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Iowa House Unanimously Approves Banning "Gay Panic Defense"

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Republican senators from Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri are backing legislation that would require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to change its management of the river to reduce flood risk.  Each state has seen severe flooding from the Missouri River

The proposal would require the Corps to take steps to reduce flood risks along the lower Missouri River by changing the way it manages the dams and by strengthening levees along the river.

State officials say Nebraska's prisons released 45 inmates earlier than they should have by mistake. The Department of Correctional Services acknowledged yesterday that 187 prisoners should have lost the so-called “good time" credit for violations of prison policy.  

The Iowa House has voted unanimously to ban the “gay panic defense.” The bill would prevent a defendant from using a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity as a mitigating factor if charged with murder or any violent crime. 

Keenen Crow is with the  LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa.  He says in Illinois the gay panic defense was used by a man who stabbed his friend 60 times because he was afraid that man was coming on to him. 

“He was acquitted based on the notion that homosexual overtures are themselves sufficient provocation for extreme violence, that was the jury’s find and he got off with murder in that case.” 

The gay panic defense bill now moves to the State Senate.