Michigan outlaws the 'gay and trans panic defense' in criminal trials

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.”

Michigan is now the 20th state to prohibit this type of defense, according to Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Last year, Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., reintroduced the LGBTQ+ Panic Defense Prohibition Act, which would ban such defenses in federal court.

The highest-profile example of the “gay panic defense” was perhaps the attempt to use it in the murder trial of Aaron McKinney, one of the two men accused of fatally beating 21-year-old gay student Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998. The defense was unsuccessful, and both men were sentenced to life in prison.

There have been cases, however, where the panic defense has been used with some success. In 2018, gay advocates were outraged after a Texas man, James Miller, received a light sentence after fatally stabbing his neighbor, Daniel Spencer, who had allegedly tried to kiss Miller. And in 2009, Joseph Biedermann was acquitted of murder in