No More Gay Panic in California: California Becomes 1st State to Abolish Gay Panic Defense

I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but, apparently, California has become the first state to legislatively ban the “gay panic” or “trans panic” defense. A defendant is guilty of murder when he kills another person with malice aforethought, but murder can be reduced to voluntary manslaughter if there was (1) sufficient legal provocation; and (2) lack of time to cool off (heat of passion). Some defendants, such as Brandon McInerny, have been able to claim that learning about the gender or sexual orientation of their victim constitutes sufficient legal provocation.

Last month, however, the California legislature passed Assembly Bill 2501, which provides in relevant part that

that for purposes of determining sudden quarrel or heat of passion, the provocation was not objectively reasonable if it resulted from the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation, including under circumstances in which the victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic or sexual advance towards the defendant, or if the defendant and victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship.

This reminds me a good deal of California abolishing the diminished capacity defense in the wake of the assassination of Harvey Milk. It will be interesting to see whether other states follow suit.

-CM