The law prohibits using a victim’s sexuality or gender identity as justification for criminal action.
Michigan has outlawed the so-called gay and trans panic defense, which allows criminal defense attorneys to use a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity as a defense argument.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, signed House Bill 4718 into law Tuesday. The legislation states that an individual’s “actual or perceived sex, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation” is not admissible in a criminal trial to “demonstrate reasonable provocation,” “show that an act was committed in a heat of passion” or “support a defense of reduced mental capacity.”
In a statement shared on Tuesday, the governor’s office said the bill “significantly expands” protections for the LGBTQ community “by protecting them from violent acts of discrimination, prejudice, and hate crimes.”
Good, because that is fucking bullshit. Imagine if there was a “black panic defense” where someone claimed that they lost control violently because a black person made a pass at them?
That’s where they got the “xyz panic defense” from!
“The Big Scary Black Man™️ got on the elevator with me! I had to mace him because he said HeLlO”
(Yeah. That was my security guard. He was in uniform, starting his shift and you just maxed him for starting his rounds.)(fortunately it was that cheap pink pepper spray that- for the record- can’t stop any one for shit. It’s just… irritating.)
I think I’m seen American police do that, though that could just be the way its reported
Very few black people in America are making passes at cops. At least not when they know they’re cops.
Like Emmitt Till?
I bet they did used to use that defense
Not successfully enough for it to become a known phrase.
It’s not about making a pass, but the corollary is all the cops claiming “excited delirium” is what kills their victims.
I’d like one “law enforcement panic” defense, please.
Yeah this was another case of the court trying to legislate, there was no basis in any law for this defense, the court made it up.
Nice! ✊
We need a law for this? Like shouldn’t this already be covered?
Some laws are clarifications of overlaps of other laws that create wiggle room. In this instance the queer panic defense is still being used in court rooms and whether or not it passes as legit is basically up to whichever judge you get, how eloquent the defense lawyer is and how sympathetic to queerphobia the jury is.
If this firestorm of factors does occur you get a situation where there is ruled a legitimate self defense claim because a queer person existed near you.
Trans women experience this way more often than they should just more often then not there’s no charges pressed. A cis straight guy approaches them to hit on them (oft times unwanted), they get clocked as trans during the encounter, the guy freaks out and no matter what the trans person does be it reject, deflect or reciprocate, the guy becomes abusive or violent. The thing that the guy is reacting to is his own homo/transphobia, not the behaviour of the trans person he approached. They could be the nicest, meekest trans woman alive who is just trying to escape the awkward situation and the abuse would still happen. There’s a lot of people out there who would find the cis guy’s reaction way more relatable than the trans woman’s experience so that recipe for the trans panic defense still sometimes finds all the nessisary ingredients. The law leaves much less room for interpretation of what constitutes a valid point to argue self defense narratives.
Good for Michigan.
