Lawyer for Oxnard youth accused of killing gay classmate wants trial to begin soon

A lawyer for an Oxnard middle school student charged with killing gay classmate Lawrence "Larry" King said Friday that he wants to get the case in front of a jury quickly now that a Ventura County judge has turned down his request to move it to juvenile court.

Deputy public defender Willie Quest said he was disappointed by Superior Court Judge Douglas Daily's finding earlier this week that there was no constitutional violation in Dist. Atty. Gregory Totten's decision to try Brandon McInerney, 14, as an adult.

"We hope a jury will look at it in a much more reasonable light," Quest said. "I'm not going to allow a 14-year-old to go to prison for the rest of his life without someone other than the D.A.'s office looking at this."

Quest said the public defender's office may appeal Daily's decision but would probably wait until after his client has been tried. It can take months, or even years, to get an appellate court ruling, he said.

By then, McInerney may no longer be the fresh-faced adolescent who quietly sits through court hearings, Quest said.

"If people get to know Brandon and see Brandon as who he really is, I think they will be very unlikely to want him to die in prison," Quest said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox, the lead prosecutor, said Daily ruled appropriately. Previous courts have consistently upheld prosecutors' discretion in deciding in which court to file murder charges against young defendants, Fox said.

"It was the right decision," Fox said. "I didn't think it was a particularly close call."

McInerney is being tried in adult court under the provisions of Proposition 21, approved by state voters in 2000. The law allows prosecutors to bring murder charges against juveniles as young as 14 for certain serious crimes.

McInerney turned 14 three weeks before he walked into a classroom at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard on Feb. 12 and allegedly shot King in the head. King, 15, lingered in a coma for a day before he was declared dead.

Totten, the district attorney, said the severity of the crime prompted him to file a murder charge, with a special hate crime enhancement, in adult court. Students and other witnesses told investigators that tension had been simmering for days between the two eighth-graders over King's alleged romantic interest in McInerney.

King had announced he was gay and sometimes came to school dressed in feminine clothing, said students, who added that McInerney was annoyed by King's public interest in him.