HB 142 – Banning the Gay Panic Defense

Representative Eric Morrison has introduced House Bill 142, which will eliminate the so-called “gay panic“ or “LGBTQ+ panic” defense from use as a defense by a defendant charged in a crime. This usually arises in crimes where a bigot beats someone, to death or otherwise, because they discover that they are gay and thus that discovery, according to the hateful defendant, justifies their violent actions. Like, “he made a pass at me, so I was justified in beating him up.”

Sections 1 and 3 of this bill move the definitions for gender identity and sexual orientation currently in the hate crimes statute to the general definitions section of the Criminal Code to maintain standard definitions of these terms throughout the Criminal Code.

Section 2 of this bill provides that in any prosecution or sentencing for an offense:

• a defendant is not justified in using force against another based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth;
• for the purposes of determining whether there is a reasonable explanation or excuse for the existence of extreme emotional disturbance or other asserted mitigating factor or circumstance, such explanation or excuse is not reasonable if it is based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth; and
• a defendant does not suffer from a mental illness, mental defect, mental disorder, serious mental disorder, psychiatric disorder, or other impairment affecting or impacting the defendant’s mental state relating to any questions of intent, knowledge, capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the defendant’s conduct, disturbance of the defendant’s thinking, feeling or behavior, culpability, willpower to choose whether to do or refrain from doing an act, or ability to distinguish right from wrong, based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth.

The bill has already been released from Committee and is on the Ready List for action on the House floor, perhaps when the legislature returns on June 9.