Monday, September 12, 2005

Gwen Araujo Trial Verdicts In: 2 men guilty, jury deadlocks on 3rd

In a previous posting titled "Days of mouring - Part 8: Epilogue" I mentioned that a jury had reached a partial verdict in the second trial for three men accused of killing Gwen Araujo last Friday (the first one ended with a deadlocked jury) but that the court had sealed jury papers until a full verdict was in. Well, here it is: Michael Magidson and Jose Merel were declared guilty of second-degree murder and face 15 years to life in prison. The jury was deadlocked on Jason Cazares' involvement.

[UPDATE: Aparently while the court did convict these two men, they failed to convict on hate crime charges. There was a vigil in San Francisco tonight in which members of the transgender community celebrated the verdicts but also expressed dissapointment at the jury's failure to see this as a hate crime]

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