NZ defense counsel no longer able to use "gay panic" defense

Some would say that this outcome was brought at far too high a price, given that an intelligent, compassionate young woman, Sophie Elliott, had to die and her murderer, Clayton Weatherston, had to grotesquely slander her character posthumously in court through his use of the provocation defence to finally convince legislators to act. Granted, some of us may resent the lack of similar compassion in the recent cases of Ron Brown and Peter McNee, but at least no other LGBT homicide victim, their family or whanau will have to suffer through this.

"I believe that this bill is an important step towards a society where violence is condemned, where unremorseful killers are not given the opportunity to publically impugn their victims, and where the victims of crime can feel a little safer," said Labour MP Charles Chauvel today in Parliament.

"Remember those for whom this repeal comes too late," he added. "May they be the last to have their ordeals impugned in a court of law. Not one of their deaths is tolerable, and each of the victims whose killer has used the partial defence of provocation – successfully or not - stands as a silent witness to this reform.

"In closing, I want to pay tribute to their families and loved ones, who know that their lives were not lost in vain."

In 1999 the murderers of university student Matthew Shepard claimed in court that the young man's homosexual proposition enraged them to the point of murder. However, Judge Barton Voigt barred this strategy, saying that it was "in effect, either a temporary insanity defense or a diminished capacity defense, such as irresistible impulse, which are not allowed in Wyoming, because they do not fit within the statutory insanity defense construct." After their conviction, Shepard's attackers recanted their story in a 20/20 interview with Elizabeth Vargas, saying that the murder was a robbery attempt gone awry under the influence of drugs, this claim was denied by the defendants girlfriends.

A transgender variant of the gay panic defense was also used in 2004-2005 by the three defendants in the Gwen Araujo homicide case, who claimed that they were enraged by the discovery that Araujo, a transgender teenager with whom they had engaged in sex, was biologically male. The first trial resulted in a jury deadlock; in the second, defendants Mike Magidson and Jose Merél were convicted of second-degree murder, while the jury again deadlocked in the case of Jason Cazares. Cazares later entered a plea of no contest to charges of voluntary manslaughter.

A suspect arrested in the murder of gay Puerto Rico teen George Steven Lopez Mercado has been identified as 26-year-old Juan Antonio Martinez Matos, a father of four who is likely to use "homosexual panic" as a defense for the brutal killing of Lopez Mercado.

On the night of his death, Mercado was allegedly propositioned by Martinez Matos who was cruising for sex in a "red light district". Martinez Matos decapitated, dismembered and burned Mercado before dumping his body on a roadside in Caguas, Puerto Rico.