Republican Supreme Court nominee Michael George is under firing for his conduct in a 1988 case and his 1999 explanation of his strategy.
William Bender of the Daily News reports that George sought to defend an Adams County murderer by attempting to shift the focus from the crime onto to the victim’s sexual orientation.
In 1988, Stephen Roy Carr murdered Rebecca Wright. Wright was camping with her girlfriend Claudia Brenner on the Rock Knob Trail when Carr killed Wright and shot Brenner five times.
George, who was then a lawyer, acted as the defense attorney for Carr.
A decade later, George was interviewed about the case.
“I wanted to get her full story on the record,” George said in a 1999 book written by Dickinson College political-science professor Harold Pohlman. “That meant a full story as to how many times the women were naked and how many times they engaged in lesbian sex. I wanted the graphic details. All of them.”
“I wanted it to look like these two women were bold with their lesbianism,” he continued. “That they didn’t hide their lesbianism from anybody, including my client. The more sexually reckless the women appeared, the better for Carr.”
The idea was to “put the two women into a poor light” in order to influence the potential jury pool.
“The one thing that I could not get out of my mind was that the local people did not think much of homosexuals,” George explained.
“That’s why we had to get all the steamy facts of what had happened up on South Mountain out before the public. Sort of let what happened simmer in the public’s imagination,” he concluded. “In a way, we wanted to get the local folks talking more about the lesbianism than the murder.”
Vince Galko of the George campaign responded that the candidate “believes the defendant is properly serving a life sentence for this heinous crime,” and told Bender that the candidate is “unable to offer meaningful comment” at this time.
Carr is serving a life sentence in prison for first-degree murder.
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16 Responses
Sick defense argument. Is he pro-life for only straight people?
I heard George did NOT get the PSTA endorsement either. The word is out on him. I hope his buddy who gave him a million dollars is not too upset!!
This was 28 years ago.. Whocares. Obama and Clinton were both against Gay marriage then..
Roger – could you then use the Gay Panic Defense Panic Defense(TM) to get off on the assault charges?
But seriously, glad to see he was brazen enough to put his scumbag move on the record. Of course he’s “unable to offer meaningful comment” – how can you defend the indefensible? Oh wait…
There is only one fix for this – attorneys should not be Judges.
I didn’t live in Adams County at the time, but I do now. This was news to me. I can not wait to see George at a social occasion so I can spit in his face. Bastard.
Michael George has reached his “Peter Principle” career as a judge. Perhaps Adams County voters will dismiss him, but he is not Supreme Court quality.
There actually are SIX other candidates.
Kdsf. George introduced the evidence of homosexuality to appeal to the prejudices in the rural community where the trial was held. It was unethical and should cause anyone to vote for any one of the other five candidates.
That’s right; any lie you can tell to sway the court or confuse the issues is how you make your money. Just ask J Mahood.
I am sorry, but a defense attorney is not doing their job if they do not raise whatever plausible defenses they can raise to save their client. They are chaos merchants and must do what is necessary to try to win.
If you read the book, it talks about how the homophobia defense was designed to point blame on a third party.
From Pages 169 and 170:
“George was referring to the police report that indicated that Paul Drixell had suggested that homosexuals should be used for target practice. The defense was entitled to introduce evidence that Drixell, not Carr, shot the two women. If the defense did not introduce such evidence, it would obviously have the right to present evidence that Brenner and Wight were engaged in lesbian sexual activity at the time of the shootings. . .
George had won a victory. The evidence of the victims’ sexual activity was going into the trial so that the defense could, if it decided to do so, implicate an innocent person by publicly exposing his homophobic prejudices.”
Meaning: The evidence of sexual activity was used to implicate a homophobic third party in the murder. It’s certainly relevant evidence to the accused’s defense if the homosexual acts caused another person to commit murder based upon sexual orientation discrimination.
The two victums were guiltier than the individual who wanted to commit murder ?
George is imploding! He made the police mad with a ridiculous ruling, his good buddy Shawn Wagner won’t appeal it (but Wagner endorsed him and violated the Judicial Code of Conduct by doing so), the tv adds are killing him, and now this! HE IS TOAST! Bye bye!
When I get accused of a crime, my defense will be to accuse Frank Fina of misconduct. Clown Car. Repervlicans.
Oops!