Arabella Rhodes 24’

On March 6, 1995, Jonathan Schmitz went as a guest on the Jenny Jones show. The producers told Schmitz before the show that he would meet his secret admirer, but what they failed to tell Schmitz was that that admirer was a man. So when Scott Amedure walked out on stage Schmitz was taken aback. The two men exchanged an awkward hug and Schmitz remarked he was “completely heterosexual”. Three days later Scott Amedure was shot three times in the chest by Schmitz and died. Schmitz confessed his guilt in court in what should have been a cut and dry first-degree murder case. Except he wasn’t convicted of first-degree murder, he was convicted of second-degree murder, resulting in, at least, a five-year reduction to his sentence. Schmitz was released in 2017. 

The reason Jonathan Schmitz didn’t go to jail for first-degree murder wasn’t because he was not guilty; he had confessed on multiple occasions. He didn’t go to jail because Amedure was gay. This is called the LGBTQ+ panic defense. 

The LGBTQ+ panic defense (earlier known as the gay panic defense) is a legal argument that states that the victims' sexuality or gender identity caused the defendant to lash out and harm or kill them. Its first documented usage was in 1954 when William T. Simpson was killed by Charles W. Lawrence and Lewis Richard Killen. Despite their confessions, they were only convicted of manslaughter. 

It is important to note that the LGBTQ+ panic defense is not used as an excuse for murder; rather, it is an explanation that relies on preconceived notions that queer people are inherently predatory. In court, the panic defense cannot get you free of charge but a reduction of the punishment. Defendants argue that the perpetrator has a mental illness defined as homosexual panic, also known as Kempf’s disease. Homosexual panic is when someone, usually male, has “panic due to the pressure of uncontrollable perverse sexual cravings” (Kempf 1920). However, in Kempf’s research, he noted that patients tended to be more frustrated with themselves than anyone else. Things like suicidal thoughts and ideation were the key symptoms of homosexual panic -- not murder. The murder was not even mentioned in Kempf’s research. The American Psychiatric Association removed Homosexual Panic from the DSM in 1952. This has still not stopped defenders from using it. The most recently known use of it to mitigate a murder charge was in April 2018. 

However, with the support for the LGBTQ+ community in recent years, there has been a push to ban the use of the defense. In June of 2019, Joseph Kennedy, a democratic representative from Massachusetts proposed bill H.R. 3133 or Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act of 2019. It would ban the use of the defense nationwide. The bill has been introduced and is currently in committee. With the recent flip of the Senate and now with a Democratically controlled Congress, when this bill will go to vote it will likely pass; however, there is no telling how long it will take to even get a vote. Some states have decided that they would rather not wait. In 2014 California became the first state to ban the LGBGTQ+ panic Defense and since then 11 other states, including New York, joined them (four of them in 2020 alone). Eight more states have pending bills in their state legislature. 

Something important to note is that by using the LGTBQ+ panic defense, the defendant acknowledges that the victim's sexual or gender orientation was the cause of their crime. In other words, they’re acknowledging that they committed a hate crime. But unlike other cases with hate crimes, like race, religion, and disability, the sentence is decreased, not increased. The continued existence of the LGBTQ+ panic defense is to say that a victim's sexual or gender orientation makes their life less valuable or their case less important. Which, just to be clear, it is not.