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.
A hate crime, then…?
This exactly. Where i’m from that is reason for harsher sentencing. Bonkers.
In California maybe - but Tennessee? This feels like fuckery to me.
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?
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.
Watch him get a longer sentence anyway lmao
So mote it be.
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)
Fucking evil. May this these people die of kidney stones
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.
These worthless fucks don’t even view trans people AS PEOPLE!
The Nazis were the same way. Dehumanizing people makes it easier to justify murder/genocide.
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.
Hit them again, and harder this time.
Clearly the jury should have the opportunity to victim blame, no? /s
How was the original trial not for homicide 2?
Because killing a woman barely qualifies as murder in America to begin with.
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.
