The Virginia Capitol (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is expected to sign a bill that would ban the so-called LGBTQ panic defense in his state after it received final approval in the Virginia House of Delegates on Feb 26.
“It’s done,” state Del. Danica Roem (D-Manassas), the bill’s sponsor, tweeted following the vote. “We’re banning the gay/trans panic defense in Virginia.”
Virginia would become the 12th state to ban a defense strategy which asserts the “discovery” of the LGBTQ identities of victims to be a cause and mitigating factor in the violence committed against them.
“LGBTQ+ people are being violently harmed and viciously murdered simply because of who we are,” said National LGBT Bar Association President Wesley Bizzell in statement following the vote. “And the noxious LGBTQ ‘panic’ defense allows attackers to escape the criminal sentences that would otherwise be imposed on them — but for the sexual orientation or gender identity of the victims.”
The LGBT Bar Association has been leading the effort to ban the panic defense nationally and in 2013 the American Bar Association unanimously approved a resolution calling for an end to this legal strategy.
D.C. passed a similar ban last year and Maryland has a version before the General Assembly this session.
“We are grateful for the Virginia General Assembly’s bipartisan votes closing this legal loophole,” Bizzell said. “And for their commitment to making equal justice under the law a living, breathing reality for LGBTQ+ victims of violence.”
