers, and other criminals should go free, because they were drunken, drugged, ... or in rage, and so acted without thinking, and then panicked. So if a raper rapes someone without thinking, then starts to think about the consequences, and then kills his victim in panick to avoid the consequences...this is ok? And this person shall not be judged for murder, after THINKING of consequences and DECIDING to murder to avoid consequences?

Sorry, but I never could agree with that part of law. From my opnion: Not wanting to think about consequences of your doing, is something I have to decide as well. Ordering me a fifth beer, when I already know that I loose my self control, when drinking the fifth beer and will afterwards be ordering more beer, is an active desicion in my opinion. (In my country you are allowed to drink with age 16, so its normally to tolerate ONE abuse of alcohol, because the youngsters that never drunk dont know there limit. But after that you know it and there is no excuse to it any longer. So first time you call at work, crying about your cousins wedding and that everything has gone too much, and you didnt know how evil that stuff was...you laugh at him, write a free day for him and its ok. If it happens a second time your fired.) As is taking drugs. So I am liberal, and think drug use is something you have to decide on your own. But its your desicion and you have to face its consequences if something happens.

Many of the guys, responsible for the killing of the jews with gas, were simply idiots acting without thinking. But I think there will be a long way to go, until israel representatives will say, that its ok, because noone will ever know if they really wanted to seriously harm them.

He never intended to kill him? He doused the guy's body in tanning oil and then lit him on fire. WHAT THE HELL DID HE THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?!?!

It has been difficult for me to even click on this topic because thinking about it is enough to edge me into a crying breakdown.

Actually, he didn't. Someone else did that, but the convicted guy was the one who lit it, as reported by the article in the other thread (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ead_module). See how easy it is to make assumptions from incomplete facts? I could have made the same mistake if I didn't read the other article. Things are rarely as simple as newspapers make them out to be. Yes, it's tragic and yes, it's tempting to cry for blood - someone's blood, anyone's - but for the sake of justice the courts must resist that and consider the facts carefully.

Schneekugel, I know what you're saying about self-control and I feel the same way. However, the rest of your post is attacking a straw man.

Dear FMX,

I believe that you are sincerely trying to be compassionate to him, but he knew the oil would burn, or he would not have lit it.

Drunk or not, he knew that was oil on the boy, he knew it would burn, he lit it.

He is responsible for him suffering, and responsible for his death.

He deserves a maximum sentence.

The killers of Matthew Sheppard claimed drunkenness, too.

So did the murderers of James Byrd.

These were all hate crimes, and I do not see ANY of them as spontaneous.

Sylkat

FMX,

I understand that you are trying to see both sides of the story in a positive light. You cannot do that in a situation like this. As Sylkat pointed out, even if the guy didn't douse the teenager in tanning oil, even if the murderer was drunk, he still lit the match. He still killed an innocent person. He is still responsible for his actions.

Sorry, sometimes my thoughts can't slow down for me to think things through. That tanning oil was flammable wasn't it? How could he not expect the fire to spread quickly and burn the boy's body with fatal results?

The short answer to "how could he not expect the fire to spread quickly" is: he didn't consider it. Consider how many people injure themselves by trying to light their farts and similar stupid stunts (often while drunk). Clearly there is no malicious intent in those cases. Also, the others were chanting "light it, light it", encouraging him to act rather than think, which makes this even more likely. Is that what actually happened? I don't know. Neither does anyone else (other than the defendant himself), but I think it must be considered plausible.

I'm not. I'm trying to be fair. There's a big difference.