Issue Date: July 06, 2009

Update: Hate-Crime Laws

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Hate crimes often seem to be prominent in the news. A hate crime is defined as a crime in which the criminal is motivated by bias against the particular group to which his or her victim belongs. Such groups can be defined by race, ethnic background, sexual preference or religion, to name several common examples.

AP Photo/Chris O'Meara

Attorney Grady Irvin Jr., right, speaks to the media about a hate crime against his client, 14-year-old Dionte Hall, left; a 19-year-old was arrested and charged with a hate crime after he allegedly put a hangman's noose around Hall's neck.

Over the past decade, hate crimes have continued unabated; the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported 7,489 bias-motivated incidents in 2003, largely unchanged from the 1995 total of 7,947 incidents. Meanwhile, hate groups have become more numerous in the last decade, and experts say that today's political climate has polarized to a such a degree that coarse and mean-spirited speech has become more and more tolerable. Several high-profile hate-motivated incidents--such as the beating of a young black man, Glenn Moore, by three white men in the Howard Beach section of Queens, N.Y., in June 2005--have spurred renewed discussion of hate crimes.

With that discussion comes debate over the legitimacy of laws written specifically to punish hate crimes. Current federal hate-crime law has been criticized as being too limited in scope. Some advocacy groups have been vocal in their desire to broaden and strengthen federal hate-crime law. Other groups, however, have been equally vocal in their opposition to all hate-crime laws. They maintain that since all crimes are motivated by hate and aggression, there is no need to distinguish between crimes that are motivated by bias and those that are not.

Are laws against hate crimes necessary, or are they frivolous and arbitrary? Is it unfair to take special measures to punish a criminal simply because he or she was motivated by bias? Or are hate-crime laws a legitimate way to combat discrimination and prejudice?

Supporters of hate-crime laws say that any extra measures taken to prosecute bias-motivated criminals are important because such offenders target entire communities of people. Hate crimes are therefore more severe than "ordinary" crimes, supporters argue, and should be punished accordingly.

In light of several high-profile hate crimes, supporters maintain that hate-crime laws are more important than ever. Hate crimes threaten to tear apart communities and pit various minority groups against one another, they say. In a country such as the U.S., which prides itself on being a "melting pot" of diverse cultures, hate-crime laws should be an essential part of the U.S. judicial code, proponents assert.

Opponents of hate-crime laws, however, contend that such laws are unnecessary. They say that hate-crime laws are merely "politically correct," symbolic gestures aimed at appeasing various minority groups. Symbolic laws cannot effectively deter hate crime, they argue. Critics also say that such laws essentially punish people for what they are thinking during a crime, making them a kind of government-sanctioned thought control.

Opponents further contend that hate-crime laws lead to the "victimization" of society by protecting certain groups of people with special laws. Some conservative commentators and advocacy groups also argue that hate-crime laws based on a victim's sexual preference are a tacit endorsement of the "homosexual agenda" by the states whose laws include such language.

Jeremy Eagle

Hate-Crime Law in the 20th Century

U.S. history is scarred by countless incidents of hate-motivated violence, whether directed at people of a particular race, religion or sexual preference. For example, homosexual nightclubs and bookstores are often targeted by anti-gay groups, as in the case of the 1996 firebombing of a gay nightclub in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Jewish people have also long been subjected to vicious stereotypes, which are often manifested in anti-Semitic graffiti or physical violence. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization that monitors and speaks out against hate crimes, anti-Semitism in the U.S. and Europe is at its highest level in 60 years.

Additionally, racism against African Americans has been a near-constant presence in U.S. life, from the days of legalized slavery to the rise of white supremacy groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The KKK was formed in 1866, a year after the end of the Civil War (1861-65) and three years after President Abraham Lincoln (R, 1861-65) declared in his Emancipation Proclamation that all slaves be set "forever free." The KKK harassed--and, in some cases, killed--former slaves, white people sympathetic to civil rights causes, immigrants, Jews and members of any other group the Klan found objectionable.

Although the original KKK fragmented and dissolved due to internal strife shortly after its formation, it resurfaced in 1915, stronger than ever. At its peak in the early 1920s, the KKK claimed more than 100,000 members. Historians say that the Klan is directly responsible for a sizeable percentage of the 4,743 recorded lynchings (executions carried out by angry mobs, often racially motivated) between 1866 and 1968.

Although the KKK splintered again during the Great Depression (1929-41), many localized remnants of the Klan, freshly galvanized by the civil rights movement, reformed in the 1960s to intimidate civil rights workers. It was in that climate that Congress passed the first hate-crime law, which remains in effect to this day. The law, section 245 of Title 18 U.S.C. (U.S. Code), passed in 1968, prohibits anyone from interfering with another person who is exercising a federal right--such as going to school, applying for a job or voting--if that interference is motivated by the other person's "race, color, religion or national origin." Punishment for such crimes is meted out on a local or state level. However, the U.S. attorney general's office can federally prosecute a violator of Section 245 if such a punishment is deemed to be "in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice."

Marianne Todd/Getty Images

Edgar Ray Killen is escorted from the Neshoba County Courthouse in Mississippi, where he was being tried for the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers. In June 2005, he was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

In 1981, the ADL released its own model hate-crime legislation. The ADL's model suggested taking hate-crime law well beyond Section 245 of Title 18. It said that any bias-motivated crime--even if it does not directly affect a person's federal rights--should be subjected to stiffer penalties than a nonbias crime. The model legislation further suggested adding "sexual orientation" to the list of biases that could be punished by law if found to be related to a crime.

The ADL's model legislation has proven to be highly influential. After its release, many states passed anti-hate-crime statutes, in many cases adopting language straight out of the ADL's model. Only four states currently have no hate-crime laws whatsoever. In 1996, after the ADL amended its model to include gender-based bias as an offense that should be punished more severely, many states adopted laws to that effect. Today, gender is included in the hate-crime legislation of 26 states, plus Washington, D.C.

Despite all the state laws passed throughout the 1980s and 1990s, hate crimes continued to be a major problem throughout the country, in both rural areas and densely populated cities such as New York. One of the most infamous examples of racially motivated crime occurred in Howard Beach in December 1986. A gang of white men wielding baseball bats chased three black men around the neighborhood, until Michael Griffith, one of the black men, was hit by a car and killed. When three of the white teenagers involved were charged with second-degree murder, racial tensions flared throughout the city.

As a response to the increase in racially motivated crimes, as well as a surge in antigay violence throughout the country in the 1980s, President George H. W. Bush (R, 1989-93) signed the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990. The law, the first of its kind, required the Justice Department to compile annual hate-crime reports from every county in every U.S. state. (The Hate Crime Statistics Act was also groundbreaking for another reason: It was the first federal civil rights law that recognized homosexuals as a class of people.)

Hate Crimes Continue Unabated

The 1998 murders of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man in Laramie, Wyo., and James Byrd Jr., a black man in Jasper, Texas, forced the oft-ignored issue of hate crimes back into the public consciousness. Each murder was apparently motivated by bias. Shepard's heterosexual killers claimed that they were driven to violence by "gay panic," which caused them to overreact to Shepard's sexual advances. Meanwhile, Byrd's assailants--three white men seeking to found a new white supremacy group, according to prosecutors--picked up the hitchhiking Byrd and proceeded to beat him, chain him to the back of their pickup truck, and drag him to his death.

The gruesome nature of each of those murders--Shepard was tied to a fence post and pistol-whipped 18 times--forced many Americans to think about things like racism and homophobia and hate crimes. Since those two high-profile bias-motivated crimes, there has been evidence to suggest an increase in the number of hate groups in the U.S. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reports that in 2004 the number of active hate groups based in the U.S. has increased to 762, from 474 in 1997.

One type of hate crime that has seen an upturn in recent years is anti-Muslim violence. In the months following Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., carried out by Islamic extremists, a "hate crime backlash" occurred against Muslims or perceived Muslims across the country, according to a 2002 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), an independent civil rights watchdog organization. The official FBI statistics show that anti-Muslim bias incidents increased to 481 in 2001, from just 28 in 2000. The 2001 incidents ranged from intimidation to arson to murder. The latter fate befell Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 49-year-old Indian immigrant who was shot to death outside his gas station in Arizona just four days after the Sept. 11 attacks. Hours before the murder, Sodhi's killer allegedly told fellow bar patrons that he was going to "kill the ragheads responsible for September 11," according to police. A devoted Sikh, Sodhi had a beard and was wearing a turban when he was shot. [See 2005 The Post-Sept. 11 Terrorist Attack Backlash (sidebar)]

A link between the U.S.-led war in Iraq and hate crimes in the U.S. has also been observed. Before the war on Iraq commenced in March 2003, the FBI issued a bulletin to state and local law enforcement agencies saying that war in Iraq or another terrorist attack on U.S. soil could lead to another rash of anti-Muslim hate crimes. "Law enforcement agencies that encounter seemingly unexplained crimes against persons who appear to be of Arab descent should explore the possibility that the act was ethnically motivated," the bulletin said. The number of reported anti-Muslim crimes in the U.S. dropped to 149 in 2003. However, in the three days following July 7, 2005, terrorist attacks in London, police reported 180 anti-Muslim incidents in London, ranging from vandalism to assault.

In addition to hate crimes against Muslims or perceived Muslims, HRW has also shown renewed concern over an outbreak of apparently antigay hate crimes across the U.S. in early 2005. A March 2005 press release issued by the group cites the dismemberment of a gay African-American male in New York City's borough of Brooklyn, and the fatal stabbing of a transgender man in Daly City, Calif., among several other examples, as evidence of such an outbreak.

Hate-crime experts agree that there has been a rise in hostility toward some minority groups over the last several years. "I have seen what appears to be an increase in anger towards gay people and immigrants, as well as anti-Semitic conspiracy theories," says Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates, a nonprofit, left-wing research center.

Some hate-crime experts believe there is a link between bias-motivated incidents and religious fundamentalism, whether Christian or Islamic. Hatred against particular races, religions or sexual preferences often stems from extreme applications of one's faith, says Jean Rosenfeld, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Religion at the University of California at Los Angeles. "This is the basic apocalyptic scenario," Rosenfeld says, explaining fundamentalist theory. "The enemy is God's enemy and evil. Eradicating the enemy is God's work and good."

Another rising trend in hate crimes is animosity between different minority groups. "Whites don't have a monopoly on prejudice," says Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino. In urban environments especially, different racial and ethnic groups often live in close proximity to one another, and hate-motivated incidents sometimes result. For example, riots erupted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in 1991 due to tension between the neighborhood's African-American and Jewish communities. Public schools in Los Angeles have reported a 300% surge in hate crimes from 1996 to 2004, and many of the conflicts have been between minority groups--Armenians and Latinos at Grant High School, for instance.

Hate-Crime Legislation Since 1998

Jeremy Eagle

Many states have passed wide-ranging hate-crime laws and prosecute under those laws accordingly. California, for instance, has laws in place protecting anyone who is victimized due to his or her race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, physical disabilities, age or political affiliation. In some other states, such as New York, prosecutors can seek a harsher penalty in cases where the crime is determined to have been motivated by hate. But on the federal level, hate-crime statutes still adhere to the model established by Section 245 of Title 18 U.S.C., despite repeated attempts by many members of Congress to amend the law.

During the late 1990s, President Bill Clinton (D, 1993-2001) and Attorney General Janet Reno urged Congress to pass tougher federal hate-crime laws. In 1997, Clinton held a White House conference on hate crimes, where he unveiled his ideas: an expansion of the federal definition of hate crimes to include those provoked by sexual orientation, gender or disability; an end to the stipulation that hate crimes could be punished only if they prevented a person from enjoying certain federal rights; and a requirement that colleges must report any on-campus hate-motivated incidents to police.

In 1998, Clinton and Reno tried to push the newly drafted Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) through Congress. The proposed measure failed, however. Several later versions of the HCPA have also failed to win congressional passage.

A slightly modified version of the HCPA has also found difficulty entering the U.S. Code. The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (LLEEA) was first introduced in 2000 as a rider to the annual Defense Authorization Act; although the latter bill passed, the former was killed during negotiations with the House of Representatives. The LLEEA also failed to become law in 2002 and 2004. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) and Rep. John Conyers (D, Mich.) reintroduced the bill to the Senate and House, respectively, in May 2005. As of July 2005, it had not been voted on in either chamber.

Kennedy's plans for hate-crime law reform are generally similar in language to the HCPA, with two key additions. Under the LLEEA, the federal government could provide technical, forensic, monetary and prosecutorial aid to state and local law enforcement agencies dealing with hate crimes. The LLEEA would further authorize federal grants to train local law enforcement officials in how to deal with bias-motivated crimes and incidents. Kennedy says that the strengthening of federal hate-crime laws is necessary. Hate crime "is a form of terrorism that this country has to free itself of," Kennedy told the Senate in 2003.

The version of LLEEA proposed by Conyers takes existing classifications of hate crimes a step farther by giving the federal government authority to prosecute crimes in which the victim was targeted due to his or her gender identity. The Senate's version of the proposal bill does not include such language, to the dismay of many gay rights activists.

Some advocacy groups have expressed concern over other existing pieces of hate-crime legislation. The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 has drawn fire from the SPLC, which has characterized the act as being underenforced and practically irrelevant in calculating national hate crimes. A 2001 report conducted by the SPLC found that many local law enforcement agencies failed to report hate crimes in many districts. The nonreporting districts are represented by zeroes on the FBI's annual Hate Crime Statistics report; the SPLC calls those "false zeroes" because they fail to account for the unreported crimes occurring throughout the country. Although the FBI reported some 9,000 victims of hate crimes in 2003, the SPLC estimates that if every hate crime were reported, the number would be closer to 50,000.

Another controversy surrounding hate-crime laws is occurring at the state level. Several groups are attempting to have references to sexual orientation removed from existing hate-crime laws in their respective states. Organizations such as Take Back Maryland and the Pennsylvania branch of the American Family Association have fought against the inclusion of the term "sexual orientation" in state laws. Gay-rights groups like the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) have pressured local lawmakers to defend the sexual preference laws in states that already have them in place.

Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D, La.) cosponsored a resolution, passed by the Senate in June 2005, that formally apologized "to the victims of lynching and the descendants of those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation."

Critics Call Hate-Crime Laws Unnecessary

Hate-crime laws have drawn sharp criticism from many conservative pundits and traditional-values organizations. One of the most common arguments against hate-crime laws is that they are arbitrary and can be difficult to define. Opponents of the laws say they do not see why a murder committed because of hate should be prosecuted any differently than a murder committed during a random mugging, for example. "It remains to be explained...why whacking someone over the head with a tire iron while yelling, 'Take that, faggot!' is more heinous than performing the same act while murmuring, 'If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly,'" writes John Derbyshire in the National Review.

Opponents of hate-crime laws argue that because of that arbitrariness, the effort to introduce further laws is pointless. Hate-crime laws "don't close any legal loopholes or criminalize anything that isn't already against the law, which means they don't act as a deterrent," writes the editorial board of the New York Post. If crimes such as vandalism are already illegal, it would be senseless for the government to pass special laws against hate-motivated vandalism, critics maintain.

Another common criticism of hate-crime laws is that, by differentiating between ordinary crimes and crimes motivated by bias, they effectively criminalize thought. Opponents say that this could be a dangerous precedent that might ultimately lead to government-sanctioned thought-control and an encroachment of the right to free speech. Critics cite "intimidation," a category of hate crime that can amount to a few threatening words, as an example of hate-crime laws going too far. Law enforcement officials should concern themselves only with criminal actions, not words, opponents say.

Some Christian groups have expressed concern that classifying intimidation as a hate crime could lead to the persecution of religious leaders who speak out against homosexuality. "This isn't a slippery slope; it's a luge ride toward totalitarianism," writes Robert Knight, the director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of the conservative Christian organization Concerned Women for America. Those critics of hate-crime laws assert that such measures are further proof that the so-called homosexual agenda is being foisted upon a public that has never had the chance to debate the issue.

Opponents further contend that, by allotting federal resources to local law enforcement agencies to combat hate crimes, laws such as the LLEEA would create inequality in the ways crimes are prosecuted. Hate-crime laws could "create a multi-tiered system of justice, in which some crime victims' cases are taken more seriously than others, thus violating the constitutional guarantee of equal protection," Knight writes.

Some critics say that "politically fashionable" hate-crime laws are merely a way for politicians to score points among the electorate. When members of Congress propose tougher new hate-crime laws, they do not have the best intentions of the U.S. justice system in mind, opponents argue. Rather, they are merely engaging in "a cynical scheme to generate hysteria to harvest votes," writes syndicated columnist Don Feder. Some have also characterized the hate-crime laws as being just another way for trial lawyers to drum up new business.

Hate-crime laws have drawn increasing ire from certain circles after the January 2005 beating of Daniel Romano, an avowed Satanist, in New York City. A New York grand jury decided that Romano's two attackers should face hate-crime charges, which carry penalties of up to 15 years in jail. The attackers had allegedly accosted Romano on the street and yelled, "Hey, Satan!" before assaulting him with a metal pipe and an ice scraper.

Joseph Seehusen, the president of the Libertarian Party, says that the Romano situation proves that hate-crime laws are "bizarre" and "must be overturned." The lawyer for one of the defendants also questions the logic of the hate-crime charge. "What's next?" he asks. "Someone being accused of attacking a preppie, or a nerd?"

Supporters Say Hate-Crime Laws Promote Equality

The human-rights and liberal advocacy groups that defend hate-crime laws--and support further federal legislation--say that such measures are necessary because hate crimes are more serious than random criminal acts. Hate crimes require extra attention because they target entire communities of people, even if only one person is the victim. The ADL elaborates on its Web site:

Hate crimes demand a priority response because of their special emotional and psychological impact on the victim and the victim's community. By making members of minority communities fearful, angry and suspicious of other groups--and of the power structure that is supposed to protect them--these incidents can damage the fabric of our society and fragment communities.

Supporters say they view hate-crime laws as a way of protecting groups of people who are most vulnerable to attack. Hate crimes "strike directly at this nation's commitment to equality, and are worthy of...special federal involvement," writes the editorial board of the New York Times.

Groups in favor of hate-crime legislation argue that stricter laws could help end what they perceive to be institutional racism, both throughout the country in general and within some local law enforcement agencies specifically. The LLEEA would require police officers to be specially trained in recognizing and handling bias-motivated incidents. Supporters also say that some minority groups who were distrustful of police in the past would be more likely to report hate crimes committed against them if they knew there were laws specifically defining such crimes. They also point out that the LLEEA has been endorsed by more than 175 organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.

With hate crimes and hate groups on the rise in the U.S., some supporters say that hate-crime laws could help promote national unity between people of all races and sexual preferences. "Hate crimes are perpetrated by criminals trying to divide Americans," says Cheryl Jacques, the president of the HRC. "It's critical Americans are united in prosecuting these violent crimes."

Supporters also say that critics of hate-crime laws are using scare tactics to dissuade the public from backing what they say are logical and moral laws. For instance, the charge that hate-crime laws would limit free speech is not grounded in reality, advocates say. "The free-speech laws regarding hateful speech are quite clear: unless you are inciting your listeners to do imminent violence, your speech is protected," writes Dahlia Lithwick in the online magazine Slate. "The Orwellian notion that you can be jailed for your moral statements alone does not reflect the truth of hate-crimes laws."

Supporters also dispute the insinuation by critics of hate-crime laws that proposed legislation like the LLEEA is somehow unconstitutional. They point to the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in the 1993 case Wisconsin v. Mitchell. In that case, the court determined that a defendant who had assaulted a man based on his race should have his sentence increased to seven years in jail, from two.

Yet another dispute supporters have with critics of the laws is based on the idea that hate-crime legislation results in unequal application of the law. Supporters maintain that black-on-white hate crimes, for example, are viewed no differently than white-on-black hate crimes in the eyes of the law.

Activist Groups Work to Change Hate-Crime Laws

Reports of bias-motivated incidents continue to rise throughout the U.S., along with escalating media coverage of those incidents. The issue of hate crime legislation is expected to further polarize activist groups on both sides of the debate.

Groups critical of the proposed strengthening of hate-crime laws say they are ready to bring their message to the people via grassroots campaigning and continued public relations efforts. Many such groups have tried to get existing laws repealed, particularly on the state level, where they say it will be easier to do so.

As of July 2005, Sen. Kennedy's 2005 version of the LLEEA had received 44 cosponsors, including 36 Democrats, seven Republicans and one Independent. Even if the bill passes in the Senate, as it has twice before, it likely faces challenges on its way to becoming law. In 2004, for example, after gaining support in the Senate and House, the bill was killed in a House-Senate conference committee.

Meanwhile, organizations such as the ADL and HRW will continue to mobilize supporters of federal hate-crime laws. Their goal, they say, is to ensure that criminals who target their victims because of their race, nationality or sexual orientation will be punished accordingly.

Discussion Questions & Activities

1) Do you think there should be a distinction made between crimes that are motivated by bias and those motivated by other factors? Why or why not?

2) Should there be limits on the categories of people protected by hate-crime laws? If so, which groups do you think should be covered by hate-crime laws and which groups should not be covered?

3) Do hate crimes punish thoughts? Explain.

4) What impact do hate-crime laws have on society in general?

5) Examine an incident of a person charged with a hate crime, whether mentioned in the story or in the news: Do you agree that the crime should be treated as a hate crime? Why or why not?

Bibliography

"A Worthy Hate-Crimes Bill." New York Times, May 3, 2002, A26.

Derbyshire, John. "Hate (Crime) Cannot Wish Thee Worse." National Review, June 22, 2000, www.nationalreview.com.

"Discounting Hate." Intelligence Report, Winter 2001, www.splcenter.org.

"FBI: War Could Trigger Hate Crime." CBS News, March 12, 2003, www.cbsnews.com.

Feder, Don. "Hate Crime, Don't Criminalize Thoughts." Townhall.com, June 19, 2002, www.townhall.com.

Hunter, Melanie. "Satanist Beating Proof Hate Crime Laws Must Be Repealed, Libertarians Say." Cybercast News Service, January 13, 2005, www.cnsnews.com.

Kilgannon, Corey. "Beating of Queens Satanist Prompts Hate Crime Charges." New York Times, January 12, 2005, B3.

Knickerbocker, Brad. "National Acrimony and a Rise in Hate Crimes." Christian Science Monitor, June 3, 2005, www.csmonitor.com.

Knight, Robert. "'Hate Crimes' Bill: Prescription for Tyranny." WorldNetDaily, May 29, 2004, www.worldnetdaily.com.

Lithwick, Dahlia. "Hate Slime." Slate, February 24, 2005, www.slate.com.

Loughlin, Sean. "Bipartisan Group of Senators Push for Hate Crimes Bill." CNN.com, May 2, 2003, www.cnn.com.

Wright, Ellen. "U.S. Senate Passes Hate Crimes Act." Lesbian News, August 2004, 12.

Additional Sources

Additional information about hate-crime laws can be found in the following sources:

Levin, Jack and Jack McDevitt. Hate Crimes (Revisited): America's War on Those Who Are Different. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002.

Perry, Barbara. In the Name of Hate: Understanding Hate Crimes. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Contact Information

Information on how to contact organizations that are either mentioned in the discussion of hate-crime law or can provide additional information on the subject is listed below:

Key Words and Points

For further information about the ongoing debate over hate-crime laws, search for the following words and terms in electronic databases and other publications:

Hate-Crime Laws Update (July 2009)

Since ICOF last covered hate-crime laws in August 2005, Congress passed legislation that expanded the definition of a hate crime, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released reports detailing hate crime statistics and there was significant fallout from the prosecution of the "Jena 6" high school students. Among the key events:

• On September 14, 2005, the House voted, 223-199, to approve a measure designating hate crimes a separate category of federal offense that warranted an additional charge. The amendment also added sexual orientation, gender and disability categories to the original hate-crime definition of a violent act based on race, color, religion, or national origin. Democratic Representative John Conyers (Michigan) sponsored the bill, which was added as an amendment to a sex-offender registry bill. However, the House eliminated the hate-crime amendment when it passed a revised version of the sex-offender bill in March 2006. [See 2005 Facts On File: Legislation: House Passes Sex-Offender Registry Bill...Hate Crimes Amendment Attached; 2006 Legislation: Crime Bills Repackaged, Passed by House]
• The FBI released a hate-crime report on November 14, 2005, stating that racially motivated crimes made up more than half of the total number of hate crimes in 2004. Out of 7,649 hate crimes reported that year, 4,042 were motivated by race, including 2,731 crimes directed against blacks. Religion-related hate crimes tallied to 1,374, including 954 anti-Semitic acts. [See 2005 Facts On File: Crime: Murder Numbers Dropped in 2004]
• On February 2, 2006, an eighteen-year-old man attacked patrons of a Massachusetts gay bar in what police later designated a hate crime. The attacker, Jacob Robida, reportedly asked a bartender if the establishment was a gay bar before wounding three men while wielding a hatchet and a handgun. After the attack, police found neo-Nazi paraphernalia in Robida's room. Robida fled the city and died two days after engaging in a gun battle with police. Prosecutors later claimed that Robida's fatal wounds had been self-inflicted. [See 2006 Facts On File: Crime: Gay Bar Attacker Dies in Police Shootout]
• In 2007, the House again voted on legislation that would expand hate-crime categories to include violent acts based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability. The legislators passed the measure on May 3 despite a veto threat from the White House. The administration of George W. Bush (R, 2001-09) released a statement deeming the bill "inconsistent with the proper allocation of criminal enforcement responsibilities between the different levels of government." The Senate approved the measure on September 27. Legislators named the bill after Matthew Shepard, a gay man murdered in 1998. [See 2007 Facts On File: Legislation: House Backs Hate-Crime Law Expansions, Legislation: Senate Approves Defense Authorization Bill...Hate Crime Provision Attached]
• Amid large public protests and national media attention, Louisiana's Third Circuit Court of Appeal overturned the conviction of Mychal Bell, one of six students known as "the Jena Six," on September 14, 2007. The six students had been charged with beating a white classmate following a series of racially charged incidents at their high school and in the town of Jena. Three white students who had hung nooses from a tree on campus after a black student asked if blacks could sit under the tree were suspended but not charged with a hate crime. The circuit court ruled that Bell should not have been tried as an adult. The trials of the black students incited public criticism that the judicial system was neither treating races equally nor adequately pursuing the prosecutions of hate crimes. Bell later pleaded guilty in juvenile court to one count of aggravated battery as part of a deal with the prosecution. [See 2007 Facts On File: Civil Rights: 'Jena Six' Teen's Convictions Overturned]
• Hate crimes dropped slightly during 2007, according to an FBI report released on October 27, 2008. Race-related and religion-related hate crimes declined, but the statistics showed an increase in hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation and national origin. An increased number of law enforcement agencies reporting hate crimes to the FBI complicated the comparisons between 2007 and the previous year's reports. [See 2008 Facts On File: Crime: Hate Crimes Dropped Slightly in 2007]