Law Case Study and Analysis

Law Case Study and Analysis

This comes from the Associated Press. Around midnight back in 1997 two boys, one
17, and the other an 18 year old football player were pulled over by a local liquor
store in Minersville, PA, a small town about 100 miles North West of Philadelphia.
They had been spotted drinking party. They were both charged with M.I.P. The
police found two condoms in the car. The teens were then taken to the station
where they were lectured on the bible and homosexuality. Allegedly the arresting
officer F. Scott Willinsky asked the boys if they were queer. He also proceeded
to say that if they would not admit to being gay that he would out them. Marcus
Wayman frightened by the potential repercussions of this threat, said to his friend
he that was going to kill himself. Later in the morning he found a gun in his
grandfathers house and before 6 a.m. he ended his life. A lawsuit was filed by
Waymans mother against the city of Minersville following the incident, and on
November 5, 2001 the case made its way to a federal court in Allentown. The
lawsuit charges three of the Minersville officers (F. Scott Willinsky- arresting
officer, Joseph Willinsky-former police chief, Thomas Hoban) with violation of
Waymans privacy, and unspecified damages.

(An important building block to this case was the ruling in a federal court in
Philadelphia which stated a persons constitutional right to privacy does include
ones sexual orientation.)

Eric Ferro who is an attorney from the ACLU, and represents the Wayman family said,
Many school officials, social workers and others feel they have a duty to share
information with parents when they learn that a teenager may be gay This is
exactly the argument of the Sheriff. He said that being in such a small town that
he had a lot of influence and therefore had a right to tell people. In a circuit
court in which the case was tried before moving on, circuit Judge Carol Lost
Mansmann wrote, to note our disagreement that the breadth of ones constitutional
rights can somehow be diminished by demographics. The trial has yet to have an
official verdict.

Analysis:

I think that there are a couple of discussions that can come from this event. The
first being: if the supreme court believes that sexual orientation believes that
sexual orientation is something that citizens have the right to have kept private
(due to the potential responses of those around them)why does the rest of the
government not do things that will protect the lives of those who have been
forcefully outed to the public, or those threatened for being GLBT. Secondly, is
it the place of the government to enact such laws, do you believe that sexual
orientation should be treated with the same regard as the protection of different
races? I think that the three officers should be charged with something like
attempt to commit a hate crime. Had these two boys become publicly known
homosexuals, they would not only have had a permanent stigma to everyone else, but
they could have been physically harmed. I am impressed with the court decision
however, it is the decision of the person who is GLBT to come out of the closet.
That privilege belongs to nobody else.

Category : Law

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