Gay and Trans Panic Defense Bill Reintroduced
The evening of June 8, Senate Bill 221 “Gay Panic Or Transgender Panic Defense” was reintroduced in the Colorado Senate with bipartisan support in both chambers from the co-prime sponsors Representative Brianna Titone (D-Jefferson), Representative Matt Soper (R-Delta), Senator Dominick Moreno (D-Adams), and Sen. Jack Tate (R-Arapahoe).
The Gay Panic or Transgender Panic Defense bill had successfully passed out of the House of Representatives with bipartisan support on a 45-19 vote prior to the legislature’s coronavirus shutdown and was postponed indefinitely by a 3-2 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, May 26.
“The most recent FBI report on hate crimes shows that nearly one in five hate crimes are motivated by sexual orientation or gender identity. At a time when violence against gay and transgender citizens is on the rise, we cannot continue to let the panic defense be a tool for attacking the LGBTQ community. Colorado legislators must pass this bill and ban the gay and trans panic defense now,” said Daniel Ramos, executive director, One Colorado.
“All Colorado prosecutors join in the support for the elimination of this sham defense used to excuse murder and violence in our state. CDAC commends and supports the numerous members of the community who have spoken out and are refusing to allow this vital, bipartisan piece of legislation to be put off for another year,” said Tom Raynes, executive director, Colorado District Attorneys’ Council.
The gay and trans panic defense is a legal strategy that cites a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity as the causal factor for a defendant’s violent reaction—including murder. In 2013, the American Bar Association (ABA) unanimously approved a resolution to urge governments to ban the use of this tactic, which resulted in ten states banning the defense.
One of the most recognized cases that employed the gay and trans panic defense was that of Matthew Shepard. In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old college student, was beaten to death by two men in Wyoming. The men attempted to use the defense to excuse their actions. Despite widespread public protest, the defense is still being used today.
In July of 2008, 18-year-old Angie Zapata from Greeley, Colorado, met 31-year-old Allen Andrade, and they spent three days together, during which time they had at least one sexual encounter. When Andrade discovered that Zapata was transgender, he viciously beat her with a fire extinguisher. Upon his arrest, Andrade said he thought he had “killed it.” While Andrade tried to excuse his bigotry by using the defense, he was found guilty of both first-degree murder and a hate crime and was sentenced to life in prison. Unfortunately, in other cases, the defense has been successful.
“I won’t give up on this bill. I know many of my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, were outraged when the Committee killed the bill two weeks ago. We will continue to fight so that no human being can be targeted for being their true self,” said Senator Jack Tate (R-Arapahoe), Senate co-prime sponsor of SB 20-221
The defense has been banned in ten states—California in 2014, Illinois in 2017, Rhode Island in 2018, Maine in 2019, New York in 2019, Nevada in 2019, Connecticut in 2019, Hawaii in 2019, New Jersey in 2020, and Washington in 2020.
In 2018, Representative Joe Kennedy of the U.S. House and Senator Edward Markey also proposed a nationwide ban, which One Colorado signed on as a supportive coalition partner.
“It’s incomprehensible that our current laws allow someone to murder a gay or transgender person and use the shock of finding out as an excuse for their violent actions. I believe in personal responsibility, and a perpetrator of murder or violent assault shouldn’t be able to use the victim’s sexual or gender identity as a defense to remove all culpability of the perpetrator’s actions,” said Representative Matt Soper (R-Delta), House co-prime sponsor of SB 20-221.
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