Connecticut's governor has signed legislation banning use of the so-called "gay or trans panic" defense in criminal cases.
Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont signed it Friday. The defense is a controversial legal strategy that seeks to use a victim's sexual orientation or identity as justification for a violent crime.
Neighboring Rhode Island banned the defense last year. Massachusetts congressmen are trying to ban it in federal court.
Lamont made note of the 1998 death of Matthew Shepard, the college student who was beaten to death by two men in Wyoming. Defense attorneys unsuccessfully attempted to use the gay panic defense and those men were convicted.
Lamont says claiming that interacting with someone who's gay or transgender elicited some type of temporary insanity that's supposed to justify a violent crime is "ludicrous."
