“Get out of my house with all that gay”, Blackwell said, prosecutors said, adding that the attack was vicious and premeditated.
Advertisement
Martin Blackwell was convicted of pouring hot water two gay men as they slept and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Georgia doesn’t have a hate crime law. An FBI spokesman told Reuters that federal investigators are considering whether to charge Blackwell with a federal hate crime.
Blackwell’s defense attorney acknowledged that he poured water on the pair and said he deserved to be punished, but the lawyer asked jurors to find that it was reckless conduct.
“It’s not about hate”.
Blackwell’s defence attorney Monique Walker told jurors her client was reacting to behaviour he found disrespectful. Defense attorneys did not call any witnesses or present any evidence, and Blackwell didn’t take the stand. He was awaiting sentencing following the verdict.
On Feb. 12, Martin Blackwell found his girlfriend’s son and a friend sleeping together after the couple worked an overnight shift.
Prosecutor Fani Willis scoffed at the idea.
“Martin is not human”, she said of her ex. Blackwell had behaved in a “soulless and malicious way”, he said.
It was literally under a kitchen sink where Blackwell searched for the largest pot and filled it with water, Willis said. Gooden spent almost a month in a hospital, including two weeks in a medically induced coma, and Tolbert was hospitalized for 10 days, it said. Blackwell accused of throwing boiled water on Anthony Gooden and Marquez Tolbert, a same-se. The scalding water caused severe injuries that caused both men undergo skin graft surgeries, prosecutors said.
The two testified Tuesday about the excruciating pain they said they suffered as a result of the attack.
“I’m ecstatic”, Tolbert told reporters. He was nervous before the trial, but once he testified about what had happened, he felt a weight lift, he said.
During his testimony he said: “I woke up to the most unimaginable pain in my entire life”, according to AP.
Advertisement
Gooden and Tolbert are no longer together, but the two have remained friends after surviving such a awful ordeal. They’ll be all right; it was just a little hot water’. They are either approved or deleted.
