COLUMBIA — The hate crime and murder trial over the killing of Dime Doe, a transgender woman, is underway in U.S. District Court in Columbia.
At a federal level, it’s the first trial of that nature — a hate crime resulting in death over gender identity — since the passing of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, a federal hate crime statute.
The August 2019 fatal shooting of 24-year-old Dime Doe rang a state of emergency for the LGBTQ community. She was the second Black transgender woman in South Carolina to be killed within a few weeks.
Doe was found shot in the head. Her body was slumped over the wheel of her car in the area of Concord Church and Barnwell roads in Allendale, according to an initial statement from the State Law Enforcement Division in 2019.
In 2023, Daqua Lameek Ritter was arrested on charges of hate crime and murder for allegedly shooting Doe to death because she was transgender.
During a court hearing, an FBI agent testified that those in Allendale had started questioning the relationship between Ritter and Doe, angering Ritter.
Ritter and another man, Xavier Pinckney of Allendale, were also accused of providing false and misleading information to investigators. Pinckney later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice.
Federal hate crime statute
In 2009, then-President Barack Obama signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was named after Matthew Shepard, a student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured and killed over his sexual orientation, and James Byrd, Jr., a Black man who was brutally murdered.
Under the statute, it is considered a federal hate crime when someone willfully causes bodily injury, or attempts to do so, because of someone’s race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
For federal hate crimes targeting someone because of their gender identity, the first prosecution was in a federal court in Mississippi, where 29-year-old Joshua Brandon Vallum was sentenced to 49 years in prison for assaulting and murdering a 17-year-old because she was transgender. The case did not go to trial as Vallum plead guilty.
In most states, hate crimes can be prosecuted at state level. South Carolina and Wyoming are the only states that do not have hate crime laws. While a hate crime bill has made it through South Carolina’s House, is being held up in the Senate.
While there is a federal hate crime law for violent cases, state laws would offer more protection, according to Human Rights Campaign Vice President of Government Affairs, David Stacy.
“They need to have state hate crime statutes so that when those crimes happen, and those bias motivations happen, local prosecutors are able to bring these cases appropriately,” Stacy said.
The federal government has a limited role when it comes to hate crimes over sexual orientation and gender identity, according to Stacy.
“There has to be a federal nexus,” Stacy said. “That means you have to be engaged in some sort of federally protected rights … things like interstate commerce or voting or crossing state lines.”
In the case of Dime Doe, federal prosecutors linked the firearm Ritter used as well as a cellphone, internet, car and highways to being involved with “interstate and foreign commerce.”
While there is a federal hate crime law that can led to prosecution, violence targeting transgender people continues to be under reported and under prosecuted, according to Chase Glenn, the Executive Director of the Charleston-based Alliance of Full Acceptance.
The LGBTQ advocacy group has encouraged municipalities in South Carolina adopt hate crime ordinances. While the ordinances don’t have much teeth — a fine up to $500 or 30 days in jail — Glenn said the local laws could set up a framework for documenting hate crimes.
