Opinion> Debra Saunders> No Thin Line Between Murder And Hate

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No Thin Line Between Murder and Hate

When the Senate passed a federal hate-crimes measure by a 63-28 earlier this month, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., proclaimed, "This legislation will help to address the serious and growing problem of hate crimes."

I'm baffled. Washington passed the first federal hate-crimes bill in 1968 and 45 states have enacted hate-crime laws. This latest bill, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, expanded the list of hate crimes — which originally focused on attacks based on the victims' race, color, religion or national origin — to include those targeted because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

If hate-crime laws prevent hate crimes, shouldn't hate crimes be shrinking, not growing?

Forgive the question, because there's nothing glib about any crime of violence. The 1998 torture-murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard — who was found tied to a fence, battered and shoeless in the cold — was so cruel that it took Shepard three days to die.

Attorneys for one of Shepard's killers, Aaron McKinney, tried to introduce a "gay panic" defense, to explain why a crime that started as a robbery ended in death. The judge refused to allow the bogus defense and a jury found McKinney guilty of felony murder. To avoid the death penalty, his accomplice had pleaded guilty to the killing. Both are serving double life sentences.

It's hard to understand how a federal hate-crimes law could send a stronger message than life in prison. Or a stronger message than the response of security guards at the Holocaust Museum, who, after white supremacist James Von Brunn fatally shot guard Stephen T.

Johns in June, shot Von Brunn in the face. With or without the Shepard act, Von Brunn could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.

Federal law allows for prosecutions only under narrow circumstances — such as if a victim is at a public school, voting or serving as a juror. The Shepard act's most important expansion, however, is that it would allow the feds to prosecute hate crimes if, as supporter Attorney General Eric Holder testified, states lack the "capacity," "willingness" or "desire to prosecute these kinds of cases."

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., claimed the measure he sponsored "closes the flagrant loopholes that for too long have prevented effective prosecution of these shocking crimes that terrorize entire groups of communities across America."

Yet Holder testified that he does not think "that there is a trend among the states or local jurisdictions in failing to go after these kinds of crimes."

So why change the federal law? After all, district attorneys are free to present bigotry as a motive at trial. When three white supremacists dragged James Byrd, 49, to death because he was a black man, Texas prosecutors won two death sentences and a life sentence for the 1998 crime.

Criminal Justice Legal Foundation President Michael Rushford noted that the problem with hate-crime laws is that they're "subjective." He believes prosecutors have a better chance prosecuting the crime — not the motive. And these crimes are horrific enough.

E-mail Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com. To find out more about Debra J. Saunders, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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Ma'am; ...You are like tha blind man who climbed Everest for the view... He got there the same way as everybody else, and you are getting there too... Law has been the monumental failure of Western Society...It does not give vengeance and it does not give justice, and the more of it you have, the more of it you need until the whole society is overburdened with Law...In some respects, this anti hate crimes legislation is meant to do all that the Anti Gun Lobby wants...They know it is easier to organize a multitude of heathens around a kernal of hate than it is to get a family together for a picnic... And there is plenty to hate in this land, and some of it is legitimate...But Hate is Fear, and if people cannot talk about their fears, and their hates, no matter how unwarranted, then they will not be addressed and cured... So much of the talk on the right, even com
ing out of the churches is not motivated by love, patriotism, or understanding; but is meant to play upon the fears, the ignorance, and the parochialism of the country people... They do not understand the assault on virtue the city dwellers face... They do not help the city person guard his or her virtue...Rather, they cheer the cause and hate the effect... They do not understand that the forces whittling away at their lives, and livelyhoods, and virtue have been working their poison into the heart of our society for a long time...And it is legal, just as it was once legal to hound homosexuals from burg to burg until they found a populous place to hide, and just as it was legal to bind freed blacks into servitude if they were without employment, or to hang them from trees if they were surly...I do not think we can have a society where the citizens of one section or set of beliefs can visit their prejudice upon others without danger... I do not think we can have a society where morality and virtue are constantly under assault... And we cannot have a society overburdened with laws supporting a whole class of parasites from police, and lawyers, and judges, and prison guards; because we simply cannot afford what does not work... The more law we have the more law we must have until we go broke supporting it... We do not need law, but a sense of who we are, and what moral behavior is... We cannot find who we are while the most immoral of people are driving wedges of law and hate between us... If we could talk out our differences where we should be able to, and cannot now, in the halls of government, then we would not feel as though we need to act out of frustration...The problem is not going to go away...It will not go away with more law, or more people broadcasting hate and fear... We need to talk to each other, and not at each other to find some common ground; and throwing people in prison for their opinions is not going to help...Thanks..Sweeney

Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:25 AM