3/6/2023 0 Comments Joshua vallum of gulfport![]() The case has been closely watched by LGBT advocates nationwide, who applaud federal officials’ first use of a 2009 hate crimes law to prosecute an offense against a transgender person. He also had pleaded guilty earlier to a state murder charge that drew him a separate sentence of life without parole. ![]() Vallum pleaded guilty to the federal charges in December, and it’s unlikely he’ll ever leave prison. Both the judge and defense lawyers said Vallum’s history of abuse as a child had to be considered. Guirola (juh-ROH’-lah) could have sentenced Vallum to life in federal prison, but stuck to a lesser sentence suggested in a plea agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors, citing Vallum’s neglected childhood and other issues. Gang rules barred homosexual activity and declared that punishable by death, the prosecutors had said. Prosecutors said Vallum shocked 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson with a stun gun, stabbed her and beat her to death in 2015 to keep fellow Latin Kings gang members from discovering the two had been having sex. It was the first case prosecuted under the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act involving a victim targeted because of gender identity. sentenced Joshua Vallum in connection with the 2015 killing of 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson. This article was amended on to clarify that Joshua Vallum was not the first American to be prosecuted for a transgender hate crime – although he was the first to be successfully prosecuted for a transgender hate crime under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a federal law that was introduced by Barack Obama in 2009.U.S.Last week, a Virginia state court angered LGBT activists by ruling that attacks motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation could not be prosecuted as hate crime under the state’s law. Vallum had previously been sentenced to life in prison in a state court for the same murder.īut federal prosecutors brought an additional lawsuit for hate crime because Mississippi lacks a statute protecting people against hate crimes based on their gender identity, the Department of Justice said.Īccording to a 2015 NCTE survey, nearly one in 10 US trans people said they had been physically attacked because of being transgender in the year prior to completing the survey. “Today’s sentencing reflects the importance of holding individuals accountable when they commit violent acts against transgender individuals,” said attorney general Jeff Sessions in a statement. This was the first case where a victim had been targeted because of gender identity that had been prosecuted under the US federal hate crime law, the Department of Justice said in a statement. He struck deadly blows to Williamson’s head with a hammer after she tried running away, prosecutors said. ![]() He decided to kill Williamson, fearing that he could face retribution from other gang members if word spread she was a transgender woman, prosecutors said.Īfter luring his former lover to his father’s home in Mississippi, Vallum shocked Williamson with a stun gun before stabbing her repeatedly with a pocket knife. Vallum, a member of the Latin Kings street gang, believed to the largest Hispanic gang in the United States, secretly dated Williamson during the summer of 2014, according to prosecutors. In 2009, Congress expanded a federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s sexual orientation among other factors. “It’s essential that biased crime against trans people be recognized as a serious national problem,” she said in a phone interview. Harper Jean Tobin, spokeswoman for the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), a Washington DC advocacy group, said the murder was part of an “epidemic of violence against transgender people” in the United States. The 29-year-old man appeared in Gulfport, Mississippi before a federal judge who could have imposed a maximum sentence of life without parole.
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