The controversial legal strategy, which is mostly used in assault or murder cases, allows people to defend themselves by claiming they were driven to violence after discovering their victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
On Monday (13 July), Gov. Jared Polis – the first openly gay man to be elected governor in the United States – signed the new law at the LGBTQ Center in Denver, where he described the ‘panic’ defence as “absurd,” “oudated” and “insidious”. “We’ve come a long way here in Colorado since our days as the Hate State,” he said in a statement. “We really went from a place where discrimination was legalized in the 1990s to where we are today, where Colorado is a leader.” Colorado follows in the footsteps of California,