Angie Zapata's Murderer Goes On Trial Starting Today

[jhameia]

Yeap.

The victim: Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old woman who was brutally murdered by one Andrare.

The crime: Murder, theft, assault. This will also be the first time a murder of a transperson will be tried as a hate crime.

Currently the defense is trying to prove that Angie "tricked" Andrare into believing she was a ciswoman. They also refer to her by masculine pronouns and her former name, all this despite the fact that her family and friends refer to her by the feminine pronoun and real name. (It's really disrespectful to refer to any trans by the other gender pronoun when they have made it clear they prefer the one they use.) They are trying to persuade the jury that beating and murdering Angie out of rage that she was not as she presented herself is somehow normal and acceptable.

Since the court is also trying Andrare for the hate crime - even if the defense CAN convince the jury that he reacted due to being "tricked", then he's clearly guilty of committing a hate crime, because killing a person because they are specifically trans is clearly transphobia.

Follow the trial with the Justice for Angie Twitter feed.

Comments

[yuffers.livejournal.com]

.........

...I...christ. I can't believe this happened in my home state. And that I didn't know much about it... fucking hell.

/reading more now

[nosidagi.livejournal.com]

I in no way sympayhize with the defendant. But as regards the name thing. Court records have to reflect the victim's legal name not their assuemd alias.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

Which the court records do. However, the point of the defense using her legal name is only to confuse the issue and make it sound like Angie was really just a man in disguise. So the jury will see her as male, and the "trans panic" defense wins.

[nosidagi.livejournal.com]

Which, I believe, is the defence attourney's job. To give his client the best defense that can be mustered and let the courts decide if he is guilty or innocent. If an attourney is foudn to have done less he has violated the law and can lose his license and be imprisoned himself. If the lawyer wasn't hired, and was appointed by the courts, they have my sympathies on having to try such a case.
So of course they are going to try to confuse or cloud the issue. Were the case against the defendant weak and shakey the prosecution would do the same thing.
Whether his attourney condones his client's actions or not he is bound by law to defend him. Hate the perpetrator of the crime, don't hate his lawyer for doing his job.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

I don't recall hating the lawyer, just finding the strategy used by the defense to be extremely disrespectful. It doesn't matter if that's his job or not, it doesn't make the issue more palatable.

[eiko82.livejournal.com]

*shakes head*

Even if he was 'tricked', that's never an excuse to brutally kill someone.