HATE CRIMES
SUMMER, 2000
P
CJCR 3956
INTRODUCTION
PA. Federal Legislation
<April 25, 20000 BHate Crime legislation sought to
BExpand current laws to include
<
<(a) sexual orientation
P (b) Gender and disability
P
PCurrent
legislation allows for
prosecution of crimes motivated by
P
<victim's
origin.
<
<
<
race, religion, color or national
(2) Majority of hate crimes will
continue to be prosecuted by state
B
B
B
B
and local governments.
B(a)
argued for broader federal laws allowing
federal government to assist state and local
governments in their prosecutions.
WHAT IS HATE CRIME?
AMBIGUOUS
PDifficulty in determining:
<(1) what is meant by prejudice
<
<(2) which prejudices qualify for inclusion under hate
< crime
<(3) which crimes of prejudice become hate crimes
<
<(4) link between the perpetrator's prejudice and the
perpetrator's criminal conduct
COMPLEXITY OF AHATE
CRIME@Correlation to Prejudice
PCriminal conduct motivated by prejudice
<Concept held by all for against something
BIndividuals, groups, foods, countries
BRooted in experiences, fantasies, irrationality
BTraditional, learned behavior
PREJUDICE JUSTIFICATION
Pfactually correct observations
<Anti-black vs pro-white
<Biases against rich, poor drunks, drug addicts
BAbove not necessarily transformed ordinary crime
into hate crime
PRacial, religious and gender prejudices officially
denounced in our laws
PHate crimes constitute "next generation" effort
PFederal and state legislatures choose which
prejudices to officially condemn
<Some states sexual orientation included
<
<
IMPACT OF
RACIAL/ETHNIC/RELIGIOUS
PREJUDICE
POn average, blacks have worse jobs, income, and
housing than white people? Yes? No?
PBlack respondent 44 percent attributed situation
to discrimination
PWhite respondents 21 percent of white
respondents chose discrimination as cause
P
P
PREJUDICE AGAINST WOMEN
Do All Men Hate Women?
PAdam Jukes: Author of Why Men Hate Women
<Yes, they do
<Men harbor unconscious prejudice against women
<
P"The hatred of women may be, in most cases, a
deeply repressed fact of the male character. At one
extreme is the rapist or the sexual murderer, at the
other extreme is the apparently ordinary man who
does not rape or murder, and feels mild and
hidden...contempt for women, or expresses it only
in the privacy of his own home....."
PNational Conference of Christian and Jews(now
National Conference)
<55 percent of survey's respondents believe that Catholics
B"want to impose their own ideas of morality on the larger society."
<Concluded that this was proof of widespread antiCatholic prejudice
<
PREVALENCE OF HATE CRIMES
Are Hate Crimes Serious?
PJanuary 1996 Hate Crimes Statistics revealed
7,400 hate crimes committed
<Number reported does not include those not reported
<Atty. Janet Reno: "hate crimes have long gone under
reported"
<Higher incidence if crimes against sexual orientation
included
HISTORY OF TOLERANCE
VIDEO
PEquality declared in Constitution belonged to
white men, not men of other races
PHate taught to next generation
<Each generation teaches the next who the enemy is
<Concept of savages regarding the Indians
<Systematic injustices toward African-Americans
continued after slavery
P1913 Campaign by Georgians to convict Leo
Frank for crime he didn't commit
PScapegoating Jews
PAttitudes regarding immigrants in 20th and 21st
century similar to that expressed 150 years ago.
<Group hatred often originates from economic insecurity
<Cultural intolerance prevalent
<
<
VARIABLE EXHIBITIONS OF
HATE
Often Based on Racial Prejudice
PBlack prejudice and hatred of whites, especially
Jews documented (remember film)
<Louis Farrakhann best known racist and anti-Semitic
black leader
HATE SPEECH AND HATE CRIME
ACTS
PJames Byrd and Matthew Shepard (1998)
P1999 Columbine High School Shootings
P1999 4th of July weekend racially motivated
killings around Illinois and Indiana
P August 1999 LA daycare shooting spree by
Buford Furrow.
P
P
PRacially motivated shooting spree by a black man
in Wilkinsburg, PA.
P
<Left two dead and three wounded,
<Brought to light the fact that hate crimes do not
discriminate.
INCREASE IN HATE CRIMES
Pthe trend is growing,
Pperpetrators are getting bolder.
PKu Klux Klan 1994 Announcement
<December 1994 Macedonia Baptist Church in
Bloomington, S.C.
<Church burned six months later
<Arrest of one revealed he was card carrying member of
KKK
<
R.A.V v CITY OF ST. PAUL
505 U.S. 377
PJune 21, 1990 several teenagers made a crude
cross by taping together broken chair legs. The
cross was then placed inside the fenced yard of a
black family and burned. The family lived across
the street from one of the teenagers (who was the
petitioner in the case). Petitioner was charged
under the St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime
Ordinance
MINN. LEGIS. CODE 292.02
PWhoever places on public or private property a
symbol, objects appellation, characterizations or
graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning
cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has
reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm
or resentment in others on the basis of race, color,
creed, religion or gender commits disorderly
conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
PDefendant appealed his conviction arguing that
the law violated his right to free speech. District
court agreed with defendant struck down the law
on two grounds:
P
<1 Ordinance was overboard and vague
<
<2. First Amendment prevented St. Paul from banning
cross as a form of expression.
<
State appealed to Minnesota Supreme Court
<State Supreme Court upheld law; Ruled:
BCross burning not a form of speech deserving First
Amendment protection
B
BLaw was not overly broad
BApplies
B
only to "fighting words"
B"Fighting
words" words which would provoke a
reasonable person to violence
U.S. Supreme Court
June 22, 1992
PFirst rule on constitutionality of hate crime
statutes
PReversed decision of Minnesota Supreme
Court
PUnanimously agreed that law was too broad
PUnconstitutional prohibits permitted speech
based on subjects of the speech
P
SUPREME COURT RULING
R.A.V. v St. Paul
PGeneral Rule: First Amendment prevents
government from proscribing speech,
expressive conduct
PCourt disagreed regarding why ordinance
should be struck down
<Scalia: government cannot regulate
fighting words on basis of viewpoint
Justice White
POrdinance fatally overboard
P
<Criminalizes unprotected expression
<
<Criminalizes expression protected by the First
Amendment
<
Justice Stevens
<Significant that statute regulates only
fighting words
<Fighting Words
BDetermined in part by content
BDirected at individuals
Bso as to "by their utterance inflict injury"
B
<Action crude form of physical intimidation
<
<Message of racial hostility does not
automatically endow it with complete
constitutional protection
WISCONSIN v TODD MITCHELL
508 U.S. 476
PMitchell, a black youth was convicted of beating
a white victim
PRacially motivated aggravated battery normally
carried a two-year maximum sentence
PSentence increased because jury found that
Mitchell intentionally selected victim because of
race
<Sentence increased to seven years by Wisconsin Statute
P
MITCHELL CONTD.
PMitchell sentenced to four years'
imprisonment
PState Supreme Court invalidated sentenceenhancement scheme
PStatute posed same overboard threat to
speech as R.A.V.
P
MITCHELL CONTD.
PU.S.
Supreme Court reversed
<Mitchell aimed at violent conduct unprotected by First
Amendment
<Singles out conduct thought to inflict greater individual
and societal harm
<Penallty enhancement approach did not violate the First
Amendment
BPunished conduct, not speech
SUPPORT OF INCREASE
Hate Speech: Constitutional Violation?
PRacial inferiority planted as an idea that
may have some validity
P
<Stereotypes
<Rejected but remains embedded in mind
PSpeech infringing on public order unprotected
constitutional area
PBomb threats, incitements to riot,"fighting
words", and obscene phone calls not protected by
first amendment
BClose to category of racist speech
B
PExisting law insults which bring men to blows
subject to first amendment exception
BRacist speech seen as part of ordinary jostling
BTolerance/accepting
BEffect of dehumanizing racist language often flight rather
than fight
HATE CRIMES INCREASING?
Anti-Semitism
PHoaxes?
<Octobeer 1992 actions
<December 1992(Rabbi Shaya Apteer,Semitic
slurs,Joseph Fredrick
<Crown Heights activities
<Vandalism in Boroooough Park of New York
<Fires in Hartford Connecticut
POLITICAL INCLUSION
PRepublican: Rich Bond: "They are not America"
P
PDemocrat Jerry Brown statements, VicePresident Quayle
P
PPat Buchanan: religious war
CURRENT LEGISLATION
PSince 1990, there have been several legislative
moves addressing hate
Pcrimes:
PThe Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990
PViolence Against Women Act of 1994
PHate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act
PChurch Arsons Prevention Act of 1996
P
HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT
OF 1999
Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999
PSentencing:
PWhoever, willfully causes bodily injury to any
person or,
Pattempts to cause bodily injury to any person,
Pbecause of the actual or perceived race, color,
religion, or national origin of any personB
P
PThe Violence Against Women Act of 1998
PHate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999
PIn addition, 42 states have hate crimes laws in
effect, 21 of which
Pinclude legislation against acts of violence based
on sexual orientation.
P