{"id":22060,"date":"2022-05-04T08:21:24","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T12:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=22060"},"modified":"2022-05-04T08:22:55","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T12:22:55","slug":"scott-johnson-gay-us-students-killer-jailed-in-sydney-after-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2022\/05\/04\/scott-johnson-gay-us-students-killer-jailed-in-sydney-after-30-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Johnson: Gay US student’s killer jailed in Sydney after 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Three decades after US man Scott Johnson’s body was found at the base of cliffs in Sydney, his killer has been sentenced to jail.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Scott White was on Tuesday sentenced to a maximum 12 years and seven months in jail for the then-27-year-old’s murder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At the time, the Cambridge University graduate’s death was ruled as suicide – something his family never believed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They had for years fought for Australian police to investigate it as a gay hate crime instead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Tuesday, a judge found there was not enough evidence to establish it was a gay hate crime, but sentenced White to jail for the 1988 killing. He will be eligible for parole in 2030.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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White – who was 18 at the time of the murder – did not give evidence in court but had told police he and Johnson had met at a bar in December 1988.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The court heard the pair had gone to North Head cliffs in Manly – a well-known gay cruising ground – where, according to White, they got into a fight and Dr Johnson fell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But a judge found he had struck Dr Johnson without provocation, knowing it would most likely cause the mathematician to fall to his death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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White had acted with “reckless indifference to human life”, Justice Helen Wilson told the New South Wales Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“With Johnson’s death the world lost a mind ready to contribute substantially to its advancement,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Steve<\/span><\/div>
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“Scott was, for his supreme intellectual gifts, the most modest person I’ve ever met,” said his brother Steve (left) – (Image: Steve Johnson)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The judge said White had been a “street kid” who “dealt with disagreements with his fists” but was “no longer the same angry young man”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The court had previously rejected an attempt by White’s lawyers to withdraw a confession he had made.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Why did the case take so long?<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Homosexuality had only been decriminalised in New South Wales two years before Dr Johnson’s death, and his family allege that police did not take hate crimes seriously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Investigators initially treated Johnson’s death as a suicide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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