McInerney's Lawyer: I Won't Gay-Bash

If, on the other hand, McInerney was tried as a juvenile, Fox said, “Based on my experience, I would anticipate that he would be released before the age of 25.”

In a courthouse interview with The Advocate on Thursday, Quest said that the basis of his motion, to be filed June 24, will be that “California law allowing the D.A. to...charge Brandon as an adult to result in a 51 [years] to life sentence is cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Quest acknowledged that previous constitutional challenges to Proposition 21 have failed, but said none have been based on Eighth Amendment grounds. He plans to point to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting the execution of minors. “The reasoning of that we think applies in a life imprisonment case,” Quest said. If convicted as an adult, McInerney will not be eligible for parole until he is 65, according to Quest.

Although the Eighth Amendment issue was not discussed specifically, Fox did not think the motion to move the case to juvenile court would succeed, saying she was “fairly confident that the constitutional issues [regarding Proposition 21] have been resolved.”

Quest declined to disclose the legal defenses he intends to assert at trial, but did say, “We think there were issues at the school that we don’t think were addressed properly.... We’re not trying to blame the school...no one wanted this to happen, least of all the school. But...people saw situations arising and they tried to stop it; they were not allowed to. We think that a problem was allowed to fester.” Quest said that by “people,” he meant teachers.