Daqua Lameek Ritter has been found guilty of killing Dime Doe. In a country with an estimated 21,156 murders in 2022, touting one guilty verdict seems like a drop in the bucket. But this verdict is significant not just for the people involved but more broadly for the country’s criminal justice system, the formal institutions designed to enforce, arbitrate, and carry out the laws of society. To better understand, consider the facts of the case. Dime Doe was a transgender woman, a person who identifies with a gender that is different from their biological sex. Ritter is a cisgender man, an individual whose gender identity matches their sex at birth. Ritter was concerned there were rumors about his secret sexual relationship with a trans woman, so he lured Doe out of town and shot her to death.
The importance of this verdict stands not just on the murder of Doe but on the fact that the prosecution was able to successfully argue that Doe was killed because of her gender identity, her inner sense, and her identification as masculine or feminine. For this reason, Doe’s murder was a hate crime, criminal behavior directed at individuals or groups based on race, ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, or religion. Sadly, Doe’s murder isn’t the only example of a hate crime in the U.S. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports there were 11,288 hate crime incidents in 2022. Of that number, 59 percent were racially or ethnically motivated, 17 percent were based on religion, and another 17 percent were because of the victim’s sexual orientation.
Of course, hate crimes aren’t the only type of offense in violation of public law or crime. There are eight forms of criminal behavior tracked by the FBI. These are known as index crimes, and they include the following:
Willful homicide Aggravated assault
