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<\/p>\nJeff Sessions Sends DOJ Hate Crimes Lawyer to Iowa to Prosecute Man Who Murdered Transgender Student<\/b><\/p>\n
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions personally ordered a DOJ hate crimes lawyer to Iowa to prosecute a case against a man<\/a> who murdered a transgender high school student last year, the New York Times<\/em> reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n The Justice Department rarely assigns its lawyers to serve as local prosecutors, and only in cases in which they can provide expertise in areas that the federal government views as significant. By doing so in this instance, Mr. Sessions put the weight of the government behind a small-city murder case with overtones of gender identity and sexuality.<\/p>\n Kedarie Johnson, a 16-year-old in Burlington, Iowa, was shot to death in March 2016. Family and friends told\u00a0local newspapers<\/a>\u00a0that he was gay<\/a>, identified as\u00a0both male and female<\/a>\u00a0and occasionally went by the name Kandicee. Christopher Perras, a Justice Department lawyer, will serve as a county prosecutor in the case, according to court documents filed on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is just one example of the attorney general\u2019s commitment to enforcing the laws enacted by Congress and to protecting the civil rights of all individuals,\u201d said Devin O\u2019Malley, a spokesman for the Justice Department.<\/p>\n The NYT describes Sessions attitude towards transgender issues as having \u201cnuances.\u201d He recently reversed an Obama-era policy<\/a> that protected transgender people from discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Sessions vowed to \u201caggressively\u201d pursue anti-transgender hate crimes.<\/p>\n Speaking at a Justice Department hate crimes summit in Washington in June, Sessions said \u201cwe have a responsibility to protect people\u2019s freedom, their religious rights, their integrity, their ability to express themselves, to push back against violence and hate crimes that occur in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n He noted specifically the duty to \u201cenforce hate crime laws aggressively and appropriately where transgendered individuals are victims.\u201d<\/p>\n The Attorney General noted the sentencing of a Mississippi man<\/a> last month to\u00a049 years in prison<\/a>\u00a0for the murder of a transgender teenager, the first federal hate crimes prosecution involving the targeting of a transgender victim.<\/p>\n The post Jeff Sessions Sends DOJ Hate Crimes Lawyer to Iowa to Prosecute Man Who Murdered Transgender Student<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\nRELATED:\u00a0Jeff Sessions Reverses Policy That Protects Transgender People from Discrimination Under Title VII of Civil Rights Act<\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n