She moved to the Atlanta area because being transgender in Alabama was "a nightmare."ĭespite fears that the hate crime law would be overused, prosecutions under Obama's administration were relatively few. "I know how easily violence can happen and how easily it can be swept under the rug," she said. Williamson had left home, had a tenuous relationship with her parents, and was struggling with a drug habit.
Seymour didn't know Williamson, but she acted because she grew up nearby. Hayley Seymour is a transgender woman who led a vigil for Williamson in Mobile, Alabama, after her death. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights advocates say heinous attacks like this one should be prosecuted as hate crimes because they spread fear among their community. When she tried to run into the woods, he chased her down and bashed her head with a hammer. He shocked her with a stun gun and stabbed her in the body and head with a pocketknife. Vallum lured Williamson into a car in Alabama and drove her 50 miles (80 kilometers) to his family home near Lucedale, Mississippi, prosecutors said. Most significantly, Vallum didn't contest evidence in court that he long knew Williamson was transgender.įederal prosecutor Julia Gegenheimer said during Vallum's plea hearing in December that he began planning to kill Williamson after a friend called him May 28 to say he'd discovered her identity. Prosecutors doubted the claim, in part because the FBI found a cache of gay porn on Vallum's cellphone and because he was charged with indecent exposure in Alabama. He said he "blacked out" and doesn't remember the crime, a variation of what's known as a "gay panic" or "trans panic" defense. In his defense, Vallum initially told sheriff's deputies and later The Sun Herald newspaper that he found out that Williamson had a penis on moments before he killed her. After his release, Vallum met Williamson online and they dated for months in 2014. While imprisoned, he joined the Latin Kings gang, going by the name King Chaos. Vallum previously served time for a fake bomb threat at a church. "There's a lot of variability in the willingness of state and local jurisdictions to prosecute," said Rebecca Stotzer, a University of Hawaii professor who has studied violence on LGBT people. He could get life in prison without parole for his federal guilty plea.
In Vallum's case, he pleaded guilty to murder in state court and was sentenced to life in prison, but with a chance of parole. Usually defendants will also face charges such as assault or murder, but people are more likely to be convicted in federal court and can sometimes face longer sentences. Mississippi, for example, doesn't include crimes against transgender people. Six Democrats in Congress wrote to Sessions on March 10 to ask the Justice Department to investigate as hate crimes the deaths of seven transgender women this year, including another one in Mississippi.Ĭrimes motivated by a loathing of sexual orientation or race will often be prosecuted under state hate crime charges, but those vary.
Prosecutors say Vallum and Williamson dated and that he killed his transgender girlfriend because he worried fellow gang members would discover their relationship and kill both of them because gay sex was strictly forbidden by the Latin Kings gang. 28, 2017, photo, Jackson County District Attorney Tony Lawrence talks about the evidence the authorities collected on Josh Vallum, who plead guilty to a charge of first-degree murder by deliberate design for killing Mercedes Williamson, 17, a transgender woman, in Jackson, Miss.
0 kommentar(er)
