US lawmaker seeks to ban ‘gay panic’ defense
By Josh Haggis
A New Jersey lawmaker is attempting to ban the use of the “gay panic” defense in murder trials.
In the US, when a heterosexual person is charged with murder, they can ask for the charge to be reduced to manslaughter on the grounds that they became “temporarily insane” after someone of the same gender hit on them.
According Equality California, the “gay panic” defense has been employed in at least 45 cases throughout the US, most notably in 2004, when three men accused of stabbing a transgender teenager in California received reduced sentences after using the defense.
“There is no question that when murder defendants argue gay panic, they seek to tap into deep-seated biases against and stereotypes about gay men as deviant sexual predators who pose a threat to innocent young heterosexual males,” said law professor Cynthia Lee.
Now, openly gay Assemblyman Tim Eustace has introduced a bill in an attempt to prohibit the use of the controversial defense in New Jersey, even though the state has never seen the tactic used in court before.
“I want to make sure that we’re paying attention to things before they happen,” said Eustace.
Earlier this year, California became the first state to ban the use of the defense in murder trials.
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