Activists were unsuccessful in their efforts to save a gay Missouri man from the death penalty last week, as Stanley D. Lingar was executed early Feb. 7 for a 1985 murder.
Amnesty International, Queer Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union and others worked against the clock early last week, lobbying Missouri Gov. Bob Holden to grant clemency.
That request was turned down late last Tuesday, and Lingar, 37, was pronounced dead at 12:06 a.m. Wednesday at the Potosi Correctional Center. He was the first inmate to be executed in Missouri this year, the Associated Press reports.
Lingar was convicted in the 1985 murder of Thomas Scott Allen, a teenager that Lingar and his companion, David Smith, picked up after he ran out of gas on a two-lane road. They drove him out to a nearby lake, then ordered him to strip and masturbate. As he got out of the car, the men shot him, beat him with a tire iron and ran him over twice.
Smith testified against Lingar at his trial, casting him as the mastermind behind the attack. In exchange for his cooperation, he served just six years of a 10-year sentence and is now free.
Amnesty and others did not contest Lingar's participation in the crime but took issue with Smith's claim that he was the brains behind it. His attorneys cited evidence that he was borderline mentally retarded and had been diagnosed with a personality disorder. Smith, they noted, does not have those strikes against him.
The fight against Lingar's execution also stemmed from activists' belief that he did not receive a fair trial and that prosecutors used his sexuality against him to prejudice the rural Missouri jury.
"Prosecutors harped on the fact that he had a gay relationship ( with Smith ) , and despite an objection the judge allowed it to stand," said Adam Ortiz of Amnesty International's Chicago office. "This man's sexual orientation was used for no reason but to put him to death."
Prosectors have denied the claim, and Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon told the AP, "That's absurd. It's the brutality of the crime, not the sexual orientation of the killer."
According to the AP, Lingar consistently said he was too drunk to remember much of the crime after spending the day drinking with Smith.
Grand jury for murder
of deaf gay student
A grand jury has been called to hear the case against a suspect in the September murder of Eric Plunkett, the 19-year-old gay student found dead in his dorm room at Gallaudet University, the Washington Post reports. The suspect's identity will not be released unless an indictment is issued, according to police.
Plunkett, a freshman at the premier university for the hearing impaired, had been badly beaten. A classmate, Thomas Minch, was arrested on a second-degree murder warrant about a week after his death. Police said the two had an argument that escalated into a fight.
Officials investigate
fraud in Miami petition
Miami law enforcement is investigating allegations of fraud relating to an anti-gay petition that circulated across Dade County, the Miami Herald reports.
A handwriting expert called in by the local GLBT organization said 480 signatures gathered by the Christian Coalition-endorsed Take Back Miami-Dade are fake. The petition has 50,912 signatures, enough to get an anti-gay referendum on the Miami-Dade ballot. The referendum would repeal a 1998 law that bans discrimination against gays in employment, housing and public accommodations.
Time details AIDS in Africa
Time Magazine turned its attention to AIDS in Africa, joining forces with netaid.org to help victims of the epidemic. A special 21-page cover story details the devastation in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 17 million lives have been lost to HIV/AIDS. A 10-page photo essay accompanies the piece.
Under the partnership with netaid.org, readers can visit the site and buy aid packages ranging from a $17 Outreach Kit to a $59 Street-Child Placement Kit. The goals of the partnership are: to educate 200,000 African children about AIDS; to raise $1.2 million for African and Asian prevention; to train 500 health workers and distribute 5,000 health kits.
In conjunction with the Time story, CNN International aired The Dream Deferred, on AIDS in Africa, hosted by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Feb. 8.
Report: Anti-gay bias in California court system
A new 150-page report by the Judicial Council of California says that anti-gay bias is a major problem in the court system, with more than half of the lesbians and gay male respondents reporting anti-gay comments or actions when sexual orientation became an issue.
And about a third of court employees said they believe that it isn't safe for them to be out at work.
Jon W. Davidson, senior counsel at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and who for six years
