LARAMIE—Ríhanna Kelver’s hand shook as she put an object away in her pants pocket, then sat between her attorney and a witness. She wore a black suit, bright, beaded jewelry and her long, dark hair in a braid. Behind her, more than a dozen people and five reporters sat in the audience. Only the whining beep of the entryway metal detector and the whirring of overhead fans disturbed the hushed courtroom. The scales of justice stood in bas relief on the wall behind the judge’s seat.
Kelver, a transgender woman and vocal trans rights advocate, is facing felony charges for aggravated assault and possession of a deadly weapon after pulling a gun on a man in what she has said was an act of self-defense. She could face years of prison time if found guilty. The case has drawn national attention to Wyoming, a state with robust stand-your-ground and Second Amendment laws.
Kelver’s attorney, Laramie-based Andrew Holcomb, asked for a “John hearing” — named after a well-known 2018 Wyoming self-defense case — to decide whether Kelver is immune from prosecution under the state’s self-defense laws. Wednesday’s hearing revolved around two central questions: Who was the initial aggressor? And was Kelver in fear of her life when she pointed her gun?
Albany County District Judge Misha Westby didn’t make a decision at the hearing, but said she would try to do so “quickly.”
The charges Kelver faces stem from a September 2025 incident in downtown Laramie, when Kelver pulled a gun on a man, Scott Durham, after he had pushed her to the ground.
Accounts differ as to what led to the altercation. According to court filings recounting Kelver’s experience, Durham had allegedly taunted her as she sat in front of the Crowbar & Grill before a late-night shift, yelling that “the [Crowbar] should be closing you bunch of fags.” Kelver asked him, “What the fuck did you say?” At the Wednesday hearing, Kelver also recounted that Durham allegedly told her: “I’ll fuck you up, faggot,” and “I’ll fucking kill you, you fucking faggot.”
She began walking toward Durham and the two individuals he was with, the filings recount, meeting them in the crosswalk at the intersection of 2nd Street and Ivinson Avenue. Durham then “put both hands” on Kelver’s chest and “forcefully shoved her,” causing her to fall. When she hit the pavement, Kelver pulled a pistol out of her bag, racked the slide and pointed it at Durham. She lowered the pistol and stood when “it became apparent” to her that Durham was “disengaging from the encounter.”
According to a Laramie police affidavit, Durham told police that he had yelled “‘fuck the Crowbar’ because he likes the Buckhorn Bar better,” without using any slurs. The affidavit states that camera footage shows Kelver had crossed the street toward Durham and his two companions with “her right hand on her right hip, where she wore a satchel.”
When Laramie police later questioned her, Kelver said she had brandished a knife, not a gun, and that her firearm was in her car, the affidavit states. She later disclosed that she had a gun in her bag. Officers took the firearm, which had a chambered round.
Called to the witness stand during the hearing, Kelver said she had been in the habit of carrying a pocket knife as a “defensive item” when she was in town. She was having a “PTSD response” after the incident and couldn’t “clearly at that moment recall the events,” she said. “So I was attempting to operate off the best information I could remember, being told I had pulled a weapon. I believed I had pulled the knife.”
Kelver elaborated that she had started carrying a firearm after an incident when she was “out alone, stargazing” and “some individuals” began harassing her. “I primarily started carrying a firearm around general and sustained safety concerns, especially considering my status as a transgender woman,” she said.
Durham was not charged and is currently considered the victim in the case. The Laramie Reporter and CU Independent reported Durham was once a member of Patriot Front, a white supremacist group, and has a history of posting online content targeting minorities. A Colorado police report included in the court record recounts a student calling police because he was “in fear” of Durham, who was “an active known racist throughout the campus.”
Before 2008, Wyoming law required trying to retreat before using lethal force in self-defense. Things changed that year when then-Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed the state’s “castle doctrine” into law, granting an exception to the “duty to retreat” if that person is in their home or on their property. In 2018, lawmakers extended self-defense rights even further, passing a “stand your ground” bill that expanded this “duty to retreat” exception to any place where a person is lawfully present.
Holcomb has argued that Kelver had no “duty to retreat.” “The record is devoid of evidence demonstrating that Ms. Kelver was trespassing, the one to instigate the altercation, unlawfully possessing the firearm, or otherwise engaged in illegal activity,” Holcomb explains in court filings. “The entire altercation ensued within the confines of downtown Laramie, a public place where all parties were lawfully allowed to remain. Nothing prohibited Ms. Kelver from lawfully possessing the firearm.”
Further, Holcomb argued that, while Kelver was the one to approach Durham and his companions, Durham “committed an uncontested and unlawful application of force” against Kelver when he “forcefully shoved her to the pavement.” Kelver’s decision to pull a gun on Durham stemmed from her belief at the time that she was in danger, Holcomb writes. “When [Kelver] drew her firearm, she did not know whether the assault would continue or not.”
Central to Kelver’s perception of danger in the situation was her experience as a transgender woman, Holcomb elaborated in the hearing.
“Ms. Kelver is a transgender woman who heard language directed at the Crowbar, and then at her, that was not merely rude, but hateful and targeted,” Holcomb said. While he didn’t argue that words alone justified using a firearm, Holcomb asserted that this context is “relevant to how Ms. Kelver perceived the risk that this verbal hostility could become physical violence.” He cited a 2025 report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law that found transgender people experience violent victimization at a rate of almost five times more than non-LGBTQ people.
Albany County Attorney Kurt Britzius, arguing on behalf of the state of Wyoming, emphasized that neither Durham nor his companions brandished weapons at the time that Kelver drew and racked her gun, and that Kelver crossed the street and appeared to veer toward the three men before Durham pushed her. “The aggression came from Ms. Kelver going across the street to confront these individuals,” Britzius said.
Playing a downtown livestream video recording of the encounter in the courtroom Wednesday, Britzius also focused on Kelver’s body language as she approached the men. The video shows Kelver with her right hand near her satchel, which contained the firearm. Laramie police officer Seth Meyer, one of several officers who responded to the incident, said on the witness stand that this “45-degree draw angle” can be an indication of an individual trying to draw a weapon.
But Holcomb argued that before someone is treated as the aggressor, there has to be “some sort of physical aggression or threat of any use of deadly force.” The first act of physical aggression, he said, came from Durham, when he “shoved [Kelver] hard enough that she fell backwards to the pavement, her belongings scattering across the street, and she suffered a serious injury to her lower back.”
“That is the moment this case changed from a verbal confrontation to a physical assault,” Holcomb said.
Jeffrey Donnell, a private investigator who formerly worked at the Albany County Sheriff’s Office and has extensive experience providing firearms instruction, reiterated on the witness stand that Durham “committed the only act of physical aggression.”
“Being knocked to the ground on your back on pavement puts you in a very vulnerable position,” Donnell said. After reviewing videos and reports on the altercation, he didn’t believe Kelver had a realistic avenue to retreat when she drew her firearm. “My opinion is that the use of force was reasonable given the circumstances.”
Holcomb also emphasized that people can cause harm without weapons. “I fully believed he could have killed me with his own physical force if he wanted to,” Kelver said of Durham.
Throughout the arguments, Kelver took sips from a water bottle, her hand shaking, and wiped her tears with tissues. After the hearing, people gathered around Kelver and embraced her.
If Westby grants immunity, Kelver won’t be prosecuted. If not, Kelver can still use self-defense arguments before a jury.
