Brief review staff :

Brandon Teena suffered everything this with plenty of reasons but not supporting thefts that she did, but looking at the world in general there is a large population full of prejudice against gay men or lesbian, and of course there are people who pretend to like gay or even pass for a gay audience for itself, but if I see it more as a nuisance, half, from the rape that caused it, but maybe she was so radically in the ways of acting in a way was very smart because he stole up to give gifts for girlfriend, I think she disturbed when she falls over itself and analyzed it was not a man is as normal to see people who are heterosexual in the world, and maybe she saw falcilmente would not accept any work in order to annihilate the robberies he did. The world would be better, but the way of her vision is so realistic vision " Not everyone accepts all or most like to accept the difference when it is big " in world, but the sad truth is that, many make lie as says it opposed, or worse even say what it is worse (like that), at the bottom do not really accept that fact, sometimes it takes up to someone as different from normal, looking different than dealing with a right to demean or humiliate since they are familiar with the normal pattern of people. What we have planted bear fruit, and other such fruits might be cruel, you create is like a lot of plants and watering them with contempt, not just what we planted ourselves that we acquire, get involved with something beyond that will be " grown " this has result may end up reaching people who are not the same, There is something that affects the personal choice (our morals) and superfluous things there that are just nonsense for a person to get to the point of becoming a killer just like the Tom Nissen underestimated by little (with the student plays the person's IQ) .


The world with love has compassion, 'no love' has aggression !

More photos that I found interesting and few have seen!

Brandon (right) and his sister Tammy.

Brandon in the middle of the photo

Brandon right side again

A smile " toothpaste."

Lesbian activist Carolyn Gage explain more about .

Brandon was born female, but felt male inside. Her story outraged many and captured headlines, and it has been powerfully re-told in the film Boys Don’t Cry and in the award-winning documentary The Brandon Teena Story. But to a few people in Nebraska, it is simply the sad tale of the child, sibling and friend they loved and lost.
Brandon Teena was born Teena Brandon in Lincoln, Neb., on December 12, 1972. Her mother, Joann, remembers she was handful at an early age. “As she was growing up, she was ornery and full of life,” she says. “She was a prankster, and she was a tomboy.”Although Brandon carried out life publicly as a boy, her mother says she refused to acknowledge her daughter’s new persona at home. Brandon’s growing frustration as she tried to date other women, coupled with the humiliation and name-calling she faced in town, led her to attempt suicide. Her best friend, Sarah Lyons, says she took Brandon to a crisis center.

I want to talk about an inconvenient truth. I want to talk about the fact the person who was named Teena Brandon was a survivor of incest. You won't hear this mentioned in Boys Don't Cry, and you won't hear it mentioned in the documentary "The Brandon Teena Story." You won't read about it in the current Wikipedia entry. It is, like I said, inconvenient. "The Inconvenient Truth About Tina Brandon" is an inconvenient essay. It has a history of publication rejections. It has been construed as transphobic, and it has been challenged for disrupting tenets of Queer Theory. This is to be expected, because it is about trauma, and trauma is trauma specifically because it resists being accepted or assimilated. If this paper fit comfortably into existing categories of identity there would have been no need to write it and Teena Brandon might be living today.In my experience, protracted conflict can be an indication of inadequately and/or inaccurately conceived contexts. Trauma research offers radical perspectives on identity, both lesbian and trans, and opens up new space for dialogue, space with a possibility of common ground. Trauma literacy can inform radical feminism, and I wrote the paper with that intention. Does this essay belong in a journal issue with the title "Are Lesbians Going Extinct?" The answer is "no," if that means it should insist that Teena Brandon was really a lesbian with a case of mistaken identity. This paper does not make that claim. What it does claim is her status as an unrecovered survivor of incest with Complex PTSD who appeared to be in active syndrome up to the time of her death. I believe this paper does belong in this issue of Trivia, which is why I submitted it. Many lesbians are survivors of child sexual abuse. The last decade has seen increasing numbers of biological women who formerly identified as lesbians (like Brandon) transitioning to claim male identities. Positions in the lesbian and trans communities have become polarized, opening deep divisions between us. Accusations of "essentialism," "pathologizing," "misogyny," and "patriarchal privilege" are hurled back and forth across the battle lines.


She explains about misogyny :


If gender is considered an aggregate of sex-caste markers in a system of dominance based on biological sex, then it is simplistic and misleading to characterize it as "performative." Viewed in the context of a patriarchal culture, gender is emblematic of a system of dominance in which women are universally oppressed as a caste.According to the studies of Jacobs and Herman, the victimized daughter's repudiation of a female identity and her internalization of an idealized male represent responses to childhood sexual abuse.The victimized daughter who adopts a male persona is not "fucking with gender." Gender has fucked with her, and, in attempting to identify with the power that has hurt her, she is adopting the strategy of a desperate child whose only option has been to alter her perception of herself.What the transgender movement calls gender-fucking is simply an exercise in moving markers rather than any fundamental change in gender. Gender still exists. It is still an organizing structure for society. What's different is that you just 'do' it differently: it is 'allowed' to be attached to different bodies. The aim of transgender politics is to allow you to be 'be' the gender that you 'are.' However, being your gender still means what you wear, what you do, how you express yourself and is still attached to fundamental notions of what it means to be men and women… And it's no surprise that what is female and what is male in this view exactly tracks what is already defined as male and female. (Corson, 3)Transgender politics does not disrupt the positions of men and women in the gender hierarchy, but what it does do is "render women's choices to oppose this hierarchy as women and on behalf of women incomprehensible."(Corson, 3)In addition to its participation in the larger political system of male dominance, the GID diagnosis also acts on a more personal front to protect the perpetrators. If the victimized daughter's "gender dysphoria" is a post-traumatic response to sexual violence, it reflects an attempt to dissociate, or split off, the trauma.A trauma that cannot adequately be represented or narrated remains estranged. It is an alienated chunk of experience that resists any assimilation into the personhood of the host on whom it feeds. Dissociation can also be understood as a narrative act. It narrates fragmentation, breakage, rupture, disjunction, and incommensurability. (Epstein and Lefkovitz, 193) .
Is this a lesbian paper that belongs in lesbian space? That question can be hotly debated, and what better qualifier for inclusion?

Carolyn Gage is a lesbian feminist playwright, performer, author, and activist. The author of nine books and more than fifty-five plays, she is the 2009 winner of the Lambda Literary Award in drama. Her website is www.carolyngage.com

Some magazines and books that contain more information about Brandon Teena

Search & Found !

Boys Don't Cry Searchlight Productions, Director Kimberly Peirce, 2000.“The Brandon Teena Story”, by Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdittir, Zeitgeist Films, 1998.“Execution of Brandon Teena's Killer Stayed," March 6, 2000.  www.datalounge.com.Hohlt, Jared.  "Double Trouble: The Two Lives and One Murder of Teena Brandon," Oct. 7, 1999."John Lotter Convicted in Death of Teena Brandon," Press release, Falls City, Nebraska, 1995.Jones, Aphrodite.  All She Wanted.  New York: Pocket Books, 1996."The Life and Death of Teena Brandon," American Justice, A&E, 2000."Nebraska Court Rules Former Sheriff was Negligent in Cross-Dressing Woman's Murder," AP, April 20, 2001."What Transsexuality is," www.transsexual.org.

Want to escape the condemnation !

Lotter Appeals

Once in prison, John Lotter began to fight his conviction for the triple murder in Humboldt, Nebraska in 1993.  He’d been unprepared for Marvin Nissen to take the stand, describe their week-long premeditation, and then turn on him as the shooter.  Nissen had said that he’d merely stabbed one of the victims, Teena Brandon, after she was shot to make sure she was dead.  For his cooperation, he’d received life in prison, while Lotter faced execution.Lotter claimed that contrary to Nissen’s testimony, Nissen himself had been the shooter, and Lotter could prove it.  According to Kevin O’Hanlon for the Associated Press, Lotter believed that DNA testing on gloves, shoes, and clothing that Nissan had worn on that fateful New Year’s Eve would exonerate him, because blood from at least one other victim, if not both, would be found, and that it would show patterns of high velocity spatter consistent with a shooting.  Thus, Nissen would be caught in a lie about where he was at the time each person was shot.  In 2001 Lotter petitioned Richardson County District Judge Daniel Bryan, under the Nebraska DNA Testing Act, to order the test.  Since he was indigent, Lotter also asked the state to fund it.Prosecutors protested this appeal, pointing out that Lotter could have requested DNA testing during his 1995 trial but did not. Yet Soucie claimed that the kind of testing they sought (named in State v. Lotter S-02-1072, 266 Neb. 758 as Power Plex 16 amplification and multiplex identification system with the ABI Prism Genetic Analyzer) had not been available in 1995.  He also pointed out that until 1997, DNA evidence was not declared legally admissible in Nebraska.  In addition, Lotter had not known until the trial that Nissen would be testifying against him.  He had not expected to need any such proof.  Lotter also claimed that there was no evidence that he was even with Nissen in the farmhouse at the time of the shootings, other than Nissen’s word.The State argued that there was other evidence against Lotter, including his theft of the murder weapon earlier in the day, he successful efforts to obtain the gloves and knife used in the crimes, his appearance with Nissen just prior to the murders, Lotter’s stated desire that day to kill someone, and his effort to seek a false alibi from his girlfriend during the time the murders had occurred.Judge Bryan rejected Lotter’s petition, saying that DNA testing would not indicate how blood had gotten on the gloves or clothing, and that spatter patterns would only indicate that Nissen had been near the victims when they were shot, not prove that he was the shooter.  And even if Nissen had been mistaken in how close to a victim he was that night, contrary evidence would not necessarily catch him in a lie, since memory can be faulty.  Thus, none of the claims had merit, in terms of proving exculpatory evidence.In June 2003, Lotter’s attorney, Jerry Soucie, took his petition to the Nebraska Supreme Court.  In another appeal to get a new trial, Lotter also argued that his trial judge made an error when he barred testimony from an inmate, Jeff Haley, who had shared a cell with Nissen at Lincoln CorrectionalCenter and who’d allegedly heard incriminating comments as to who had actually committed the murders.  Lotter also asked the high court to declare the electric chair to be cruel and unusual punishment, and stated that a 2002 Supreme Court ruling in an Arizona case indicated that in death penalty cases, juries, not judges, should decide a killer’s fate.  Lotter had been sentenced by a three-judge panel.  If he could not get a new trial, his sentence should at least be commuted to life.  With the addition of favorable DNA evidence, he would no longer be death eligible.In other words, the condemned John Lotter was throwing everything he had into his final appeal.On July 11, 2003, Nebraska’s high court said that the Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling was not retroactive, and therefore Lotter was not entitled to a new trial.   Nor would his death sentence be commuted to life, since the jury had ruled that the two men had equal culpability in the incident and Nissen’s lesser sentence had been the result of his cooperation, not his status of diminished culpability.  Had he not cooperated and been convicted just on what he described of his participation, it was likely that he may also have gotten a death sentence. Yet Lotter still had hope for his appeal to have DNA testing done.By the end of September, that hope disappeared.   On the 26th, the Nebraska Supreme Court unanimously upheld Judge Daniel Bryan’s earlier decision to reject the petition for DNA testing.  The conclusion of the justices was that DNA findings would not offer conclusive proof that Lotter had been wrongly convicted or wrongly sentenced.  They cited that prosecutors had pointed out that Lotter had wrapped the knife and gun in the gloves, so blood from all three would likely be present on the gloves. “DNA evidence is not a videotape of a crime,” Judge John Wright was quoted as saying in the Sioux City Journal.  They agreed with Judge Bryan that a DNA test would not determine just how blood might have gotten on the gloves.  That means the test would not establish that Nissen had shot anyone.  In short, the DNA test would not offer Lotter what he believed it would in terms of evidence against Nissen and in favor of his claim of innocence.

Thus, John Lotter still awaits his fate.

News about John Lotter and more about what happened to the killers.

After 18 years: Federal Judge Rejects Lotter's Latest Appeal In Teena Brandon Case

Lotter. Photo: Nebraska Department of Corrections.

Condemned killer John Lotter lost again.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf has dismissed Lotter’s latest appeal of his conviction for the notorious murder of Teena Brandon and two other people 18 years ago.

The 1993 case became famous when the story of Brandon, who sometimes represented herself to be a man, was the subject of the 1999 film “Boys Don’t Cry.” Hillary Swank won an Oscar for her portrayal of Brandon.

In refusing to hear Lotter’s appeal, Kopf said it had been reviewed by the courts numerous times and that Lotter had been well-represented by a series of attorneys. He concluded the judicial exercise provided Lotter a fair trial, thorough appeals and continuing representation.

Insofar as observing Lotter’s rights, Kopf said, the state needdn’t have second thoughts about executing him if his sentence eventually is carried out.

Lotter and co-defendant Thomas Nissen were charged with first-degree murder for the slayings of Brandon, 21; Lisa Lambert, 24, and Phillip DeVine, 22 In a Richardson County farmhouse.

Brandon had accused Lotter and Nissen of raping her. Lotter later said he and Nissen had been angered by her portrayal of herself as a man.

Nissen testified against Lotter and was sentenced to life in prison. Life imprisonment or the death penalty are the only sentences permitted in Nebraska after a conviction for first-degree murder. In 2007 he recanted his story and said that he, not Lotter, shot the three victims. His earlier story was that Lotter did the shooting. If the courts had believed Nissen’s story, he would not have been eligible for the death penalty since he previously had been tried and sentenced.

There are 12 men on Nebraska's death row. No execution dates have been set.

The farmhouse in Humboldt

It was a cold morning on December 31 in Humboldt, Nebraska, the heart of the Midwest.  While many households were rising to prepare to bring in 1994, one sat ominously silent.  Anna Mae Lambert drove up the driveway of the rented farmhouse just outside town to visit her daughter and grandson.  In moments, she was calling the police.The Humboldt Rescue Squad took the call around 10:20 a.m.  They were prepared for a long day, knowing that some people start their festivities early, and those who drink sometimes let loose demons.  The Richardson County Sheriff's Department told them there'd been some deaths at the old farmhouse that had once belonged to Frank Rist.  They thought one was a baby.  Could they check it out?The rescue crew quickly assembled, picked up a doctor and drove out to the farm, followed closely by Deputy Ray Harrod.  No one knew quite what to expect.Potentially, this was a crime scene, so Harrod entered to secure it.  The first thing he saw was a young African- American man with a prosthetic leg slumped against the couch.  A coffee table lay over his lap.  Going closer, Harrod saw that the man was dead.  There was an entrance wound in his jaw and an exit wound on the right side of his head.  Yet there were no other signs of struggle in the room and nothing about the corpse revealed what had happened.  It could have been a suicide, but there was no gun.  Had someone taken it?A search of the rest of the house was in order.  Harrod moved toward the dining room.  Oddly enough, a woman sat at the table feeding a baby.  It was she who had made the call to police, she explained.  She understood not to disturb a crime scene.  She was the grandmother to this child and mother to one of the victims. Victims?  That meant there was more than one body here.Anna Mae Lambert directed him to a bedroom.Harrod ventured within, aware right away that the floor was flooded.  Lying on a leaking waterbed were two people in their early twenties, a blond woman and a baby-faced young man with brown hair.  They both appeared to have been shot execution style.  Looking around for a weapon, the deputy found none.  He had no idea who they were.

Teena Brandon

When Richardson County Sheriff Charles Laux eventually entered to have a look, he recognized one of the women on the bed as Teena Brandon, 21, who'd reported that John Lotter and Tom Nissen had raped her a week earlier, after a Christmas party.Brandon lay on her back on the lower part of the bed, her legs dangling over the edge and her hands bloody.  She was fully clothed, but her sweatshirt showed a large area of blood that had soaked through from her abdomen.  Her white socks were pink from watered-down blood soaked up from the floor.  Lifting her sweatshirt, officers saw a jagged wound, apparently made by a knife.  Further up, a small bullet hole was evident under her chin, surrounded by gunpowder residue.  That meant she'd been shot at close range.  A fracture on her skull indicated that she'd been hit with a blunt object.  Of the three bodies, hers was the most ravaged, so it was possible that she had been the primary target.Lisa Lambert, 24, was partly under the covers, but there was a bullet wound to her right eye.  Blood also ran out of her mouth and another wound was found in her stomach.  It appeared that's she'd been sitting up in bed when shot.The evidence collection unit of the Nebraska State Patrol was called in.  They came out from Lincoln, but had to get an accident reconstruction expert to look at the tire tracks near the front porch, because it was too messed up to get a cast.  They then went in to search for weapons and dust the place for fingerprints.  A lone footprint and a red spot near the front door were photographed.  They assumed that if a gun were located, recovered bullets from the bodies would help them identify it.Checking the victim on the couch, they saw another bullet entry point in his neck.  From a wallet found in a bedroom, he was identified as Phillip DeVine, age 19, and it appeared that he'd been sleeping there.Six shell casings were found in the flooded bedroom, along with a spent bullet and a live cartridge.  A cigarette lighter was collected as potential evidence, as were the contents of an ashtray.  Along with swabs from two blood spots, these were bagged and sent to the criminalistics lab in Lincoln.  Then the bodies were removed to the hospital morgue for autopsy.  Arrest warrants for sexual assault were issued for John Lotter and Marvin Thomas Nissen, and when apprehended, they would be questioned in the matter of these murders.  They were under heavy suspicion.It didn't take long to find out that three people had needlessly died because two young men had been unable to deal with someone who was different.The hospital where they took samples for a rape kit, was an ordeal, but the question was different.Richardson County Sheriff Charles B.  Laux had never heard this kind of thing before.  He knew what rape and assault were, but this creature who passed himself off as a boy was something completely new and exotic...  and not in a good way.  Of their way to question her, he obviously found it to be disgusting sexual preferences, and was later quoted as referring to it as "he."In fact, transgender individuals are often met with confusion, prejudice and utter disbelief.  Also known as gender dysphoria, the psychiatric bible, DSM-IV, lists of transsexuality as a persistent gender identity disorder.  In general, it is a state of conflict between sexual orientation and physical self.  In other words, sex-related structures of the brain associated with gender are the opposite of the sexual organs físicas.As people born as girls feel more oriented in the world as boys, and boys and girls.  They may feel trapped and resentful miserably.  The meaning of sex is part of their identity, and it is disconcerting to be expected to act a certain way when that's not how things feel.This conflict becomes part of consciousness early on, when the girls played to be tomboys and boys played at being a sissy.  They begin to doubt themselves, and can even develop a deep self-loathing, caused by being out of tune an intolerant society.  Your needs become a source of embarrassment and suffering.  They are often driven to "fix" themselves, but can not always achieve it, and the estimate of suicides by 30 years of age among transsexuals is about 50%.  Even going to a therapist does not necessarily work, since some mental health professionals believe it is a matter of curing the "disease".  Often, doctors will encourage hormone treatments and sex change operations to bring gender orientation in line with the physical body.  This seems to be the best approach and has been very successful with many transsexuals, but not everyone can afford.  The transition also can be quite painful.Homosexuality sometimes occurs in conjunction with transsexuality, but not always, to take a person like Brandon is also a lesbian is not understand how Brandon expressed his identity.  Nor is it about the sexual fetish known as cross-dressing or transvestism.  Brandon may have looked feminine, but he felt better as a man.Sheriff Laux was supposed to be asking questions specific to Brandon's rape and assault, but he stepped aside to ask things like, "Why do you girls think you're a guy?" And "Do you kiss them?"  He hinted that something was wrong with Brandon and insisted that I needed answers because these were issues that arise in court.  Brandon reached as prurient and unnecessary, so sometimes he refused to answer.  He was later called uncooperative.Laux acted as if he discounted claims to be a virgin, and Brandon kept asking probing questions about their sexual experiences.  Brandon was not surprised, he insisted that John Lotter had pulled down his pants and stroked it not?  "Not that kind of, ah, call your attention in any way?"  He asked.  In fact, he insisted on this point, asking him at least three times.  He seemed convinced that a man would have a naked woman under his control and can not take the least touch their private parts.  He also suggested that during the rape, John Brandon had physically stimulated to get it going.What was said at the end of the interview will never be known because the last part of the tape was erased.Brandon signed a complaint and took the two men would be caught.  There was every reason to believe that they can act on its threat, so the sooner they were off the streets, the better.After three days, deputies went to question the suspects and thought they should be arrested, but Laux not allow it.  On the fourth day after the sister of Brandon Laux Tammy called to question why the suspects had not been seized, and she was surprised by his atitude.Ele not think it should be interfering.  He would do what needed to be done.However, these were men with criminal records.  City boys had rejected John as a child, and with brain damage and a low IQ, he was always in a kind of problem or another.  Tom was a victim of abuse who suffered from major depression and liked to cut.  Both were heavy drinkers, and there was evidence that Tom had abused his wife.  May they be guilty of assault was no surprise, then why were they still free?No one knows why Laux could not move on the charge of Brandon, but his decisions allowed them the time needed to carry out his threat.

Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena

The Trial

Marvin Thomas Nissen

Marvin Thomas Nissen was tried first, in February, 1995.  His attorney's principal problem was Tom himself.  Eager for publicity, Tom had given an interview to Playboy magazine in which he confessed to both the rape and his part in helping kill Teena Brandon.  The prosecutor lost no time in adding the journalist to his list of witnesses, because this was an even greater find than the jailhouse snitch to whom Tom had also confessed.  Tom was a self-serving blabbermouth.Even so, the jury had trouble finding him guilty of first-degree murder in all the deaths.  They deliberated for eighteen hours, and finally convicted him on March 3rd of first-degree murder in the death of Teena Brandon, but second-degree murder in the deaths of Lambert and DeVine.  His sentence was delayed until after John Lotter's trial, which meant he could still face the death penalty.  Marvin Thomas Nissen did some quick thinking.

John Lotter

John Lotter's trial began on Monday, May 15, 1995.  The ten women and two men serving on the jury were brought in from Omaha and sequestered in Falls City.Prosecutor James Elworth told jurors that there was no doubt that Lotter had been involved, and in part it was because he feared that Teena Brandon would testify against him and send him to prison for rape.Police testified that on the night following the discovery of the murders, they found a gun and knife inside a pair of gloves in the Nemaha River, south of Falls City.  The gun proved to be the one involved in the crimes, the knife's sheath bore Lotter's name, and blood on the blade proved to be the same type as Brandon's.  There was psychiatric testimony to the effect that Lotter was mentally impaired and might not have been able to judge right from wrong.  Yet even the psychiatrists conceded that tossing the murder weapon into the river indicated that he certainly knew that what he'd done was against the law.John's former girlfriend, Rhonda Mackenzie, also testified that he had threatened to kill Brandon for duping them fully a week before the murders occurred.  Then on the night of the murders, he woke her at 2:30 a.m. and asked her to give him an alibi.  (Tom had done the same with his wife, who had noticed the clock reading 3:30 a.m.)Then at the last minute, Tom Nissen cut a deal with the state to save his life.  He took the stand.  For his truthful account, nothing he said would be used against him and he would not face the death penalty.  Defense attorney Mike Fabian attempted to prevent the admission of his testimony, but the judge allowed it. Tom stated quite clearly that he and John Lotter had committed these murders together.  Not only that, they'd plotted for six days to kill Brandon, starting the day after they'd assaulted him.  They'd gone to Brandon's home in Lincoln, Nebraska, on December 26, 1993, looking for him. The plan was to lure him to an isolated spot and then chop off his head and hands.When their quest went sour, they sat around drinking and obsessing about what had to be done.  It had been Lotter's contention, according to Tom, that a dead witness could not testify, and that was the only way to save themselves.  Nissen admitted to stabbing Brandon, but said that Lotter had done all of the shooting.  Nissen had stabbed Brandon after the first shot because he thought Brandon was still alive.  "She was twitching," he said.To everyone's surprise, John Lotter, who'd refused to say anything up to that point except that he was innocent, wanted to testify in his own defense.  His attorney advised against it, but he insisted.  On the stand, he denied every aspect of Tom Nissen's account, but was soon caught in a lie.  Then when he contradicted the testimonies of upstanding, credible citizens, he made things look even worse for himself.  By the end, everything he said was in doubt.The jury took only five hours to reach a decision.On Thursday May 25, 1995, John Lotter was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder, three counts of using a deadly weapon, and one count of burglary.  The prosecutor sought the death penalty, which was automatically subject to appeal.JoAnn Brandon went after Charles Laux, the cop who had failed to arrest Lotter and Nissen for rape.  She sued him and Richardson County in the wrongful death of her child, charging that his negligence and mishandling of the case had resulted in Brandon's murder.  He had actively prevented his deputies from making an arrest.  Laux said that he was simply trying to avoid jumping the gun and compromising the case.  A lower court dismissed the suit, but the Nebraska Supreme Court reinstated it because Laux had actually informed the perpetrators of the complaint, and then had failed to protect the victim.  If the allegations were true, the justice said, "Laux laid an essential link in the chain that led to the victim's death."  While the lower court conceded, they only gave part of the monetary award, since they calculated the county to be 15% at fault.  That amounted to just over $17,000, an insult. However, the Nebraska Supreme Court had ruled that Laux was negligent in his duty to protect Teena Brandon.  In addition, his tone in the tape-recorded interview with Brandon was "demeaning, accusatory and intimidating."  They ordered the lower court to increase its damage award to JoAnn Brandon to the original amount.Nissen appealed his case to the Supreme Court, and it was turned down.On March 6, 2000, the Nebraska Supreme Court issued a stay of execution of the April 26 execution date.  As of this writing, he is still awaiting his fate, with appeals pending.

Fox Searchlight Pictures released a film, Boys Don't Cry, that depicts (with some liberties) Brandon's life and death.  Hilary Swank, who played the lead role, won the Academy Award for Best Actress.s) Brandon life and death.  Hilary Swank, who played the lead role, won the Oscar for Best Actress.

Novas imagens .

Teena Brandon & Lana .

Lana and John Lotter ( killer of Teena Brandon )