Rachel Tapper

Professor Christopher Brown

English 1B

6 August 2013

Restoration of Equality

            An alternative solution desperately needs to be implemented in the place of state and federal hate crime laws that have been enacted since the 1990s. Aside from the notion that these laws do not deter criminal behavior of this nature, it is evident that they are indicative of an overuse of the law.  This system is currently cluttered with confusion, inequality and endless complications in prosecuting under accurate and just terms. The accused have received extra sentencing for technicalities under current provisions and we once again have reached a scenario where not everyone is offered the same rights by our government. If we are already supposed to receive equal protection under the law, wouldn’t these statutes and legislations therefore be redundant through there adherence to sympathy for targeted groups? In order to restore fairness and constitutionality to the judicial system, it is proposed that hate crime legislation be repealed and justice served through when it is due under current laws through harsher penalties according to specifics of the crime.

These statutes in themselves are superfluous to current state and federal policy. To clarify the delegation of power between state and federal governments, the article Repeal Tyrannical ‘Hate Crime’ Laws Beware Efforts to Control thought and Speech quotes James Madison:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the state" (Wayne).

If hate crime legislation were to be repealed, people would continue to be offered the rights and protection guaranteed by the government. The fact is that, because they do more harm than good, laws against bias-motivated actually take away the rights afforded to us by the government under existing laws by delegating persons whom have more protection than others. Murder is murder any way you slice it, and if you add on instances which make it worse with respect to the characteristics of the victim, no one can ever be proven guilty efficiently and effectively. The message that these laws are attempting to send is not being seen through complication of determining the extent of the motive, much less the extent of the victim’s identity.

Another reason to immediately repeal state and federal hate crime legislation is that those accused of bias-motivated crime are not accurately prosecuted as a result of these legislations. Quite the opposite occurs with most recent laws because prosecutors are faced with the burden of proof in regards to whether or not motive was driven by prejudice. According to the article  The Problem of Motive in Hate Crimes: The Argument against Presumptions of Racial Motivation, “States' failure to clarify the evidentiary standard intended by the requirement of proof that the accused attacked his or her victim "because of" racial motivation allows many expressions of racial animus to go unprosecuted under current statutes”  (Morsch). This is mostly because these laws do nothing but complicate the system so much that the nuts and bolts of a case have turned into endless debates on definition of the defendant’s nature. If the legislations were repealed and the law was left alone to simply determine how heinous a crime was, prosecutors would escape the pressure to prove how much of the defendant’s motives were biased and to what degree, and instead be able to focus on the extent of the action taken in order to make the case that sentencing for harsher punishment should be implemented. Determining what was done to a victim is much easier than speculating on internal beliefs which are far beyond provable. Right to a fair trial needs to be restored and can only be done so with the absence of these micro-managing statutes.

            Advocates and supporters of hate crime legislation have offered that additional revisions are needed for the laws to be fair and more beneficial to society in adequately covering potentially targeted victims. If we continue to add to the list of epithets that deserve more sympathy than others, we will continue to throw off the balance of the justice system. Some will ask what is to be done with the problem that these types of crimes will still happen. Cases where a person is targeted as a result of prejudice based on substantial evidence of should receive harsher sentencing according to the degree of atrocity in action. For example, in the tragic case of Matthew Sheppard, a twenty-one year old homosexual who was brutally murdered by two straight men, which was a horrific account cruelty, the two defendants are currently serving their life sentences for the monstrous acts they committed. They were not prosecuted under any hate-crime laws yet received increased penalties of life sentencing for what they had done, which was two consecutive life sentences for Russell A. Henderson and a life sentence for Aaron J. McKinney for his part (Brooke). This sentencing can be applied under current laws against arson, assault, murder, and rape. Perhaps what needs to be done is a careful revisiting of current sentencing guidelines and penalties to be enhanced accordingly. After all, these actions are a result of one form of hate or another and the message should be sent that all forms of these crimes are unacceptable.

Legislation that was meant to promote equality has consequently created inequality. While it is true that there was a time that these laws were applicable to the nature of society before the Civil Rights movement, hate crime legislation is out-dated.  There are current policies in effect which already protect American’s in regards to equality under the law and subsequently, these laws have taken some of that away. Someone is trying to fix something that is not broken and repeal is necessary in order to keep freedoms offered by the First Amendment intact. Instead of ineffective hate-crime accusations, and similar to additional sentencing for the degree in which murder was committed, especially heinous acts should be examined and dealt with accordingly outside of these laws. If we were created equal, and should be afforded the same rights, than resolve needs to be met to continue down that road.

Works Cited

Brooke, James. "Gay Murder Trial Ends With Guilty Plea." The New York Times 6 April 1999. <http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/06/us/gay-murder-trial-ends-with-guilty-plea.html?ref=aaronjamesmckinney>.

Morsch, James. "The Problem of Motive in Hate Crimes: The Argument against Presumptions of Racial Motivation." The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 82.3 (1991): 659-689.

Wayne, Carlson. "REPEAL TYRANNICAL 'HATE CRIME' LAWS BEWARE EFFORTS TO CONTROL THOUGHT AND." Roanoke Times & World News 18 October 2000. Proquest.