Posted on 04/22/2009 5:34:06 PM PDT by steve-b
A Colorado man was convicted of first-degree murder and a bias-motivated crime and sentenced to life in prison for killing a transgender teen he met on an online social networking site.
It was the first time in the nation that a state hate crime statute resulted in a conviction in a transgender person's murder, the advocacy group Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said.
Seated in the front row of the courtroom, the family of Justin "Angie" Zapata broke out in tears as the verdicts against Allen Andrade were read.
The jury deliberated for just under two hours before returning the verdict shortly after 3 p.m....
Andrade admitted killing Zapata, but his defense argued that he acted in the heat of passion after discovering that Zapata was biologically male. The defense asked for a lesser verdict, such as second-degree murder or manslaughter....
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
I do not like the whole idea of thought crimes.
Kill me, and I want you to be punished for your crime.
I don’t particularly care if you hate me or not.
Another point:
The vast majority of serial killers are homosexual or bisexual men.
Female serial killers often have the same profile.
My main reaction is to the ridiculous defense argument: “his defense argued that he acted in the heat of passion after discovering that Zapata was biologically male”. If your client has a tendency to suddenly decide to kill any biological male that might happen to cross his path, his permanent removal from society is long overdue.
If you are cruising the internet for a random sexual encounter expect to find people just as deviant as yourself.
That goes for both sides.
“If your client has a tendency to suddenly decide to kill any biological male that might happen to cross his path, his permanent removal from society is long overdue.”
This line of reasoning doesn’t hold. This wasn’t a mere crossing of paths. Further, your average biological male doesn’t masquerade as a woman and declare himself “all woman,” which was a massive load of BS when you’ve got a pair of testicles between your legs.
Not that it’s any excuse to kill someone, but I find it hard to believe the average male wouldn’t throw at least a shove in the above scenario.
Of course not. The point of posting the story was to highlight the inanity of the defense lawyer who argued that it was.
Evidently, ‘ordinary’ murder doesn’t involve hate.
Read the court transcript. By no definition was this 1st degree murder. It was a snap killing upon revelation of Justin’s true gender. It was a heinous crime, but it was not “premeditated” nor did it involve “lying in wait”, or “special circumstances” (police, fireman, witness, etc) as the Colorado statute requires. This should be appealed.
Andrade told police he heard "gurgling" sounds coming from the victim and saw Zapata sitting up. He hit her again with the fire extinguisher, he said, according to the affidavit.Clear calculation at that point -- Murder One. When did Colorado go soft and get rid of the death penalty, BTW?
Realizing what he had done, he then cleaned up the crime scene, the affidavit said.Deliberate scrubbing of the crime scene is about the clearest possible proof of fully-formed intent. Taking steps to scrub evidence prior to a crime is a textbook example of premeditation.
Andrade told police he heard "gurgling" sounds coming from the victim and saw Zapata sitting up. He hit her again with the fire extinguisher, he said, according to the affidavit.
I love you too much to let you live.
I’m not a fan of labeling things bias or hate crimes. That’s liberal BS. The facts of this case alone are enough to put away the murderer for a long time.
EXAMPLE: A town is on edge because the economy is in the tank, and Irving the local banker has recently foreclosed on a number of houses. Possible results:
1. Joe Blow publishes an angry screed attacking Irving as immoral and an example of the evils of capitalism.2. Joe Blow publishes an angry screed attacking Irving as immoral and an example of the evils of Jewish Bankers.
3. Joe Blow delivers an angry public rant attacking Irving as immoral and an example of the evils of Jewish Bankers. His words are so inflammatory that he rouses a mob to storm Irving's house.
4. Joe Blow delivers an angry public rant attacking Irving as immoral and an example of the evils of capitalism. His words are so inflammatory that he rouses a mob to storm Irving's house.
Clearly, the former two examples are not crimes, and the latter two are (incitement to imminent lawless action). Is Case 4 a worse crime than Case 3?
IMO, yes -- Case 4 incites violence against any Jews who may happen within reach of the mob, not only Irving himself.
Getting lost in all this was that this homo predator (oxymoron?)sexually violated the guy first and the guy responded violently because of it. No male takes kindly to being sexually violated by another male.
The story is focused on facts relevant to the crime, obviously.
I read that several times, but was conf used by it until I realized that I think you meant the content of 3 and 4 to be switched. Correct?
Oops — yes, 3 & 4 are backwards.
I get your post (and don’t agree with it), but just FYI, I don’t think you meant to use the word oxymoron. An oxymoron combines words that are usually, in some way, contradictory. Example: open secret. You wouldn’t use oxymoron to describe, even casually and in jest, “homo predator” unless the point was that homoseuals are not predators. An example of an oxymoron (as defined casually) that would appeal to the audience here is “intelligent liberal”.
Figured. I personally think your example raises a lot of questions, especially since it deals with a situation that is more complex than this story.
What if the ‘ism’ in your example was an ‘ist’? IOW:
Joe Blow delivers an angry public rant attacking Irving as immoral and an example of the evils of capitalists. His words are so inflammatory that he rouses a mob to storm Irving’s house.
Using your reasoning as to why the one hypo was worse than the other and therefore deserves extra punishment , couldn’t we say that JB’s actions endanger capitalists as a group, not just Irving? Or does your view only apply in the case of immutable traits, and if so, why?
On a note related to the problem of incitement in general,what about the connections that weak minds draw between the ism and the ist? A group that’s listening to a rant that says scientology is evil and should be abolished may very well take out its anger on scientologists, but does that mean we should punish such speech? There is a lot of fine line drawing that has to be done here.
My own view, BTW, is that while we may be able to, in theory, divise a hate crime scheme that doesn’t infringe rights, the reality is that government cannot be trusted to limit itself as it is, so we shouldn’t take the step of criminalizing hate speech. As for situations like the present case where it’s an individual killing another, I don’t see why we should consider it worse than if he had been killed because the murderer didn’t like his face.
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