The jury in the trial of Aaron McKinney for the murder of Matthew Shepard didn’t buy the “gay panic” defense McKinney’s lawyers tried to use to protect him from a life sentence, and many local people understand why.

Shepard, a homosexual student at the University of Wyoming, was killed last year after leaving a bar with McKinney and Russell Henderson, who was given a life sentence for Shepard’s murder earlier this year.

McKinney and Henderson drove Shepard to the outskirts of Laramie, Wyo., tied him to a fence, pistol-whipped him and left him to die alone.

McKinney’s lawyers said Shepard came on to McKinney, sending him into a “gay panic” and inducing violence.

The jury didn’t believe the theory and sentenced McKinney to two consecutive life sentences.

The term “gay panic” is a fairly new defense tactic in the legal system, said Dan Gonnerman, Story County assistant attorney.

Gonnerman said the gay panic defense has never been used in Iowa, as far as he knows.

Because of the seriousness of the crime, Gonnerman said the jury was more apt to pay attention to the details of the case rather than emotional pleas.

“The jurors followed the instructions and didn’t get tied up in the emotional side of the defense’s story,” he said.

“If it had been a more minor case, the jurors would’ve been easily led astray and would’ve bought an excuse like that of a gay panic,” he said.

Sarah Schweitzer, president of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally Alliance, said McKinney’s lawyers probably used the gay panic defense to see if they could get him out of a life sentence.

“The great thing about it is that it didn’t work,” said Schweitzer, sophomore in history and women’s studies.

Schweitzer said the LGBTAA’s stance on the trial is that any kind of murder is wrong, but this was clearly a hate crime.

“It just boggles my mind on how they could do that to another human being,” she said.

Jeanne Burkhart, staff psychologist for Student Counseling Services, said McKinney’s gay panic excuse was not legitimate.

“I think it would be a parallel if a man were to hit on a woman in a bar and the woman would want to be justified in attacking the man,” Burkhart said.

He also said that the night Shepard died, McKinney allegedly was under the influence of alcohol and drugs, which have strong connections to violence.

Levi Parke, freshman in computer engineering, felt differently about the defense.

Parke said he could understand gay panic if McKinney had been molested as a child, which he felt could trigger a violent rage.

“It didn’t work in this particular case, but I could see it happening to maybe some other people under different circumstances,” he said.

Robert King, junior in food sciences and technology, said he had never heard of the gay panic defense tactic before the McKinney trial.

King believed McKinney could have acted out in violence at first as an act of defense to make Shepard leave him alone.

But King said McKinney crossed the line and committed an act of rage that was taken too far.

“It was no longer panic,” he said, “it was just, ‘I wanna kill this guy.'”