Birmingham killer gets a break with "gay panic" defense

I really like to read Pam's House Blend, but I invariably become filled with rage over the news Pam covers. The latest is making me too angry for words: Defense attorneys in Alabama just successfully used the "gay panic defense" to get a murder a lighter sentence. Raymond Carlisle was convicted of felony murder (not capital murder) for killing an adjunct professor at Birmingham Southern College because he "reacted in the heat of passion when the 37-year-old victim tried to homosexually assault him."

Imagine for a moment that a man in Birmingham tries to "sexually assault" a woman, and she kills him, then her lawyers ask for leniency because of the effect the assault had on her. They would be laughed out of the courtroom and she would go to prison for the rest of her life.