A Memphis jury convicted a man of manslaughter without ever being told the person he shot was male. On October 5, 2026, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals threw out that conviction and ordered a new trial, ruling that hiding a person's sex "misled the jury."
What happened
On the night of June 29, 2022, Samuel Ward Jr. called police to report he had shot someone. According to the court's opinion, he told officers he and a friend had argued after sex, and the friend pulled a gun on him. Ward said he drew his own gun and fired back as he fell down a staircase.
Police found Paris Lee, 36, dead just inside the front door of his home at the bottom of the stairs, with a handgun two to three feet away. Lee had been shot six times. The autopsy recorded him as 5 feet 11 inches tall and 262 pounds. A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation firearms examiner found seven casings from Ward's gun and one from Lee's.
Lee was a trans-identified male. Prosecutors' own motion said Lee was born a biological male but had "identified and presented as a female" for years. It also said Ward and Lee had been in a sexual relationship for at least two years, and Ward knew Lee's sex.
What the trial judge hid
Before trial, prosecutors asked Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Carlyn L. Addison to keep the jury from hearing that Lee was male. They argued it "would only serve to confuse the material issues presented and potentially prejudice the jury against" Lee. At the hearing, the prosecution described Lee as "a large woman" who was armed.
Ward's lawyer argued Lee's sex mattered to self-defense, because of the difference in strength between men and women, and that if Ward testified he would have to lie to the jury, "either by omission or just a straight-out lie."
The judge sided with prosecutors:
> "A deadly weapon is a deadly weapon is a deadly weapon... I agree with the State, whether that person has a vagina or a penis has no bearing on the deadliness of a firearm. Not long ago we all read the news, a dog shot his owner."
The judge ordered everyone to call Lee "Ms. Paris Nicole Lee." The jury saw crime scene and autopsy photos redacted to hide Lee's male genitals, and an autopsy report with every reference to his sex blacked out.
Ward chose not to testify. He told the court, "I would like to testify if I could tell the whole truth," explaining that meant saying Lee "was born a male." He worried the jury would hold it against him that "I just did something to a woman."
The jury convicted Ward of voluntary manslaughter. The judge sentenced him to six years.
What the appeals court said
In an opinion by Judge Timothy L. Easter, joined by Presiding Judge Robert W. Wedemeyer and Judge Matthew J. Wilson, the court called this "an issue of first impression" in Tennessee and reversed.
"There are physical differences between a biological male who is five-feet-eleven and 262 pounds and a biological female who is five-feet-eleven and 262 pounds," the court wrote.
"While a gun might equalize differences in physical strength and size, there are other inherent physiological differences between the sexes that science continues to reveal and that we choose not to ignore."
The judges said Lee's sex was "relevant and full of probative value, and its exclusion left the jury with the impression that a male defendant killed a female victim." Hiding it "misled the jury, threatened the fairness of the judicial process, and was prejudicial to Defendant."
They added that Lee's sex "is an objective fact," and that "the State has never argued otherwise."
And the line that sums it up: withholding Lee's sex "frustrated a verdict dictated on truth and justice by asking the jury to render justice without absolute truth."
The court found the evidence was enough to support a manslaughter verdict and rejected Ward's other complaints. But because the jury never heard the truth about Lee's sex, the conviction was vacated and the case sent back for a new trial.
Why it matters
A judge and a prosecutor's office decided a jury deciding a self-defense claim should not know that the person holding the gun was a 262-pound man. Tennessee's appeals court said no. Sex is real, it matters, and juries are entitled to know it.
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Cover: Samuel Ward booking photo, Shelby County Sheriff's Office; Paris Lee photo via Facebook.
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