Lauren Book refiles bill to ban victim-blaming defense in gay or transgender ‘panic’ crimes

Lauren Book is conservatives' 'preferred' candidate for re-election. what's up with that?

Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book is again trying to pass legislation to prohibit defendants accused of violent crimes against homosexual and transgender people from blaming the victims for the defendants’ actions.

The measure (SB 156, HB 137) would ban legal defenses that cite nonviolent sexual advances or the belief that another person is gay or transgender in criminal court proceedings.

Such a defense is known as the “gay/trans panic defense,” according to the American Bar Association, as it seeks to partially or fully excuse crimes like murder and battery if a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity triggered a defendant’s violent action.

Accordingly, the bill is titled the “Gay and Transgender Panic Legal Defense Prohibition Act.”

Tuesday marked the fourth time in as many years that Book has introduced it for consideration. If passed, the legislation would become effective July 1, 2024.

“As lawmakers, our duty is to create a society that values and protects every individual, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” Book said in a statement.

“The ‘panic’ defense is an affront to justice, allowing perpetrators to evade accountability for heinous acts based on prejudice. This legislation is a crucial step in safeguarding the rights of LGBTQ+ Floridians, sending a clear message that hate has no place in our courts or our communities.”

Republican Florida lawmakers have passed restrictions aimed at the LGBTQ community in recent Legislative Sessions, including barring LGBTQ-inclusive instruction in public schools, enabling health care providers and insurers to deny patients care due to religious or ethical beliefs, and requiring people to use restrooms and changing facilities based on their sex at birth.

In the U.S., LGBTQ people make up roughly 3.5% of the population but are targets of violent crime by a rate two times more than that of heterosexual people, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Florida law does not explicitly allow so-called “panic” defenses to be used when crimes have been committed against gay or transgender people. But it doesn’t disallow it either. One of the earliest recorded cases of the defense followed the 1954 murder of William T. Simpson in North Miami.

According to the nonprofit Movement Advancement Project, 17 states and Washington, D.C., have passed legislation banning the defense. Most recently, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu signed a law prohibiting it in homicide cases.

The Florida version does not specify for which crimes the defense cannot be used.

Book first filed the bill in January 2021. To date, that version was the most successful, clearing one of three committees to which it was assigned before stalling out. Each subsequent attempt died without a hearing.

Former Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, who is now running for Senate, sponsored a House version of the measure in 2021 and 2022. Rep. Rita Harris, a fellow Orlando Democrat, carried the measure last Session and is sponsoring it again now.

Smith, who is gay, told WFLA earlier this year that a man who physically assaulted him and a friend in 2003 while spouting homophobic slurs later tried to defend his actions in court by saying Smith’s sexuality was to blame.

“My attacker was not only charged with assault, he was also charged with a hate crime,” he said. “In defense of that charge, my attacker used a classic example of the ‘gay panic defense’ and alleged that somehow my sexual orientation somehow provoked his attacks against me and a friend.”

The House has never heard the bill, which Harris calls “the least (lawmakers) can do to prohibit homophobia and transphobia from being used as valid excuses in the judiciary.”

“In a time when gay and transgender Floridians are under attack by extremist politicians, it is our responsibility as lawmakers to stand up for this community,” she said in a statement. “It is well past time for politicians to stop vilifying the LGBTQ+ community and stand up against hate.”