Hate Crimes Laws Are Unequal Justice
Commentary by Phil Valentine  /  August 13, 1999

I just recently returned from a most interesting experience. I was invited to sit on a panel of mostly lawyers in front of several hundred other lawyers and witness how little those assembled knew about the law. The occasion was the American Bar Association's Hate Crimes Panel at the World Congress Center in Atlanta. C-SPAN was there along with several newspaper reporters, predominately from gay and lesbian publications. The panel was stacked heavily in favor of new hate crime laws with me as the only defender of common sense.

It's not that I don't think crimes of hate are serious or important. I most certainly do. When I first heard about the dragging death of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas I was sickened and deeply saddened. I was equally sickened and saddened by the hammering and drowning death of two children by the Atlanta day-trading killer. The thought of those two young children being brutally murdered by their own father staggers my imagination. Yet, those present for the hate crimes panel discussion tried to justify why the Jasper murder should be judged more seriously than a murder like the one which occurred in Atlanta. The first suspect in the Jasper killing has been sentenced to death. Ironically, he was prosecuted without using a single hate crime law.

Proponents of hate crime laws on the panel, which included Bill Lann Lee of the Justice Department and Rev. Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, argued that historically persecuted segments of society need special protection. No one is arguing that certain segments of the population, especially black citizens, have been unduly attacked and murdered just because of their color. What the assembled lawyers failed to recognize was that the law doesn't mete out punishment based on motive. It punishes people based on intent. Why you killed someone is of little consequence to the law. The fact that you intended to do so and/or did it are of particular interest to the law.

Are people singled out for violence because of how they look? Absolutely. People are assaulted because of their color. Little old ladies are robbed and raped because they look vulnerable. Men wearing nice clothing are beaten and robbed because they look rich. I'm not comparing the historical plight of minorities to little old ladies and rich men. The point is, historical persecution of a class of people is not the issue when it comes to serving justice for an individual. The question that immediately comes to my mind is: where does it stop? Talk show hosts across the country have, historically, been shot and killed because of their views. I have personally been threatened. That's a direct affront to talk show hosts everywhere and, it could be argued, has a chilling effect on free speech. Yet, no one is advocating that people who injure or kill a talk show host be dealt with more severely than one who injures or kills anyone else. Guy James Gray, who prosecuted the Jasper murder case, feels that there are sufficient laws already on the books to deal with any crime and any criminal. There are aggravating circumstances which can cause a crime to be prosecuted more severely, as was the case in Jasper. At the heart of the problem is the emotional aspect. We are all outraged by the senseless murder of someone who is singled out for reasons of race or other attributes but the law is expected to be devoid of emotion. The law looks at facts, plain and simple.

Something else that needs to be noted is how much the media have influenced and distorted this issue. One would think that there were hate murders occurring every single day. The fact is, there were some 20,000 murders in the U.S. in 1995. Of those 20,000, the FBI determined that 20 were hate murders. Not 20 percent. 20 murders! That hardly sounds like the hate crime epidemic the news media would have you believe. Of the 1.7 million violent crimes committed in the U.S. in 1995 less than one-fifth of one percent were considered hate crimes by the FBI. When I presented those statistics to the panel, Rev. Lowery accused me of "hate mongering." It's extremely difficult to have an intelligent discussion about the subject if that's all the defense the other side can muster. The rest of the panel chose to tell heart-wrenching stories of harassment and assault of minorities to try and bolster their argument instead of looking at the issue in a logical, rational way. Their hostile reaction to my argument reminded me of Senator Tom Harkin's complaint during the Impeachment Trial that the House Managers were trying to "box us in with the facts." Indeed, the facts, boxed or otherwise, speak for themselves.

It's time the lawyers, who should know the law, took the lead in educating the public about it. Etched in stone on the Supreme Court Building in Washington are the words 'Equal Justice Under Law.' Need I say more.