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Joseph Pemberton: Marine who killed transgender Filipina will stay in jail as lawyer appeals against release

The marine had strangled 26-year-old Jennifer Laude in a fit of rage and held her head in a toilet in a motel room
UPDATED SEP 3, 2020
Jennifer Laude, Joseph Scott Pemberton (Screenshot from documentary 'Call me Ganda')
Jennifer Laude, Joseph Scott Pemberton (Screenshot from documentary 'Call me Ganda')

A United States marine, who killed a transgender woman in the Philippines after finding out she was transgender, is set to be released from prison early because of "good conduct," a Philippine court ruled on Tuesday, September 1. The ruling, however, drew protest from the victim's family and lawyers, who have appealed the court's decision. 

The marine, Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton, had strangled 26-year-old Jennifer Laude in a fit of rage and held her head in a toilet in a motel room in Olongapo city, northwest of Manila in 2014. Since his conviction, Pemberton has served less than six years of a maximum 10-year prison sentence. Most of his prison time has been spent in a compound guarded jointly by the Philippine and American security personnel at a military camp in Manila. Although Laude's family had demanded that the marine be kept in an ordinary prison in Philippine, his place of detention was eventually agreed to under the terms of the treaty allies' Visiting Forces Agreement.

Harry Roque, spokesperson for Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who once served as the Laude family's attorney, on Wednesday, September 2, said that Pemberton will continue to remain in prison while the victim's lawyer attempt to overturn the court's ruling. "I deplore the short period of imprisonment meted on Pemberton, who killed a Filipino in the most gruesome manner," Roque said. "Laude's death personifies the death of Philippine sovereignty. The light penalty imposed on Pemberton proves that despite the president's independent foreign policy, Americans continue to have the status of conquering colonials in our country."

Roque, while addressing a media briefing, questioned the marine's early release and said Philippine prison officials will not process Pemberton's release until a local court decides on an appeal filed by Laude's lawyer. Meanwhile, the marine's lawyer, Rowena Garcia Flores, in a statement, defended the court's ruling, saying that his client's detention was shortened by authorities under a Philippine law that also applies to Filipinos. She added that if all of Pemberton's good-conduct merits in jail were applied, "he's already overstaying."

Military spokesman Major General Edgard Arevalo also released a statement in the wake of the latest ruling, saying that the military will help the Bureau of Corrections personnel release Pemberton when they receive the court order. A judge, in December 2015, had not convicted Pemberton on a more serious charge of murder the prosecutors were seeking and instead settled on homicide. The judge, at the time, said that she downgraded the marine's charge because factors such as cruelty and treachery were not proven in the case.

Pemberton, a 19-year-old anti-tank missile operator from Massachusetts, took shore leave in Olongapo City, Philippines in October 2014, where he met Jennifer Laude, a 26-year-old Filipina transgender woman at a bar. The duo subsequently went to a motel room where Laude was later found dead: half-naked, neck blackened with strangulation marks and her head submerged in a toilet bowl. Pemberton was declared the prime suspect in the case and the possible motive was concluded that the Marine was surprised to learn Laude was a transgender, and apparently snapped and killed her in a fit of rage and humiliation.

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