Murder a hate crime?

[Natasha]

Murder a hate crime?

http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=1381
Peter Marcus
8/1/2008

The Weld County district attorney's office filed criminal charges against 31-year-old Allen Ray Andrade on Thursday. The charges include first-degree murder and committing a bias motivated crime, which is also a felony.

Andrade is accused of killing 20-year-old Justin Zapata, who lived as a woman and was known as Angie. According to court documents, Andrade told investigators he and Zapata went on a date and that he killed her after realizing she was biologically male.

[NicholeW.]

A good article, I think.

One of the more bothersome things about the rush to judgment over whether Angie had said anything to Andrade is that this is all based on his word. He's already been convicted of other crimes. He managed to murder her, by his own admission, when she could have caused him no possible harm. He managed to run from the crime making no report to the police, stealing her car, money and purse. Then in the face of publicity never bothered to turn himself in. Do his actions say anything at all about his crdibility as a witness?

He'd spent two days either actually with her or in her apartment and admits to having had sex with her. All of this after having communications over the internet for awhile. She went with him to his court hearing the day they met in-person.

I've been very troubled by the willingness of both TG/TS and others under-the-umbrella to automatically decide that she was lying by not telling him when all the word we have on that is his, a murderer of the very person who might have had a different story to tell.

Actually having the GP believe that doesn't bother me as much. But that willigness among ourselves to accept what he said on face-value is troubling.

Glad to see that Mindy Barton stressed that aspect of this story.

Mindy Barton, legal director for the GLBT Center of Colorado, agreed that the case seems like a hate crime based on the information that is currently available to the public. She was careful to point out that the account is based solely on Andrade's statements, including accusations that Zapata never revealed her gender identity.

Nichole

[tekla]

I would never take the word of someone accused of murder on face value, but neither do I take the statements of the police or DA on face value either.

Given the press so far, and I assume the police have far more evidence and statements that have not been released, murder is open and shut, but murder one with a death penalty attachment might be over-reaching.  Murder one is hard to prove, though the third hit would do it for me - but people like me would never be allowed on the jury in the first place.

I would hate to see this guy skip due to overcharging done for reasons of political grandstanding, though what he is charged with is not necessarily what he is going to be indited for.  A murder two charge - depraved indifference to human life - might be an easier sell.

Its my hope that he is charged and indited for both murder one and two, and pleas to murder two in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table.  A plea reduces the amount of appeals to almost zero, its easier to find 12 people to convict, and for the punishment folks, it puts him in general population, rather than the isolation of death row.