Transgender teenager Gwen Araujo was executed in cold blood by a group of men bent on revenge for being deceived by a flirty girl who turned out to be biologically male, a prosecutor told a Hayward jury Wednesday. In an opening statement that lasted nearly three hours, prosecutor Chris Lamiero outlined his case against three men charged with the 2002 murder of the Newark 17-year-old, who was born Edward Araujo but lived and identified as a young woman. "Make no mistake, Eddie's death was an execution, because in their minds, he committed a capital offense," Lamiero said.
They're only just getting started on this. Good grief. Jury selection alone on this trial took three weeks; I wonder if that means that the trial itself is going to be a long one.
Attorneys for Merel and Magidson have suggested that their clients did not plan the crime in advance, but instead were acting in the heat of passion. That would support a manslaughter charge instead of murder.
I still can't believe that they're going to run with this defense. If the facts are remotely as they've been reported in coverage thus far, they don't really support this. It's essentially a cynical ploy on the part of the defense to play on the jury prejudices against homosexuals and the transgendered.
Results from an arguably much more conservative part of the country indicate that this defense may not work terribly well.
Every jury is different, to be sure. Nonetheless, if you can't get a manslaughter conviction out of an Indiana jury on that particular charge, it may be considerably more difficult to get one out of a northern California jury.
Posted by iain at April 15, 2004 05:09 PM
