Out for Queer Blood: The Murder of Fernando Rios and the Failure of New Orleans Justice

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On a September night in 1958, three New Orleans college students decided to entertain themselves in the French Quarter by rolling a queer and went looking for a gay man to assault. They chose Fernando Rios, a tourist from Mexico, who died from the beating he received. In perhaps the earliest example of the gay panic defense, the three defendants argued that they had no choice but to beat Rios because he had made an improper advance. When the jury acquitted them, the courtroom cheered. The author examines the murder and the trial in detail, and chronicles a time and place in American history where such a crime was inevitable.