The anti-LGBTQ+ legal practice known as the “panic” defense is now illegal in all of Australia, after the country’s final state banned it in a parliamentary vote.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Parliament of South Australia voted Tuesday to outlaw the discriminatory defense tactic, in which an individual accused of murder claims their actions were provoked by the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The strategy can be used to lobby for lesser charges in court, such as in the 2008 case of Wayne Ruks, a 45-year-old whose killers successfully had their charges reduced to manslaughter after they claimed he propositioned them.
The South Australian Rainbow Advocacy Alliance, a pro-LGBTQ+ group, claims that the “panic” defense has been used four times over the past decade, but other accused killers have found less success with the strategy. Michael Joseph Lindsay was found guilty of murdering 37-year-old Andrew Negre in 2013 after stabbing him and disposing of his body in a trash can, and the conviction was upheld on appeal.
While the tactic’s use is relatively rare and its efficacy rarer, South Australian Attorney-General Vickie Chapman, who tabled a “panic” defense bill in its parliament last month, has referred to the ploy as “offensive and unacceptable.” In comments to local media following the vote, Chapman said the legislation found the “right balance” between advocating for LGBTQ+ people who had been targeted against by such legal defenses and excising “discriminatory” laws from the books.
LGBTQ+ organizations had previously called for South Australia to take the final step to ban the “panic” defense after a vote on the issue was postponed. A petition created by the advocacy group Equality Australia in October was signed by more than 38,000 people, and additional signatories were still attaching their names to the campaign after it was officially outlawed this week.
“Attacking someone because who they are offends you should increase your punishment, not reduce it,” said Equality Australia President Anna Brown in a statement cited by Reuters last month.
What surprised many observers about South Australia’s decision to finally ban the “panic” defense was that it took so long: The progressive Australian state, which is located in the south central portion of the continent, was the country’s first to decriminalize homosexuality in 1975 but the last to take action on this particular issue. In 2003, Tasmania became the first state to outlaw the panic defense, followed by Victoria, Western Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland.
But while all Australian states have finally caught up to barring the “panic” defense, the United States still lags behind. Just 11 U.S. states have outlawed such tactics in court, and they remain legal in states like Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
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