NEW YORK –Judge Marcelo Kopcow sentenced Allen Andrade to life in prison without parole this afternoon after he was found guilty of first-degree murder and bias-motivated crime in the beating death of Justin (Angie) Zapata.

Allen Andrade hangs head as guilty verdict is delivered

The jury deliberated for about two hours before finding Andrade, 32, guilty of beating 18-year-old Zapata to death last July in a rage after discovering that Zapata was biologically a male.  The two met on a social networking website.

The defense claimed Andrade was guilty of a lesser crime - second-degree murder, manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, but the jury disagreed.

Stay tuned to In Session for complete verdict coverage beginning at 9 a.m.

–Carolyn Purcell, In Session Senior Executive Producer

GREELEY, Colorado–Jurors are expected to begin deliberations this afternoon in the first-degree murder trial of Allen Andrade, accused of bludgeoning to death a transgender woman last July. Andrade concedes he killed eighteen-year-old Angie Zapata within days of meeting her on a networking website. He says he became enraged when he learned that Zapata was biologically a male.

Angie Zapata, left, and Allen Andrade

Prosecutors, however, presented evidence that Andrade knew long before the killing that he was with a transgender female. He’s also charged with bias-motivated crime, Colorado’s hate crime statute, car theft, and identity theft.

Since the identity of the killer is not the issue, jurors will have to decide Andrade’s level of criminal responsibility. They will be given an array of homicide charges to consider. Besides first-degree murder, they can consider lesser charges of second-degree murder, second-degree murder with provocation, manslaughter, and criminally negligent homicide.

The prosecution wrapped up its evidence Tuesday afternoon. Andrade’s former girlfriend, Felicia Mendoza, returned to the stand to complete testimony begun Monday. She gazed at her former lover as more recorded jailhouse calls between them were played in court. In one call, Andrade is heard telling her that “gay things need to die.”

On cross-examination, Mendoza assured the jury that Andrade is not bisexual even though she found him chatting with people on the bisexual side of the MocoSpace networking website where he met Zapata.

The final witness for the state was the lead detective, Greg Tharp. Only part of Tharp’s videotaped interrogation of Andrade was played for the jury. Judge Kopcow suppressed Andrade’s confession to the killing, but allowed the first part in which Andrade admitted to stealing Zapata’s car and using a stolen debit card he found inside.

Tharp also told jurors that there were more than 650 text messages and calls between Andrade and Zapata between July 12, 2008 and July 16, 2008. There were none by July 17, the day Zapata was killed. On cross-examination, the defense displayed 11 photos of Zapata Tharp received from Zapata’s family shortly after the killing. With each photo, Tharp was asked to identify Justin.

Since Andrade opted not to testify, the defense case was brief. Five witnesses were called to support what the defense says is a matter of deception, not a judgment of a way of life. These witnesses—friends, acquaintances and detectives who interviewed Zapata’s family members–say that Zapata was a convincing female; that she lived her life as a woman from the clothes she wore, to her makeup and hairstyles and décor in her apartment.

In Session’s coverage of the trial continues this morning.

Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK–The Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced - for fiction and nonfiction, poetry and dramatic writing. But in our world - the world of news - a Pulitzer is the most prestigious award of all.

The New York Times won five, including one for breaking the Eliot Spitzer story. The Detroit Free Press won for uncovering those sexually explicit text messages that brought down that city's mayor. It was not only reporting on political corruption, however, that won this year. The Las Vegas Sun won for exposing a high death rate among workers on the Las Vegas Strip. The East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Arizona won for its reporting on a local sheriff whose focus on immigration enforcement was compromising investigations of other crimes.

We TV folks didn't pick up any Pulitzers; and there were no online winners either. All the winners were newspapers and their reporters, even as the world of print journalism is losing the battle for survival. The Free Press was honored less than a month after the Detroit paper cut home delivery to three days a week. The San Diego Union-Tribune was sold last month to a private equity firm after ad sales dropped 40 percent, with employees forced to take unpaid furloughs. The New York Times, arguably the most prestigious paper in the country, has a formidable debt. Employees there have been asked to take pay cuts.

This has been one of the most depressing years the newspaper industry ever - layoffs, bankruptcies, even closures brought on by the recession and the exodus of readers and advertisers to the Internet. All of it makes this year's Pulitzer Prizes a bit bittersweet.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK–Madonna is still fighting to adopt a little girl named Chifundo “Mercy” James from the southern African country of Malawi. A judge in that country denied her petition, earlier this month, and she’s appealing the ruling.

Photo of children in Malawi taken by In Session's Jami Floyd

All the while, Americans 10,000 miles away have questioned, challenged even excoriated Madonna for wanting to adopt this four-year-old girl. On some level, I understand. Cross racial, cross cultural and in this case cross continental adoption is fraught with emotion. There are good people on both sides of the issues; but unlike most of them, I know these children — the children of Malawi — because I’ve been there

These are just a few of the hundreds of pictures I took — faces of the children I met there, all of them orphans — no mothers, no fathers, just hundreds of little faces looking up at me, reaching out.

None of the orphans I met were older than ten. Few survive that long. The high rate of HIV infection means lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, and higher death rates.

More to the point, I didn’t see any Americans — or anyone else for that matter — lining up to help these children, let alone offering them a home.

Before you criticize Madonna for her choices, you need to go to Malawi to see whether you could simply walk away. I did. I left a piece of my soul in Malawi.

Photo taken by In Session's Jami Floyd

That was 15 years ago. Now, I know that most of the children in my photos are likely dead.

Madonna doesn’t want to live with that. She doesn’t have to. She can actually save a child.

Of course, in an ideal world little Mercy would grow up with her biological parents, in a nice little house somewhere in her home country. But in the real world, she is living in an orphanage and her parents are dead. So let’s take her name to heart and hope the next judge lets Madonna give poor Mercy a home.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

GREELEY, Colorado–Jurors heard from accused killer Allen Andrade today in recorded jailhouse calls with two former girlfriends, Angie Tyree and Felicia Mendoza. A cavalier-sounding Andrade said he “can’t cry over spilt milk” regarding the brutal killing of transgender teen, Angie Zapata, last July. That call and three others, recorded in the days after his July 30th arrest, gave some insight into Andrade’s reaction to his plight.

Defendant Allen Andrade has cuffs removed before testimony resumes

“It not like I went up to a schoolteacher and shot her in the head…or like I killed a law-abiding straight citizen,” he told Tyree. Andrade said he could do “10 or 15 [years]” but that he hoped not to be imprisoned forever. At one point, Tyree scolded him: “You should’ve stayed home.” His response: “I know I should’ve stayed. I should’ve done a lot of things differently…shoulda, coulda, woulda.” Though no longer dating, the two were living together for about three months at the time of Andrade’s arrest.

In the days after Zapata’s death, Andrade reunited with former girlfriend Felicia Mendoza. On the stand Monday afternoon, Mendoza frequently looked to her left at Andrade; he rarely took his eyes off her. She described the two weeks between Zapata’s death and Andrade’s arrest. Andrade came to her home on July 17, 2008, the day Zapata was killed, in a Zapata’s PT Cruiser. Andrade said he bought it from someone at work. He bought her roses, gave her gifts of two purses (later recovered by police as having been stolen from Zapata), took her to a hotel one night and talked about planning a life together.

Mendoza’s world came crashing down on July 30, 2008 when Andrade was arrested outside her home. In three recorded jailhouse phone calls between them on July 30, August 1 and August 2, jurors heard an emotionally distraught Mendoza grill Andrade about the incident. “It was a mistake…somebody died…I met this female; at least I thought it was…I just snapped.” When asked to explain those two weeks in late July where their relationship blossomed, Andrade told her: “I knew our time was limited. I just wanted to make you happy.” When asked why he didn’t just leave Zapata’s apartment, Andrade explained: “It happened so fast…I couldn’t stop…it was over so fast.”

Andrade’s defense team maintains that he killed Zapata in a rage after learning that the woman he was with was biologically a male. The prosecution believes that Andrade knew for at least 36 hours, perhaps longer, that Zapata was a transgender female. A bit more evidence to support the prosecution was elicited on Monday when Mendoza confirmed to prosecutors that Andrade had been chatting with people on the bisexual side of the MocoSpace dating site. That site is where he met Zapata last July.

Jurors heard from 10 other witnesses on Monday, including the deputy coroner who performed an autopsy on Zapata. Jurors saw photos of Zapata’s skull fractured in several places. Lab agents who tested items from Zapata’s apartment testified that Andrade’s DNA was found on three items: a cigarette butt on a window sill which had a mixture of Zapata and Andrade’s DNA, one of Zapata’s purses that Andrade gave Mendoza, and a vibrator in Zapata’s bedroom that had Andrade’s DNA alone.

In Session’s coverage continues Tuesday morning at 9:00 a.m.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK–Today marks the 10-year anniversary of Columbine, the date on which Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stormed their high school campus and took 15 lives, including their own. The shootings left a trail of horror, too many young victims, and shattered families that will never again know peace of mind.

Jefferson County Schools security officer stands guard at the entrance to Columbine High School on the ten-year anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings

It also left all of us with some tough questions to answer: Why does this continue to happen in our country, and more so than in other countries? Is it because our gun laws aren't tough enough? Or, is it because more people aren't armed to protect themselves? Is it a failing of our mental health system?

Why don't we ever see these massacres coming? Colin Ferguson; Virginia Tech; and just this month, Binghamton, New York.

Maybe it’s the media. Studies are conflicted about whether violence in fiction leads to violence in reality. But it sure is a question worth asking. None of us have all the answers. But on the anniversary of Columbine, we owe it to the victims to get to the bottom of it.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

GREELEY, Colorado–Angie Zapata’s mother, sisters and friends took on the defense on the second day of the trial of the man accused of killing her last July. Zapata, a transgender female, was bludgeoned to death in her home in Greeley, Colorado, allegedly because she was biologically a male living as a female.

The accused, six-time convicted felon Allen Andrade, isn’t denying he’s the killer. He says that it wasn’t a premeditated murder as charged by the state; rather that Zapata’s deceit threw him into an uncontrollable rage. If convicted of a lesser degree of murder, he could avoid life without parole.

On the second day of the trial, seven family members and friends of Zapata testified. Of those seven, five of them, Zapata’s mother, two sisters and two friends, consistently embraced Zapata’s transgender status.

All day, the defense referred to Zapata by her birth name, Justin, and used the male pronoun “he.” In response to questions that invoked these terms, the witnesses would calmly but assertively use Angie and “she.” For example, one exchange was: “Both purses belonged to Justin?” “Yes, to Angie.” Another: “You received a text from Justin while he was in court?” “From my sister while she was in court, yes.”

The verbal sparring between defense attorneys and still-grieving family and friends highlighted the issue in the case. The defense says that Andrade’s rage when he learned that the striking woman he was with was biologically a male should mitigate his level of criminal responsibility. The prosecution is building a circumstantial case to the contrary. They say that Andrade knew for some time before the murder—at least a day and a half—that Zapata was a transgender female.

In addition to family and friends who described their last communications with Zapata and finding her lifeless body, jurors heard from a crime scene investigator and a homicide detective. They also saw a video of the scene and numerous photos and other items now in evidence.

I was in court Friday afternoon, sitting directly behind Andrade, when a witness identified Zapata from a photo taken not long before her death. When the prosecutor displayed the photo it was immediately transmitted to monitors around the courtroom—in the jury box, at the defense table and on a large monitor positioned between judge and witness. As the photo popped up on the monitor in front of Andrade, he closed his eyes and kept them closed for some time. Beyond that, he’s been pretty stoic throughout for the past two days.

Stay tuned to In Session's coverage of this case as it resumes Monday at 9 a.m.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

GREELEY, Colorado–The murder trial of Allen Andrade, underway in Greeley, Colorado, is being watched closely across the country. Andrade is accused of bludgeoning to death Angie Zapata, a transgender female, last July.

Justin "Angie" Zapata was killed by a man she met over the Internet during the summer of 2008.

Since the defense concedes Andrade is the killer, the question at trial is what level of homicide it is: first-degree murder or some lesser degree. The defense says Andrade killed Zapata in rage after learning that the woman he was with was biologically male. The prosecution says Andrade knew for at least 36 hours before the murder that Zapata was born a male, which supports their theory of a premeditated murder—not an uncontrollable rage.

Andrade is charged not only with murder, but with a bias-motivated crime. Though bias-motivated crime is a lower felony than murder, the charge is significant for this is believed to be one of the first cases to charge a hate crime where the victim is a transgender person.

Angie Zapata, born Justin, started living as a female about three years before she died. She and Andrade met on a social networking website and, after some days of online communications, they decided to meet in person. On July 14, 2008, Zapata drove more than 50 miles to pick up Andrade and bring him to her Greeley, CO apartment. They spent the next few days together.

In opening statements Thursday, the jury of 10 men and four women learned from prosecutor Brandi Nieto that Andrade accompanied Zapata to Greeley municipal court on July 15 to answer a traffic ticket. The ticket was issued in the name of Justin Zapata. That, according to the State, is when Andrade knew, if he didn’t know it earlier, that Zapata was biologically a male. Although the jury has yet to hear the coroner’s estimate of time of death, it appears that Zapata was killed in the early hours of July 17—long after the court appearance.

In his opening statements, defense attorney Bradley Martin emphasized that this is not a case about lifestyle and right or wrong; that it’s a case about Zapata’s deceit. The hate crimes statute protects transgender people. Yet, it appears the defense wants to use that protected class status to justify a conviction of something less than first-degree murder.

Nine witnesses have testified so far, including the first officers and paramedic on the scene, neighbors who saw Zapata the night before her murder, and the officers who arrested Andrade two weeks later. The trial is expected to last through next week.

Stay tuned to In Session as I bring you all the latest details from inside the courtroom.

–Beth Karas, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK–Abraham Lincoln died 144 years ago today. He’d been shot the day before, Good Friday, at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. The actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, inflicted the mortal wound - a single shot to the head that would have killed most men instantly. Lincoln, however, held on for almost 10 hours, and died on April 15, 1865. He was 56 years old.

More than 14,000 books have been written about Lincoln. Why the fascination? Simply put, Lincoln was the greatest president of the world’s greatest democracy.

Here’s why: Lincoln freed the slaves, including my ancestors, which, of course, makes me a bit partial. Lincoln, however, went beyond the Emancipation; he helped pioneer modern race relations by welcoming black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to the White House at a time when African-Americans were still less than full people as a matter of law.

Lincoln also represents the best of the American dream. Talk about bootstraps: up from poverty all the way to the White House, a journey it would take most families generations to achieve, if ever they did, this extraordinary man managed it in a single lifetime.

Though Abe Lincoln received fewer than two years of formal education, he understood the power of the English language and used it change hearts and minds. He also knew when fewer words would serve better. The iconic Gettysburg address is just 10 sentences long. At Gettysburg, Lincoln brilliantly summarized the Civil War in two to three minutes.

Lincoln's character was constant through America’s most difficult hour. Simply put, had the president been nearly any other than Lincoln at that moment in our history, the “United States” would likely not be.

Lincoln died just days after the Civil War ended. But our greatest president laid the groundwork for this to become the greatest of nations.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – After two trials over the course of two years and two different juries, Phil Spector has been found guilty of second-degree murder.

Phil Spector looks at the jury file into court before delivering guilty verdict

We will never really know what happened in Spector’s foyer the night actress Lana Clarkson died. Only two people know that; and one of them is dead. But, of course, prosecutors don't need definitive proof to meet their burden. Circumstantial evidence is enough. In this case, prosecutor Alan Jackson had that. The defense, on the other hand, had only a defense of suicide to explain the actress’s death by a single gunshot would to the head.

Unlike so many other cases, in which I decry the verdict, Phil Spector had the best defense money could buy. Good as it was, however, the defense team was up against a very able, very committed prosecutor and all the resources of the state. Which brings us to this question on appeal: Whether, with the best of intentions, Alan Jackson compromised his verdict with evidence that requires reversal.

Evidence of prior bad acts is constitutionally required to be precisely tailored to the facts of the current case - precisely tailored. In this case, the five women who testified about Spector’s prior bad behavior all lived to tell their story. Lana Clarkson did not. That makes her case different and eliminates the specificity required.

That could mean a retrial for Phil Spector. And you know what they say. Third time's a charm.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor