republic-os/legislation/us/states/de/152/hb-142.md

---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 11 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE"
description: "This bill precludes the so-called LGBTQ+ \"panic\" defense that seeks to partially or completely excuse or justify a defendant from full accountability for the commission of a crime on the grounds that the actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth of the victim is sufficient to explain, excuse, or justify the defendant's conduct, or contributes to or causes the defendant's mental state, or that the defendant’s reaction thereto constitutes a mental illness, mental defect, or mental disorder sufficient to excuse or justify the defendant's conduct (including under circumstances in which the victim made a nonviolent romantic or sexual advance toward the defendant or in which the defendant and the victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship). Sections 1 and 3 of this bill move the definitions for gender identity and sexual orientation currently in the hate crimes statute to the general definitions section of the Criminal Code to maintain standard definitions of these terms throughout the Criminal Code. Section 2 of this bill provides that in any prosecution or sentencing for an offense: (i) a defendant is not justified in using force against another based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth; (ii) for the purposes of determining whether there is a reasonable explanation or excuse for the existence of extreme emotional disturbance or other asserted mitigating factor or circumstance, such explanation or excuse is not reasonable if it is based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth; and (iii) a defendant does not suffer from a mental illness, mental defect, mental disorder, serious mental disorder, psychiatric disorder, or other impairment affecting or impacting the defendant’s mental state relating to any questions of intent, knowledge, capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the defendant's conduct, disturbance of the defendant's thinking, feeling or behavior, culpability, willpower to choose whether to do or refrain from doing an act, or ability to distinguish right from wrong, based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "152"
identifier: "HB 142"
citation: "Delaware HB 142 (152)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Brian Pettyjohn", "Bryan Townsend", "Cyndie Romer", "Darius J. Brown", "David L. Wilson", "David P. Sokola", "Eric Morrison", "Franklin D. Cooke", "John \"Jack\" Walsh", "Kendra Johnson", "Kerri Evelyn Harris", "Laura V. Sturgeon", "Marie Pinkney", "Michael F. Smith", "Nicole Poore", "Paul S. Baumbach", "Peter C. Schwartzkopf", "Russell Huxtable", "S. Elizabeth Lockman", "Sarah McBride", "Sean M. Lynn", "Sean Matthews", "Spiros Mantzavinos", "Stell Parker Selby", "Trey Paradee", "Valerie Longhurst", "William Bush"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 7
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2023-06-07"
last_action: "2023-09-21"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/1a45ad55-d431-4a44-8a68-e8ffb9485633"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=140531"
source_hash: "f11a7744ac0ac13f49b2a1ce715d5398df142c3da90226e95493fa2b1af04fb9"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware HB 142 (152) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 11 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

This bill precludes the so-called LGBTQ+ "panic" defense that seeks to partially or completely excuse or justify a defendant from full accountability for the commission of a crime on the grounds that the actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth of the victim is sufficient to explain, excuse, or justify the defendant's conduct, or contributes to or causes the defendant's mental state, or that the defendant’s reaction thereto constitutes a mental illness, mental defect, or mental disorder sufficient to excuse or justify the defendant's conduct (including under circumstances in which the victim made a nonviolent romantic or sexual advance toward the defendant or in which the defendant and the victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship). Sections 1 and 3 of this bill move the definitions for gender identity and sexual orientation currently in the hate crimes statute to the general definitions section of the Criminal Code to maintain standard definitions of these terms throughout the Criminal Code. Section 2 of this bill provides that in any prosecution or sentencing for an offense: (i) a defendant is not justified in using force against another based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth; (ii) for the purposes of determining whether there is a reasonable explanation or excuse for the existence of extreme emotional disturbance or other asserted mitigating factor or circumstance, such explanation or excuse is not reasonable if it is based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth; and (iii) a defendant does not suffer from a mental illness, mental defect, mental disorder, serious mental disorder, psychiatric disorder, or other impairment affecting or impacting the defendant’s mental state relating to any questions of intent, knowledge, capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the defendant's conduct, disturbance of the defendant's thinking, feeling or behavior, culpability, willpower to choose whether to do or refrain from doing an act, or ability to distinguish right from wrong, based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=140531&legislationTypeId=6&docTypeId=2&legislationName=HS2forHB142)

## Votes

- SM — **27–10** (pass) · lower
- SM — **19–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Brian Pettyjohn — primary (person)
- Bryan Townsend — primary (person)
- Cyndie Romer — primary (person)
- Darius J. Brown — primary (person)
- David L. Wilson — primary (person)
- David P. Sokola — primary (person)
- Eric Morrison — primary (person)
- Franklin D. Cooke — primary (person)
- John "Jack" Walsh — primary (person)
- Kendra Johnson — primary (person)
- Kerri Evelyn Harris — primary (person)
- Laura V. Sturgeon — primary (person)
- Marie Pinkney — primary (person)
- Michael F. Smith — primary (person)
- Nicole Poore — primary (person)
- Paul S. Baumbach — primary (person)
- Peter C. Schwartzkopf — primary (person)
- Russell Huxtable — primary (person)
- S. Elizabeth Lockman — primary (person)
- Sarah McBride — primary (person)
- Sean M. Lynn — primary (person)
- Sean Matthews — primary (person)
- Spiros Mantzavinos — primary (person)
- Stell Parker Selby — primary (person)
- Trey Paradee — primary (person)
- Valerie Longhurst — primary (person)
- William Bush — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2023-06-07** was introduced and adopted in lieu of HB 142 `introduction`
- **2023-06-15** Amendment HA 2 to HS 2 - Defeated By House. Votes: 14 YES 25 NO 2 ABSENT `amendment-failure`
- **2023-06-15** Passed By House. Votes: 27 YES 10 NO 1 NOT VOTING 3 ABSENT `passage`
- **2023-06-15** Assigned to Judiciary Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2023-06-21** Reported Out of Committee (Judiciary) in Senate with 4 Favorable `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2023-06-28** Passed By Senate. Votes: 19 YES 2 ABSENT `passage`
- **2023-09-21** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/1a45ad55-d431-4a44-8a68-e8ffb9485633`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).