EdgeBoston.com – by Ethan Jacobs – Bay Windows
At first glance the murder trial of Roxbury gang member Sam Smith, known as “Fat Sam” according to press reports, seems to have little to do with transgender civil rights. In June 2001 a jury convicted Smith of first-degree murder for shooting and killing a member of a rival gang in Roxbury’s Ramsey Park in 1991. But Smith and his attorney, David Mirsky, are hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will force the state to grant Smith a retrial on the grounds that one of the prosecutors in the case allegedly dismissed a juror because the juror appeared to be transgender.