Tennessee court overturns killer’s conviction because jury wasn’t told that the victim was transgender
3 days ago by Sunflier to c/politics
A Tennessee court has overturned the conviction of a man who killed a Black transgender woman, ruling that a lower court “erred” by preventing the killer from using the victim’s trans identity in his defense.
Samuel Ward Jr. shot Paris Lee six times outside her Memphis home in June 2022, according to the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office. He then drove 30 minutes home, leaving her to die. Ward was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in May 2025.
But the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals in Jackson overturned that conviction on Monday and ordered a retrial. The trial court’s judge had disallowed the defense from presenting the victim’s identity as a transgender woman in its arguments.
“The trial court erred by excluding evidence of the victim’s assigned sex at birth, [and] the evidence was insufficient to support [Ward’s] conviction,” reads the Monday appellate court decision. “Because we conclude that the trial court erred… we reverse and remand this case for a new trial.”
The defense had argued it would be more reasonable for Ward to fear Lee if jurors knew she was assigned male at birth, and said jurors would be more prejudiced against Ward for killing a cisgender woman, according to Jamie Satterfield, an independent journalist who first reported the ruling.
The gay panic defenses has not gone away. Also, this rings of saying its not murder because transgender people aren't people.
You have been banned from c/Conservatives.
In California maybe - but Tennessee? This feels like fuckery to me.
On the one hand a retrial makes sense because not all the facts of the case were presented to the jury.
On the other hand the prior conviction was manslaughter which is crazy lower for six shots and then just going home. Maybe the jury will see this as not only a hate crime, but also escalate to some form of murder charge.
Local LGBTQ+ organizers have said Ward was known as a threat to trans women even before he killed Lee, journalist S. Baum reported for the news blog Erin in the Morning on Thursday. Kayla Gore, executive director of the emergency services nonprofit My Sistah’s House, told Erin in the Morning that Ward had pursued trans women in the past.
Sounds like some other facts ought to be presented to the jury as well if he’s trying to trans panic his way out of murder.
Yes, but it still goes to trial which will require a new jury. It's Memphis which is a city and by nature of random chance for jury selection shouldn't be biased, like what a more rural country would be.
So there still a chance this could be a harsher sentence.
The decision to exclude certain facts is generally made knowingly and carefully. The court, in this case, correctly judged that the average Tennessee jury would be unlikely to rule on the actual legal merits of this case if they knew the victim was trans (or, to the average redneck shit stain from Tennessee, "not actually human").
In court, both sides can submit something as evidence and the other side can object to it. It's then up to the judge to sustain or overrule the objections. The jury is instructed to deliberate only on the items received by the court and any witness testimony, which again can have some answers or questions objected or struck from the record.
If the defense wanted to submit it then, it was objected, then the judge did make the call. However, the defense could also just be incompetent and left it out and decided to appeal based on that fact being left out.
Maybe the jury will see this as not only a hate crime, but also escalate to some form of murder charge.
I could be wrong, but I don't think the jury only gets an up or down vote on the charges presented. The prosecutor would have to decide himself to go for the murder charge.
Correct, but often prosecution will have multiple charges. So they may have a Murder in x degree and manslaughter in x degree. Jury has to deliberate on each. It's possible to be found not guilty for murder and guilty for manslaughter.
"waa manslaughter which is crazy low" INAL and have no knowledge of Tennessee law but the way lawyers have explained it this often comes down to whst you can prove. like maybe murder requires prooving premeditation. or some other technicalities. i suspect that was the case.
in those cases "i got mad and shot them" and "i wasn't paying attention and ran them over" might be manslaughter but different types.
All of that is chosen by the prosecution which then sets whats argued during trial. The jury not having the information shouldn't affect their determination of the facts related to the charge but could, unfortunately, bias them away from the facts. which is presumably why the judge excluded it.
All this to say, i don't think this changes the manslaughter part. Juries don't do that.
Am lawyer.
We have basically three murders:
An intentional killing with Malice aforethought or premeditation as you put it.
An intentional killing in the Heat of passion lacking the premeditation.
An unintentional killing, manslaughter.
In Tennessee the middle on is called intentional manslaughter and that’s the one at play.
There are certainly cases where the jury has concluded at some point between bullet one and bukket six you formed the premeditation required.
Person brought a gun outside of their property. Premeditated murder. Done. I've owned guns for 19 years. If I bring a gun off my property it was premeditated. If I shoot someone it was intentional.
Whether or not I was passionate about pulling the trigger or not, it was thought about ahead of time and deliberate.
Anyone who has shot guns should know it isn't a hiccup to pull out a gun, ensure it is cocked, safety off, aim and hit a target... Let alone 6 times. This person deliberately and intentionally used a deadly weapon to assault someone.
Person brought a gun outside of their property. Premeditated murder. Done.
I get your point, and IANAL, but this is just not the case in the US, and it is unconstitutional for a government to make that argument. For better or worse you have the right to carry a gun on your person off your property, and millions of Americans do it every day without intending murder.
The rest of your comment I agree with. Just don’t be muddying the water with a constitutionally protected act being somehow suspicious or against the law.
That's you. Some people keep guns with them at all times for safety or because they just like guns. If you read the actual ruling, you'll see Defendant didn't even get a chance to testify honestly from their perspective when they were trying to put on a self-defense theory. That's actually unfair, even if you like trans women and support trans women.
jury doesn't get to decide the charge
So, the law doesn't apply if I don't like something about the victim?
Well yeah. This is America.
I'm sure you know about the white>black exception to most acts of violence, and the white>indigenous one. In addition to those, there is a cis>trans exception too. It gets people off for everything including obviously premeditated murder.
There is a slight difference, in that you can't say the skin color one openly in court as your defense anymore, but the trans one you can still say openly in court. It's called the "trans panic" defense.
One of the most egregious recent ones I remember was a guy who went to a woman's house and had sex. Sitting at home in post-nut he felt shame. So he got his dad and his brother together, and went back over to her house to murder her.
His dad and brother watched the parking lot and the door for him. He went inside and murdered the woman with his bare hands, eventually stomping her head into paste with his boot in anger. This obviously took a little while.
Clearly this was premeditated, cold blooded murder. He thought about it, made a plan, gathered materials and support, used his hands, and took time to see that it was finished. There was no disputing this in court. In fact, I know all these details because he admitted to them in court.
He also says though, that he had no idea she was trans during the sex, but somehow found out afterwards at home. That one fact was enough to let him go free.
Stomping a trans woman to death is a justified reaction to her transness in the eyes of the American courts.
Wait, wtf? What does that have to do with anything?
if I'm being extremely generous their (still very fucked up) argument is that a jury would be more likely to believe there was an imminent threat of harm from a "biological male" than a "biological female". They might even be correct with regards to how the information would impact the views of a Tennessee jury.
Still completely fucked and demonstrates a huge part of what's wrong with our judicial system. Everything a jury needs to know about whether a person would reasonably feel in imminent danger can be described without ever mentioning sex or gender.
threat of harm from a “biological male” than a “biological female”.
Seems to me basing that on gender is sexism. Absolutely statistically this is true, but the case was presumably based on the individuals in question, not on statistics. The evidence should determine the case not prejudice.
The trial court’s judge had disallowed the defense from presenting the victim’s identity as a transgender woman in its arguments.
That's a good call to avoid prejudice.
Exactly. This is what I meant with the end of my comment. If they really feel the need to get into physicality of the perceived threat they can talk about height, weight, BMI, and any number of other genderless metrics.
But it's Tennessee so they're of course trying to use bias to their advantage in this case
Now comes in Blue, White, and Pink!
Also, this rings of saying its not murder because transgender people aren't people.
No, it's implicitly saying the murderer was 'right' to kill her because she was 'really a black man.' The jury was 'deceived, by omission, into thinking this was about a woman being murdered.'
[Single quotes indicate their expressed beliefs, not direct quotes.]
Not quite but pretty much. The judge originally said no you can't bring up she was trans as part of your defense, which I think was an okayish decision. But then another court found that this information should have been provided to the jury and as such a retrial is needed.
It does reek on anti trans sentiment masked in procedural bullshit, and I wonder while we're having this conversation it seems like everyone is talking about this guy killing a trans lady because she was trans and wanting that to be his defense, but isn't that just admitting to a hate crime?... I mean I guess that's essentially what you're saying, the court says no no no, this man should be able to use him transphobia as his defense.
Well, I guess I agree. This country is so fucking stupid and hateful.
That's not the actual ruling at all.
It's a dangerous and scary path to go down to make it illegal for a defendant to present their side of things. This was the correct ruling, and there will possibly be a conviction on retrial.
It might not be the justification used in the ruling but it's what the defense argued.
And, for the record, defendants can't speak about all kinds of things to the jury. "Dangerous precedent" lmao buddy.
It's an attempt to legalize trans panic as a legal defense, no more and no less.
That all said these things are complicated. The initial judge was worried the TN jury would be too bigoted to treat a trans woman as a victim, the defense clearly thought so too, but you could also argue that all the accused would be doing was admitting that it was actually a hate crime to a "reasonable jury."
It's not a trans panic case if defendant was fucking trans woman over and over and over again. This is not a situation where defendant suddenly discovered the victim was trans.
Kayla Gore, executive director of the emergency services nonprofit My Sistah’s House, told Erin in the Morning that Ward had pursued trans women in the past.
This defendant liked fucking trans women. And apparently, he was scary to some of them, allegedly. That means he was creepy and possessive possibly, it does not mean he didn't realize she was trans, found out, and panicked, thereby removing culpability somehow.
Defendants not being able to speak about all kinds of things to a jury is EXACTLY what is wrong with society. A defendant, on the stand, should be able to say whatever the hell they want, especially in cases that carry decades in prison. If the defendant is guilty, the DA should be able to bring that out on cross.
I also already think jurisprudence in the USA has gone down a dangerous path where more and more rights of defendants are systematically being removed. You see this all the time in cases: defendants can't argue this, they aren't allowed to present that, anyone on the jury pool who is black is removed, anyone who knows someone close who has been arrested gets removed, defendants rights are violated over and over and it's "harmless." The only jury left supports police and is a certain kind of jury and the only arguments that can be made to a jury are former-DA-turned-judge approved. It's atrocious. (And please don't tell me removing black jurors is actually illegal; it happens anyway all the time.)
I didn't say we aren't already on the path.
black people, immigrants, and indigenous people too. atp, to stop the constant social murder and actual murder, we've got to force it on people. I don't want to become radicalized and lose my life or some shit fighting against the state, but if they're just letting people get lynched again, then I have to.
Did he kill someone? Then it doesn’t fucking matter what the victim’s gender or plumbing was.
Yes it does. Because this case may be used as precedence in other cases matter on. If something was not done correctly, this isn't justice, it's corruption. And it could lead to things like not allowing trans representation in legal proceedings(unlikely, but so was a convicted felon, and paedophile becoming USA's president)
"Trans panic" is only a legal defense if you want a trans genocide, moron, and if you'd actually read even the text posted to Lemmy much less the article you'd know the defense's justification is that they think transwomen are more likely to be considered dangerous by the jury.
Fucking evil. May this these people die of kidney stones
Conservatives will never, ever stop oppressing and killing the normal people on their own. Being polite does not work against conservatism. Showing empathy does not work against conservatism. The law does not work against conservatism. Only physical force works against conservatism.
Organizing physical resistance is not possible on social media. We must each be willing to act alone, altogether.
Act independently. Be discrete. Be prolific. Self-defense is not murder.
How was the original trial not for homicide 2?
These worthless fucks don't even view trans people AS PEOPLE! That is disgusting!
It shouldn't matter one whit what gender they are or not--- you cant just fucking murder people in cold blood wtf.
The argument is that the victim is more dangerous, because "they're a man." This is obviously bullshit though. Either the victim was murdered or not. Their gender really shouldn't matter, trans or otherwise. Things are fucked out here.
Voluntary Manslaughter to begin with? For shooting someone not threatening you physically 6 times outside your house?
It's Tennessee, and it's now in south america, so nobody gives a shit. I mean, we do, but we are nobody, for now.
preventing the killer from using the victim's trans identity in his defense.
What's the most generous way to read this? Like, is there any way to mean something good but just express yourself very very very badly and come up with this?
The most generous way to interpret it is to say it's restricting his freedom of speech and to make whatever defense he feels is best.
If transphobia wasn't a huge problem at the moment I might even agree, because it would be leaving him rope to hang himself with. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in my defense this wasn't just a crime, it was a hate crime." But with such widespread and virulent transphobia I don't trust a Tennessee jury not to nullify or at least have one person block conviction.
Clearly the jury should have the opportunity to victim blame, no? /s
I hope his dick rots off and he gets accused of being trans in the bathroom.
I don't agree that a murderer can't say their motivation, but when someone has shot someone else six times and we all know that they did it, just stay in prison. You chose to fill the victim full of lead because you're a dangerous weenie, and you're too dangerous to live with the public.
You can't have been too scared of them if you were in a long-term relationship, and you're a murderer. Sit in prison and rot.
I support trans women and...
This was a defendant who knew the victim well. They were in an ongoing sexual relationship. The trial court made it very difficult for the defendant to discuss their relationship or concerns about being hurt during alleged self-defense. And that was defendant's entire legal defense! And he couldn't talk about it! Even if too many trans women are being killed, this is not an unfair or bad appellate ruling.
Defendants should be able to present defenses to a jury. This is absolutely not transphobia for the court to rule this way. It's entirely possible Defendant chose to not testify because of this ruling. In a self-defense case!
The ruling: https://www.tncourts.gov/...
According to the ruling:
At the pretrial hearing on the State’s motion, defense counsel expressed concern that if the trial court excluded evidence of the victim’s biological sex, it would impact Defendant’s ability to present a defense and his right to testify. Defense counsel stated that if Defendant chose to testify, he would be in a position to have to lie to the jury, “either by omission or just a straight-out lie.”
So defendant was allowed to testify, but couldn't mention that the victim was trans at all. It's not right. Defendants should be able to present their side of things.
from the actual ruling:
Logically, courts allow evidence of the physical characteristics of the victim and defendant when evaluating the “reasonableness” and “imminent danger” requirements of a self-defense claim. Here, Defendant argues the “differences in strength and power between a biological man and a woman of the same weight cannot be denied.” In other words, there are physical differences between a biological male who is five-feet-eleven and 262 pounds and a biological female who is five-feet-eleven and 262 pounds. The trial court determined that because the victim was armed, evidence of her biological sex was irrelevant and potentially prejudicial. We disagree.
While a gun might equalize differences in physical strength and size, there are other inherent physiological differences between the sexes that science continues to reveal and that we choose not to ignore. A detailed discussion is not necessary for our analysis; it suffices to acknowledge that these differences exist. However significant or insignificant these differences are, the Tennessee Rules of Evidence set the threshold test for relevance low: evidence is relevant if it has any tendency to prove a consequential fact. See Tenn. R. Evid. 401, Advisory Comm’n Cmt. (“The theoretical test for admissibility is a lenient one . . .”). We decline to hold that the biological sex of the victim is not relevant to a claim of self-defense.
Regarding the danger of unfair prejudice, we recognize that societal biases exist. As counsel for Defendant observed at the pretrial hearing, any prejudices the jury might have against the victim for being transgender could very well be applied to Defendant for being in a sexual relationship with the transgender victim. The trial court was concerned that knowledge of the victim’s biological sex might lead to bias and cause the jury to confuse the issues. The danger of bias, however, ran both ways in this case. Defendant expressed his concern that the jury might be less likely to accept his claim of self-defense based on their understanding of the victim as a woman rather than a biological male. Notably, the victim’s friend, Mr. Hunter, testified the victim called him because the victim thought he could provide some level of intimidation as a male. These societal views on the differences between male and female behaviors only strengthen our belief that a person’s biological sex has relevance to certain issues.
Im still waiting on the evidence that theres a physical difference between cis women and trans women who've been on HRT for an extended time. As a transwoman myself, ive only been on hormones for 2 months and im definitely noticably weaker than i was before, even though ive kept up my routines.
I wont deny that 2 months ago I was definitely stronger by a mile than most women who dont actively work out, and i didnt really do any heavy lifting to earn that other than the occasional house move.
I think it's a fair point, and there's probably not good genuine unbiased studies comparing things like reflex times, aggression levels in confrontations, and other issues.
To me, it seems wrong in a self-defense case (which almost requires a defendant to testify) to not allow a defendant to just talk about what happened. Defendant may have not known if the victim was consistently taking HRT, how long HRT was being used and how often, and more than that, Defendant should just be able to talk about things without his testimony being deemed illegal for saying the wrong thing about an ongoing relationship of a sexual nature. It's also hard to know with a victim (who is dead) if they were taking HRT consistently.
This was a defendant who clearly was sexually drawn to trans women. The jury is probably going to hate him too if they are bigots and he testifies and juries like to convict.
Horrific.
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trans rights are human rights
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