Amid Trans Murder Epidemic, US Finally Prosecutes Gender-Related Murder as Hate Crime for First Time

By teleSUR

16 May 17

 

It marks the first prosecution under the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act involving a victim targeted because of their gender identity.

mid a crisis of near-epidemic rates of murders of transgender women in the United States in the last few years, the first person to ever receive a conviction for killing a trans woman on federal hate crime charges in the country was sentenced Monday in what advocates hope will be a precedent-setting case.

Two years ago, Joshua Vallum, a member of the U.S. contingent of the Latin Kings, lured 17-year old Mercedes Williamson, with whom he had sexual relations, into his car, driving her miles away to his family home near Lucedale, Mississippi. There, he shocked her with a stun gun, stabbed her with a pocketknife, and when she tried to run away, chased her and bashed her head with a hammer.

He had committed the murder, prosecutors said, in order to prevent fellow Latin Kings members from discovering the pair were having sex. Despite this, Vallum had initially told sheriff’s deputies that he discovered Williamson had a penis moments before he killed her, saying he then “blacked out” and didn’t remember the crime, a variation of what’s often known as a "gay panic" or "trans panic" defense in cases like these.

U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. said that while Vallum could be sentenced to life in prison, he was given a lesser sentence of 49 years, after considering the plea agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors, which cited Vallum's history of abuse as a child.

"Mr. Vallum lived through a childhood that was characterized by abandonment and neglect," said public defender Ellen Allred, reported AP. "It's difficult to imagine how a mother could lock a two- or three-year-old child in a room for hours on end while adults did drugs."

"We can't go back and change Mr. Vallum's childhood, just like Mr. Vallum can't go back and undo what he did to Mercedes," he added.

Vallum has become the first person to ever be prosecuted under the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act involving a victim targeted because of their gender identity, a move welcomed by LGBTQ organizations around the country.

Demoya Gordon, an attorney for the Transgender Rights Project of Lambda Legal, called the prosecution "significant" but noted that it began under President Barack Obama's administration, adding that incumbent President Donald Trump has already reversed some advances for trans people in the country, which doesn’t bode well for their safety and well-being.

"These actions invite increased discrimination and continued animus against transgender people," Gordon said, reported AP.

The sentencing even drew comments from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who in an open letter by a number of Democrats in March, was asked to launch a federal hate crime investigation into the epidemic.

Today is the 1st time a perpetrator will be sentenced under federal hate crimes charges for killing a trans person https://t.co/bRySPhEzx6

— HumanRightsCampaign (@HRC) May 16, 2017

"Today's sentencing reflects the importance of holding individuals accountable when they commit violent acts against transgender individuals," he said in a statement Monday. "The Justice Department will continue its efforts to vindicate the rights of those individuals who are affected by bias motivated crimes."

While 2016 was the deadliest recorded year for murders of transgender people in the United States, just as it has been the case for the past few years, 2017 is likely to surpass that.

Just in the first 75 days of 2017, seven trans people — six who were Black — were murdered. Last year, of the 25 reported deaths, at least 18 were Black.

Monday’s ruling is also significant in that all the cases of trans murders in 2017, police have ruled out investigating them as hate crimes. That’s on trend with the past: as a joint report by the Human Rights Campaign and the Trans People of Color Coalition made clear, of the 53 reported transgender murders between 2013 to 2015, not a single one was prosecuted or reported as a hate crime.

In addition, in the few years that the FBI has tracked hate crimes, they have recorded only a fraction of them — and no killings.

The justice system itself also represents a huge barrier to curbing anti-transgender violence. Even if they are not engaged in survival behaviors that are criminalized, transgender people who report to police that they have been victimized by physical or sexual assault face the risk of being harassed or intimidated by law enforcement.

In fact, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that transgender people of color were six times more likely to experience physical violence from the police than the rest of the population.