By Davina Anne Gabriel
(FALLS CITY, Nebraska) - Approximately forty persons from across the United States came here Monday, May 15, to protest violence against transgender people as John Lotter, 23, of Falls City, went on trial for the 1993 murder of female-to-male transsexual Brandon Teena and two others.
The demonstration and vigil took place outside the Richardson County Courthouse in Falls City where Lotter's case is being tried.
Lotter is the second person accused in the triple murders in nearby Humboldt, Nebraska on Dec. 31, 1993. Marvin Thomas Nissen, 22, also of Falls City, has already been convicted of one count of first degree murder in the death of Brandon Teena and two counts of second degree murder in the deaths of Lisa Lambert, whom Brandon was living with at the time, and Phillip DeVine, a friend who was visiting them on the night of the murders.
Nissen was convicted on March 3, 1995, following eighteen hours of deliberation over the course of two days by a jury of ten women and two men, all from Omaha, Nebraska.
Lotter has pleaded not guilty to involvement in the killings, claiming that although he was with Nissen on the night they were committed, he was outside asleep in the car while Nissen was committing the murders. Lotter's attorney stated in his opening arguments on May 15 that all of the evidence linking Lotter to the murders is circumstantial, and is seeking to prevent Nissen from testifying against him.
Lotter's jury is also composed of ten women and two men, all from Omaha who will be sequestered in Falls City for the duration of the trial. Jurors were selected from Omaha because the defendants' attorneys successfully argued that Nissen and Lotter could not be given a fair trial by local residents because of the amount of negative publicity that has been generated about the case.
Police publicly released this information to the local newspaper, the Falls City Journal. One week later, on Christmas Day 1993, Brandon was raped and assaulted at a Christmas party by two men, whom he identified to local police as Nissen and Lotter, despite the fact that they had threatened to kill him if he reported the incident to the police.
However, charges of rape and assault were not filed against Nissen and Lotter until after Brandon's slaying, despite the fact that his sister Tammy Brandon had called Richardson County sheriff Charles B. Laux four days before the slaying to ask why Lotter and Nissen had not been arrested when Brandon had identified them as his attackers.
According to Tammy Brandon, Sheriff Laux responded to her inquiry by telling her that "he didn't need [her] to be doing his work." Laux has also been quoted as saying "you can call it 'it' as far as I'm concerned" when describing Teena.
Laux has claimed that he was "pursuing" the rape charges at the time of Brandon's death. Yet during preliminary hearings last fall, Sheriff's deputies testified that they were convinced that Lotter and Nissen had committed the rape and sexual assault, but were directed by Sheriff Laux not to arrest them. Laux was defeated in his bid for re-election as Sheriff last November.
Local authorities have denied that their outing of Brandon Teena in any way contributed to his killers' motives, and have declined to classify the murder as a hate crime.
However, Lotter's sister has confirmed that both Lotter and Nissen were enraged after learning that Brandon was anatomically female but had been living as a man and was dating a local woman (Lana Tisdale). Witnesses for the prosecution at Thomas Nissen's trial testified that both Nissen and Lotter were enraged at and resentful of Brandon after learning that he was anatomically female but living as a man. Testimony during that trial also revealed that the Sheriff's office had interviewed dozens of people and prepared an extensive report on Brandon's rape and sexual assault during the week between the rape and the murder.
Sentencing for Nissen has been delayed until after the completion of Lotter's trial. The minimum sentence for first degree murder in Nebraska is life imprisonment; the maximum penalty is execution. Second degree murder is punishable by a sentence ranging from ten years to life imprisonment. Both Nissen and Lotter could also subsequently be charged with rape and sexual assault, but it is unlikely that they will face charges on those counts if they are sentenced to execution.
As was Nissen's, Lotter's trial is being presided over by Judge Robert Finn. Judge Finn is the same judge who presided over the trial of Michael Ryan, who was the leader of a fundamentalist Christian cult in nearby Rollo, Nebraska in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and who was convicted in the death the five-year old son of one of his followers in October 1986. That trial was widely reported in the national media in the mid-1980s. Ryan was sentenced to execution by Judge Finn following his conviction in that case.
The day before approximately 150 persons also turned out to hear Feinberg, Pratt and Bornstein speak about the relationship between the trans community and the larger queer community and to read from their works at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Kansas City, Missouri the previous day, Sunday, May 14 1995. That event was sponsored by the Kansas City chapter of Interweave, the queer affiliate organization of the Unitarian Universalist Church.
Residents of Falls City were generally supportive of the demonstrators, although some residents who drove by them, mostly adolescent and young adult males, expressed support for Lotter and disdain for the demonstrators in a variety of ways, ranging from cheers for Lotter to verbal insults and hand gestures directed at the demonstrators. There were no incidents of actual violence or threats of violence.
Local authorities were respectful of and cooperative with the demonstrators. An unidentified retired lawyer who spoke to the demonstrators stated that there was virtually no support for Lotter among the townspeople, and that most were very resentful towards him because of the amount of negative publicity that this case has focused on Falls City, as well as because of the enormous expense that has incurred to Richardson County in order to try his case.
Leslie Feinberg is the author of the Lambda Award winning novel "Stone Butch Blues" and the pamphlet "Transgender Liberation: a Movement Whose Time Has Come". Her upcoming book "Transgender Warriors: A History of Resistance" is scheduled to be published by Beacon Press later this year. Minnie Bruce Pratt is the author of several books including "Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991"; "We Say We Love Each Other" and "Crime Against Nature", which won an American Library Association Gay/Lesbian Book Award and was an Academy of American Poets Lamont Poetry selection. Her most recent book "S/he" was published by Firebrand Books earlier this year. Kate Bornstein is an acclaimed playwright and performance artist. She is author of three plays: "Hidden: A Gender"; "The Opposite Sex Is Neither" and "Virtually Yours". Her first book, "Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us" was published by Routledge Publishers in June 1994.
This demonstration/vigil was organized by Riki Anne Wilchins, co-founder of "The Transexual Menace", a leading activist for gender liberation. For more information on the group contact Dana Friedman at danf@pipeline.com
For more news on the vigil see this article at FTM International
The murder occurred just three days after noted transgender activist Leslie Feinberg delivered the commencement address at Bradford College in the same town.
The violence, born of ignorance and feeding on fear, continues.
(Reported by Nancy Nangeroni)