Michigan bans gay and trans 'panic' as a criminal defense

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Michigan became the 20th state on Tuesday to bar defendants from using a so-called gay or trans "panic" defense in court. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation, House Bill 4718, that bans the use of a victim's actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in defense arguments. Supporters of the bill have said that these defenses play into anti-gay and anti-trans biases and reinforce the belief that LGBTQ lives have less value. The bill passed the state House along party lines, but four Republicans in the state Senate voted with Democrats to green-light the bill. State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement through Whitmer's office on Tuesday that the legislation is "a huge step toward securing a safe and inclusive state for all Michiganders." The law goes into effect in October. According to a 2021 report from the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law, no state in the U.S. “recognizes the gay and trans panic defenses as free-standing defenses under their respective penal codes.” Rather, they have been used to support arguments of provocation, diminished capacity, insanity or self-defense. W. Carsten Andresen, an assistant professor of criminal justice at St. Edward’s University in Austin, wrote in 2020 that his early analysis determined that such defenses can reduce a defendant's murder charges about one-third of the time. Andresen told The Washington Post this week that he has found more than 700 instances of the defense being used in murder cases since 1970, including 18 in Michigan. The American Bar Association urged local and federal governments in 2013 to take legislative action to curtail gay and trans panic defenses. California became the first state to ban the practice in 2014 and dozens of states followed suit, but efforts to outlaw such defenses at the federal level have faced challenges, as The Appeal reported in 2021.