Comments on: Breaking: Allen Andrade Convicted of First Degree Murder

By: Monday Links « Women’s Glib

Monday Links « Women’s Glib — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:22:05 +0000

[...] Andrade has been convicted for the first-degree bias-motivated (hate crime) murder of Angie [...]

By: SoE

SoE — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:11:33 +0000

I think it sends quite a message. Not that any convictions or even the death penalty have ever kept people from killing other persons. More likely the larger public finally acknowledges that admitting a hate crime is no longer a “get out of prison card” but actually gets you convicted on a second charge. It’s about time.

By: CartoonCoyote

CartoonCoyote — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:50:48 +0000

Further up the thread, it was stated that Andrade’s going back to ensure Angie’s death after she came to wasn’t even heard by the jury. Wow. If they had, their deliberation probably would have lasted two minutes. I wonder what the members’ reactions will be when they eventually find that out.

Good news, nevertheless.

By: Kristen J.

Kristen J. — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:41:30 +0000

Abby,

Provocation/heat of passion are a defenses because we assume a person might reasonably lose their self-control under certain circumstances. I doubt you’d get passed a judge where the provocation was “my roommate ate my last twinkie” or “she forgot to set the alarm clock.” The judge in this case may have made the right decision to avoid appeal, but he didn’t make the right decision IMO from a ethical perspective.

I think Jill was talking about this a few days ago…if I remember correctly.

By: Bagelsan

Bagelsan — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:23:04 +0000

(Could someone put a warning on Abby’s long post? That was pretty graphic. Thanks.)

The 2 hours thing doesn’t bother me at all. 5 minutes of deliberation wouldn’t really bother me either. If someone was like “hey, is it cool if I kill your little sister?” any hesitation at all on my part before a resounding “HELL NO” would be *evil.* It doesn’t take reasonable people more than 2 hours to decide that “murder is bad.” And anyone who thinks that it *should* take a while to decide whether or not murdering a girl in cold blood is bad is fucked up. There’s no reason for a jury to cater to the sociopath crowd, no matter how concerned the trolls are about their theoretical future whining. (I’m sure this has been addressed already and better, but I wanted to pile on too.)

By: Abby

Abby — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:04:15 +0000

@Alison2, #56 & 57: Yes, the judge does have to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to allow the jury to consider a defense like the one Andrade asserted. However, because of how this type of “heat of passion” defense is treated under Colorado law, the standard for meeting that test is extremely low. Under that standard, any evidence that raises even an inference that the defense might be valid requires that the jury be given the chance to consider. (In Arizona, the courts say that only a “mere scintilla” of evidence is required.) Given the statements that Andrade made in the jailhouse phone calls to his girlfriends, the judge had no choice but to allow the jury to consider his “trans panic” defense. If the judge had refused, he would have been handing Andrade a ticket to a reversal on appeal on a silver platter, something that none of us want.

Also, thank you for gentle criticism of my “I’m a lawyer so let me school you on the law” attitude in my previous posts. You are exactly right. Such pretentiousness is unnecessary. Next time, I will simply allow my words to stand on their own, for better or for worse.

By: Cara

Cara — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:42:03 +0000

FYI, Featherstone's tired comments above might have been enough to get him banned under normal circumstances. But they didn't. No, this comment just served as a reminder that after fuming on gchat with Jill for 10 minutes, I somehow forgot to ban him for unpublishable and deleted comments on this thread which far too closely resembled in spirit the CNN comments that Zoe later posted there. That, for the record, is why he's banned. As you were.

By: rioTgirl

rioTgirl — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:28:39 +0000

I’m not sure how to respond to this. I didn’t realize how triggering this whole murder/trial/story was until the verdict was read and I sobbed. Angie will not come back to us, people still think feel free to liken a Trans* body to “mental rape”, even dead we get no respect from reporters or “authorities. BUT it was a victory – a hollow one for me personally, but a victory. It is a weakened link in the oppression that chains us all. That mitigates the pain and the sadness – the anger and rage.

By: Featherstone, QC

Featherstone, QC — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:28:06 +0000

“Michael will not be allowed to leave any more comments on this thread.”

Really? For deigning to discuss the duration of deliberation?

Cara – do you even think that Andrade should have gotten a trial at all?

Quite frankly you’re not very impressive and your ad hoc comments policy does nothing but feed stereotypes about feminists as fragile, censorious, stunted crackpots.

By: Feministe » Statement from Angie Zapata’s Family on Andrade’s Conviction

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:11:25 +0000

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