Editing Gay panic defense (section)

===New Zealand===
In 2003, a gay interior designer and former television host, [[David McNee (interior designer)|David McNee]], was killed<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3515038 |title=Homicide detectives continue inquiry into designer's death |publisher=NZ Herald News |date=July 28, 2003 |access-date=June 1, 2019 |archive-date=April 1, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190401180641/https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3515038 |url-status=live }}</ref> by a part-time sex worker, Phillip Layton Edwards. Edwards said at his trial that he told McNee he was not gay, but would masturbate in front of him on a "no-touch" basis for money. The defense successfully argued that Edwards, who had 56 previous convictions and had been on parole for 11 days, was provoked into beating McNee after he violated their "no touching" agreement. Edwards was jailed for nine years for manslaughter.<ref>{{cite news |work=The Dominion Post |date=February 17, 2005 |title=McNee's killer appeals against sentence |page=3 |quote=Phillip Layton Edwards has appealed against his nine-year prison sentence for the manslaughter of television interior designer David McNee, claiming other young men who killed in similar circumstances received shorter jail terms. In the Court of Appeal at Auckland yesterday, his lawyer Roy Wade pointed to two cases in which young men who killed an older man who made homosexual advances received terms of four and three years ... Mr McNee, 55, the star of television show 'My House, My Castle', died in the bedroom of his St Mary's Bay home in July 2003 after choking on his own vomit while unconscious. Edwards had hit him 30 to 40 times in the head and face in a beating a pathologist described as severe.}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |work=The Sunday Star-Times |date=July 9, 2006 |title=Move to end provocation defence for gay murders |last=Boland |first=Mary Jane |page=8 |quote='The McNee case was a classic example of the law not protecting gay men," Lambert said. 'It's abhorrent to suggest that we should downplay the seriousness of what Edwards did because he was hit on.'}}</ref>

In July 2009, Ferdinand Ambach, 32, a Hungarian tourist, was convicted of killing Ronald Brown, 69, by hitting him with a [[banjo]] and shoving the instrument's neck down Brown's throat. Ambach was initially charged with murder, but the charge was downgraded to manslaughter after Ambach's lawyer successfully invoked the gay panic defense.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10583823 |title=Gay MP calls for change to law |newspaper=[[The New Zealand Herald]] |date=July 10, 2009 |access-date=June 1, 2019 |archive-date=April 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200425170533/https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10583823 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10583689 |title=Gay community calls for justice over banjo killing |newspaper=[[The New Zealand Herald]] |date=July 10, 2009 |access-date=June 1, 2019 |first=Andrew |last=Koubaridis |archive-date=April 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200425170535/https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10583689 |url-status=live }}</ref>

On November 26, 2009, the [[New Zealand Parliament]] voted to abolish Section 169 of the [[Crimes Act 1961]], removing the provocation defense from New Zealand law, although it was argued by some that this change was more a result of the failed provocation defense in the [[Murder of Sophie Elliott|Sophie Elliott murder trial]] by her ex-boyfriend.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3101491/Parliament-scraps-partial-defence-of-provocation |title=Parliament scraps partial defence of provocation |last=Hartevelt |first=John |date=November 26, 2009 |work=[[The Press]] |via=[[Stuff (website)|Stuff]] |access-date=June 1, 2019 |archive-date=April 8, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190408052012/http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3101491/Parliament-scraps-partial-defence-of-provocation |url-status=live }}</ref>