Tennessee court overturns killer’s conviction because jury wasn’t told that the victim was transgender

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.

Related: How a 'trans panic' defense changed the outcome of two murders

“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.

Ward had claimed that Lee pointed a gun at him, and that the shooting was self-defense. A medical examiner and members of the jury rejected it.

Using discomfort with LGBTQ+ identity as a defense in court cases about violence against LGBTQ+ individuals is commonly known as a panic defense, and is widely condemned by legal groups including the American Bar Association. This approach to criminal defense gained notoriety after it was used by defendants in the brutal 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard by two men in Laramie, Wyoming. Today, the LGBTQ+ panic defense is still not banned in Tennessee.

Lee was just 36 years old when she was killed, according to an obituary page. She was survived by her parents and siblings, plus other family members and friends, many of whom left comments on the page in her memory.

Local LGBTQ+ organizers have said Ward was known as a threat to trans women even before he killed Lee, journalist S. Baum reported for the news blog Erin in the Morning on Thursday. Kayla Gore, executive director of the emergency services nonprofit My Sistah’s House, told Erin in the Morning that Ward had pursued trans women in the past.

“What concerns me as a community organizer is what happens when a courtroom treats a Black trans woman’s identity as a material explanation for someone’s fears,” Gore told the blog. “They want that as evidence presented to the jury or the judge as a deciding factor on whether or not this was self-defense. It sends a message far beyond the courtroom.”