The killer was convicted of voluntary manslaughter on a “Trans Panic” defence. That was at the end of last year.

Had his car not stalled so he couldn’t leave the crime scene, it would be just another murder, no motive, no suspects. 70% of killings of transgendered people remain unsolved (vs 30% for those not transgendered), so to even get to trial is rare.

Alexis King was the victim, Terron Oates the killer. Details at http://thecurvature.com/2008/08/26/trans-panic-defense-devalues-another-womans-life/

Also, in Yuma, AZ the killer of Amancio Morales plea bargained down an attempted manslaughter charge. … Court records said Morales killer became enraged when he realized the Morales was biologically male.

Morales had been repeatedly stabbed, then dumped in a river. Not even “manslaughter”but “attempted manslaughter”.

Does it happen? Yes. Does it work? Yes. Not always, but I’d even say “usually”.

The chance of being murdered for a US citizen is 1 in 18,000
For transgendered US citizens, 1 in 1,100
For transgendered black or latina women, 1 in 8.

That’s assuming the APA’s figures on number of transgendered people are correct, and we have good reason to doubt that. My “best guess” is that it’s 10 times less likely.

So 1 in 11,000 for transgendered people in general, and “only” 1 in 80 for TWOC.

trigger warning

This, of course, is part of why my rant-blog is Twice Immigrant: I’m an immigrant to Canada, and an immigrant to women’s country. I belong here, sure enough; I’ve lived here 16 years. In women’s country, I mean.

A little meme went around Livejournal recently; it asked the commenters to imagine why the poster might possibly be in the back of a police car for.

Cute little thing, yes? Only for me, it’s an idea that brings gut-watering fear. I pointed out today, echoed by a number of my trans brothers and sisters who read, that if you ever see *me* in the back of a police car, GET STARTED ON GETTING ME THE FUCK OUT. Because you can guarantee I’ll be in mortal fear, of sexual assault and death. Because that’s the special sting in the tail of sexual assault for us: when they find out we’re “not real”, we get *killed* after we’re raped.

Twice I have fought for my life against a rapist, knowing that if he “found out”, it’d be me who ended up on the front page, dead. Today, we remember so many of our brothers and sisters who weren’t gifted with my privilege, of being big and strong and a former varsity athlete, and thus gifted with the chance to fight back successfully. Hell, Duanna Johnson was 6’5″. It didn’t keep her alive. I’ve been lucky as anything – and how fucked up is that, that I feel *lucky* to have only been raped?

Only last year, a ciswoman was put into the men’s jail by a large city police force, because they *thought* she might be post-op and trans.

And I don’t know which is worse: that the only time it becomes a public issue is when it happens to a ciswoman, or that they’re doing it to people they even *think* might carry transcooties.

Comment at http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/11/transgender-day-of-remembrance.html

You’re right, the “trans panic” or “gay panic” defense is not a complete defense to murder. In other words, even if the jury buys it, which is looking more and more unlikely as the trial proceeds, Andrade will still be convicted of second degree murder. Because he is charged as a repeat offender (he has 6 prior felony convictions), even with a second degree murder conviction, he’s not going to be out of prison for a very long time.

The “trans panic” defense is not the result of court decisions by bigots, unless you want to go back to the English common law centuries ago. Regardless of its origin, that defense is now enshrined in the homicide statutes of virtually every state. The original rationale (in jolly ole England) was that a husband who flies into a rage when he sees his wife and lover in bed together and kills one or both of them (often called, “in the heat of passion) is less culpable than someone who murders someone for money, for example. Thus, the degree of the offense and the potential punishment goes down when the defendant can convince the jury that he killed the victim in the “heat of passion” or an “uncontrollable rage.” To prove such a defense, however, the defendant also has to prove that a “reasonable person” would react to the situation in the same way he did, i.e., that his rage was “reasonable” or “justified.” As public opinion changes as to what is acceptable and what isn’t, the motivations that can be used to prove such a defense, hopefully, will narrow. That’s happening much too slowly for me, however. My solution: every state should adopt statutes barring the use of the victim’s race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression, etc. (i.e., all the categories included in the federal hate crimes bill) as a defense to a homicide charge of any degree. It’s my understanding that California did something like that in the wake of the Gwen Araujo trial.

As Autumn Sandeen has pointed out in her blogs on the Angie Zapata trial on Pam’s House Blend, it’s extremely ironic that Andrade can use one of the categories listed in Colorado’s hate crimes statute (Angie’s “transgender status”) to obtain a conviction for second, rather than first, degree murder. That is one of the primary reasons that homicide statutes need to be amended to limit the scope of the “panic” defense. Otherwise, the protections provided by hate crimes legislation will be incomplete.

Lastly, the hate crimes charge is important here because of its symbolic value, and also because it allows the prosecution to tell the jury about Andrade’s statements in jailhouse phone calls that indicate what he really thought about Angie, and still thinks about the rest of us, i.e., that “gay things need to die.”

While I do not believe in capital punishment, nor in extremely long prison sentences, the idea that the victim of the crime being transsexual should affect the sentence is abhorrent to me, and it scares me that people who think that way apparently do exist.

That said, while it is disturbing to read of the “trans panic defense” even being attempted, does it have any significant track record of succeeding? Has, in recent times, anyone received a significantly lighter sentence for a murder as a result of the “trans panic defense”? Are such arguments openly acknowledged in court rulings in the United States? While still every bit as distasteful, this defense is not as actively dangerous if it is merely an ultimately desperate and ineffectual legal tactic.

I agree with Cara that the use of the victim’s legal name and biological sex, rather than her chosen name and gender, is a tactic to confuse the jury — but I honestly think that it’s a poorly-chosen tactic that will backfire. Had the victim not been survived by supportive family members, I believe this strategy could very well have succeeded in implanting the subconscious idea in the jury members that the victim was somehow less than human, but as it is, I think it will merely make the arguments of the defense appear heartless and crude.