Man gets 49 years for anti-transgender hate crime killing

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Man gets 49 years for anti-transgender hate crime killing

By JEFF AMY
1 hour ago

GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man received a 49-year prison sentence Monday for the first-ever conviction on federal hate crime charges arising from the killing of a transgender woman.

In a case watched by the LGBT community nationwide, U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. sentenced Joshua Vallum in the 2015 killing of 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson. It was the first case prosecuted under the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act involving a victim targeted because of gender identity.

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 were having sex. Gang rules barred homosexual activity and declared it punishable by death.

Guirola could have sentenced Vallum to life in prison, but heeded a lesser sentence suggested in a plea agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors, citing Vallum’s neglected childhood and other issues. Both the judge and defense lawyers said Vallum’s history of abuse as a child had to be considered.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/a0dd02d4d45e4c0491ad06100e61f641/Man-gets-49-years-for-anti-transgender-hate-crime-killing

[shenmue]

1. ...

[lambchopp59]

2. Mixed emotions

Some who've read my posts will know my story of running away from home at 16 after my father made an earnest attempt to murder me. I also know of murder cases that were tried in the redneck area my parents moved me to that were dismissed due to the "gay panic" defense. All the perps had to say under oath was "He touched my dick" and they were free to go.
I knew I was in mortal danger from the time I was outed there. I didn't expect peril from my father, who had been convinced by a persistent religious nutjob that "gays were deserving of nothing but death". My father had expressed his annoyance with the bible thumper who kept "visiting", at first. With persistence on the thumper's part, he got convinced I needed to be exterminated.
Westboro Baptists were complicit in this from a distance, via Phelps relatives.
I thank Zeus, Allah, Ghod, the sun or whatever diety you like our system of justice even in deeply "red" areas has evolved, somewhat. I believe there are many cold cases that should be re-opened, but I'll never know.
Willful ignorance and turning a blind eye to injustice haunts me still, albeit the volume turned down. Living now in a semi-rural area of California, there is still some latent homophobia I experience: A few of my co-workers are deeply "religious". Some of those few have never directed even a warm greeting to me in over two years, one in particular gets a look on her face like she just smelled something bad any time I'm in her presence. The light came on for me when I saw her reading some "Focus on Other People's Family" rag in the lunchroom.
I still cannot see how religious folk reconcile "thou shalt not kill" with justifications for murder. In the 1970's, despite this perp's gang and drug cartel affiliations, he would likely have been acquitted.
Despite advancement of more enlightened justice, it is facepalm-worthy actions such as Trump's election and filling his cabinet with racists and homophobes that still truly astound me there is still such a thing as "Log Cabin Republicans". What a magnanimous contradiction in terms.
We still have a long road to equality against idiotic prejudices.

[LostOne4Ever]

3. 49 years seems like only a fraction of the time that man stole from poor Mercedes... nt