The State - News from Feb. 26, 1988

Some homosexual activists are outraged because a San Francisco judge who found a teen-ager guilty of manslaughter in the stabbing death of a homosexual man said the victim had helped bring on the killing by his “reprehensible conduct.” The remarks of Superior Court Judge Daniel Weinstein suggest “that because your orientation is gay, you are responsible for your assault,” Randy Schell of the Community United Against Violence said. The teen-ager, whose name was withheld, accused the victim, George Smoot, 52, of making homosexual advances to him and slapping and choking his sister. Weinstein called the case “tragic and sad” but said it “was not unprovoked or unmitigated. . . .” The youth could be sentenced to as much as eight years in the California Youth Authority. “It was an outrage,” Bill Paul, president of the Stonewall Gay Democratic Club, said of the judge’s comments. “George Smoot’s conduct did not justify his life being taken.”