A type of crime that has gained significant attention in recent years is what is known as hate crime.  Although the first hate crime law in the United States was passed just after the Civil War, hate crimes did not gain significant attention until 1998 with the murders of James Byrd, Jr., and Matthew Shepard.

A hate crime is any crime motivated by the race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or disability of the victim.  In the case of James Byrd, on June 7, 1998, in the town of Jasper, Texas, three men—Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King—tied Byrd to the back of a pick-up truck and drug him behind the truck for over three miles until he was dead.  James Byrd was 49 years old at the time of his death.

In the case of Matthew Shepard, two men—Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney—offered Shepard a ride home in the early morning hours of October 7, 1998.  Henderson and McKinney instead drove Shepard to a remote location outside of their town of Laramie, Wyoming.  There they tortured Shepard, tied him to a fence, and left him to die.  Shepard was found during the day of October 7, but he died from his wounds the morning of October 12.  Matthew Shepard was 21 years old at the time of his death.

It was ruled in the trials related to the murders of James Byrd and Matthew Shepard that the crimes were motivated by what would be deemed hate of a particular group (African-Americans in the case of James Byrd and sexual orientation in the case of Matthew Shepard).  But none of the defendants were prosecuted under hate crime laws as such laws did not exist in Texas or Wyoming at the time of Byrd’s or Shepard’s murders.  Today, 45 states and the District of Columbia have hate crime laws.  In addition, hate crime laws have been expanded at the federal level as recently as 2009 with the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Hate crime laws do not make an action against another person illegal in and of themselves.  Rather, hate crime laws enhance the penalties against someone for committing a crime if it is ruled that the crime was motivated by hostility against one of the protected classes under hate crime legislation.  For example, assuming everything else is equal, if someone is robbed simply because the perpetrator of the crime needed the money, that perpetrator would not receive as harsh of a punishment as someone who robbed a person simply because of that person’s race.

Hate crime laws have received significant criticism because they appear to offer preferential treatment to certain individuals or groups of people over others.  But the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that society as a whole is subject to greater harm and potentially retaliatory crimes when a crime is committed based on hostility against a protected class.  Hate crime laws are also criticized because the actions under hate crime laws are already considered criminal activities and if we simply exercised the full punishment available against those who commit such crimes there would be no need for hate crime laws.  For example, in the men who murdered James Byrd were already subject to the death penalty for the crime, regardless of the introduction of whether hate against a particular group served as motivation of a crime and made the crime worthy of more severe punishment.

If you believe you have been the victim of a hate crime or if you are being accused of having committed a crime that was motivated by hate of a protected class, you should speak with a criminal defense attorney immediately.

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by Mark Johnston

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