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.
Well, if people are violently hostile to trans people, I guess trans people need to legally adapt.
Oh, they can’t do that?
Huh. Weird. Soooo, what to you expect them to do? Just… Be murdered peacefully?
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.
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)
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/sites/default/files/OpinionsPDFVersion/W2025-01186-CCA-R3-CDOPN.pdf
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.
Ordered a retrial.
Guy could still be found guilty of murder or manslaughter
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.
Fucking evil. May this these people die of kidney stones
Also, this rings of saying its not murder because transgender people aren’t people.
No, it’s explicitly 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.]
That’s not the actual ruling at all.
https://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/OpinionsPDFVersion/W2025-01186-CCA-R3-CDOPN.pdf
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.
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.
Clearly the jury should have the opportunity to victim blame, no? /s
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.
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.
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.
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.
Horrific.
