Unfortunately that brings us down to its level. But I can’t see any compassion for this thing.

Being unaware or incapable of remorse is most consistent with sociopathic behavior which is not a defense. It is in fact a strong arguement for indefinite detention or pursuing the death penalty.

His comments so far don’t sound much like psychosis either which could potentially be a defense, but only if he could prove he was psychotic at the time of the attack. Hints from his lawyer that this was somehow self defense (as laughably rediculous as that defense is) would forfeit any ability to raise a defense of diminshed capacity. You can’t be legitimately defending yourself and floridly psychotic and confused at the same time.

Ultimately, his best bet is to try to make a deal to knock a few years off his future sentence. If he pushes this to trial, the prosecutors will push for the max and use his cruel lack of remorse statement to convince a jury to show no mercy. Can’t imagine anyone who would deserve that more than this cretin.

All this talk of a “killing gene” and his behaving like an “animal” can play into a defense that he isn’t functionally responsible for his actions. If you truly believe he is genetically predisposed to violence, you eliminate the possibility of a death sentence. It only takes one juror who believes this to take a death sentence off the table.

Hopefully his cohorts will give evidence of his homophobic hatred and help get a conviction. It doesn’t seem the public defender is holding his cards very close to his vest.

Phoenix is a different animal altogether.

Animal is definitely the word. To claim there’s nothing even the least bit wrong with attacking someone the way he did? That is not the mind-set of a human being.