In so far as is possible...

[catsittingstill]

Angie Zapata has justice.

For those who haven't been following this story, Angie Zapata was a transgender teen, murdered for being transgender.  Lawyers for her assailant, Allen Andrade, claimed that he had freaked out in "trans-panic" on discovering that she had been born male, and beat her to death, first with his fists and then with a fire extinguisher, in the grip of that panic.

As if freaking out is a perfectly natural response to discovering that someone is trans.

Fortunately the jury got it. 

Comments

[gfish.livejournal.com]

They didn't even deliberate very long, which is nice to see.

And today, Washington's governor signed in an extension to our hate crime laws, adding gender expression.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

What's to deliberate, really? The only question that was at all difficult was whether the act qualifies as Murder One, and the fact situation as described (attempting to clean up the evidence prior to the final fatal assault) is a pretty strong case of deliberate calculation.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I certainly agree, but there are far too many people out there who believe in the gay/trans-panic thing. =\

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but that depends on the jury being reasonable, rather than going "eww--teh gays; squick! I'd have killed it too." I'm very glad they were reasonable.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and good.