A trans woman was shot 3 times. The suspect is now in the first federal trans hate crime trial

The first-ever federal trial for a hate crime based on gender identity has just started in South Carolina, and it involves a man who allegedly killed a transgender woman.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed in 2009 and signed into law by then-President Barack Obama. It has been used in several cases involving anti-transgender bias since then, but none of those cases has gone to trial until today.

Related:

Teen dies a day after brutal beating in a school bathroom bullying attack

The nonbinary teen was attacked in a school targeted by online hate activists.

The case involves Daqua Lameek Ritter, who the Department of Justice (DOJ) believes killed a Black trans woman identified only as “Dime Doe” in court documents the Associated Press reported on. The DOJ believes that Ritter and Doe had a sexual relationship that his girlfriend and friends learned about a month before she was killed. They believe that Ritter’s girlfriend called him an anti-gay slur, which made him “extremely upset.”

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“His crime was motivated by his anger at being mocked for having a sexual relationship with a transgender woman,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. They believe Ritter then drove Doe to an isolated area near a relative’s house and shot her three times.

Prosecutors believe that he lied to police about his whereabouts and got people to help him burn his clothes and hide his weapon as he fled the state of South Carolina for New York. They say they have witnesses who can testify about Ritter’s location as well as text messages where he persuaded Doe to get in the car with him.

Video of a traffic stop allegedly shows him in Doe’s car just hours before she was killed. DNA evidence also places him in Doe’s car, and several witnesses, prosecutors say, have said that Ritter told them he killed her.

Ritter’s defense is that his DNA was in her car because of their relationship and that the witnesses’ testimony is inconsistent.

Ritter was arrested in January 2023. Prosecutors said that Ritter could receive multiple life sentences if convicted, but they will not seek the death penalty. He faces hate crimes charges and two other counts connected to the alleged murder with a firearm and lying to law enforcement.