In 1997, I was an intern working in Washington, DC, and one of my issues was hate crimes. Earlier that year, President Bill Clinton had called on Congress to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. However, that legislation would die in 1998 and it was not for a decade later (in 2009) that the act was signed into law by President Barack Obama.
In 1998, there were two horrific hate-motivated crimes. The murder of Matthew Shepard, a student in Wyoming, who was tortured and murdered because of his sexual orientation, and the decapitation of James Byrd, an African-American man, tied to a truck by two white supremacists, dragged and decapitated.
The concept of a hate crime has always been somewhat controversial. Some argue that crimes themselves, the actions, should be punished, not people’s beliefs.
However, I have long been a supporter of the concept of the harm caused by hate crimes. Look at the impact on this community last year, when an individual hung a noose from the high school football stadium’s goalposts. Intentional or unintentional, the action caused a good amount of hurt and soul searching throughout this community.
I remember my thoughts when my synagogue was vandalized with Swastikas – this was not simply graffiti. Or how I have felt when I have read of the news of synagogues burned to the ground.
That said, I had been starting to waver. Earlier this month, the Vanguard Court Watch covered a case where a bar fight led to a Sikh’s turban being knocked off and perhaps thrown to the floor.
The individual was charged with a hate crime for this. No one heard racial slurs, and the accounts of the incident varied.
The Vanguard reported, “He said he had noticed some commotion behind him near the bar and eventually witnessed Mr. Singh’s turban being knocked off. He does not remember hearing any racial slurs made by McCarty and describes the turban being knocked off by an upper hand swing.”
The account added, “The witness admitted that it seemed like an average bar fight.”
When Kevin McCarty testified, he said he had never uttered any racial slurs to Mr. Singh or about the Sikh religion. He said, during the altercation, Singh’s turban accidentally got knocked off. He said that if he were going to get into a physical fight with someone else he would have attacked the body and would never knock someone’s turban off deliberately.
However, an expert would testify that uncut hair, covered by a turban, is a way of connecting to God. It identifies a person as a part of the Sikh community. No one is allowed to touch the turban. The turban is like a part of the body. It is personal space, sacred. The significance of the turban evolved from the historical persecution of Sikhs by other religious groups.
At one time, scalps of Sikhs could be sold for a reward. It takes about 20 minutes to tie a turban. When tied correctly a turban is very secure. Knocking a turban off another’s head is extremely disrespectful.
The jury would acquit Mr. McCarty of the hate crime but convict him of a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest.
The prosecution of Mr. McCarty embodies the biggest fears of those opposed to hate crime legislation – the idea that any attack on a minority could at least conceivably result in a hate crimes charge.
James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter criticize hate crime legislation, arguing that instead of reducing conflict between groups, it exacerbates it. Defining crimes as being committed by one group against another, rather than as being committed by individuals against their society, as well as the labeling of crimes as hate crimes “causes groups to feel persecuted by one another, and that this impression of persecution can incite a backlash and thus lead to an actual increase in crime.”
Others argue, “Many critics further assert that it conflicts with an even more fundamental right: free thought. The claim is that hate-crime legislation effectively makes certain ideas or beliefs, including religious ones, illegal, in other words, thought crimes.”
Finally, still others argue that all violent crimes are the result of contempt for the victim and, therefore, are hate crimes.
This notion was embodied within Bob Dunning’s comment on Friday, “This certainly fits my definition of a hate crime, no matter the motivation of the depraved thug who did this.”
The bar fight incident and the prosecution might have stuck with me longer had we not had the most horrific reminder of why hate crimes legislation remains necessary.
19-year-old Davis resident Clayton Garzon is alleged to have stalked 31-year-old Mikey Partida in the early morning hours on Sunday. He was yelling anti-gay epithets, the f-word repeatedly, when he did the unthinkable. He jumped Mr. Partida and beat him within inches of his life.
Under California Penal Code section 422.55, “Hate crime” means “a criminal act committed, in whole or in part, because of one or more of the following actual or perceived characteristics of the victim…” including “sexual orientation.”
A hate crime charge acts as a case enhancement. Under PC section 422.75, a “person who commits a felony that is a hate crime or attempts to commit a felony that is a hate crime … shall receive an additional term of one, two, or three years in the state prison, at the court’s discretion.”
One justification for the special status of hate crimes rests with the impact on the individual.
Wikipedia writes, for example, “Supporters of an expansion of hate crime laws argued that hate crimes are worse than regular crimes without a prejudiced motivation from a psychological perspective. The time it takes to mentally recover from a hate crime is almost twice as long than it is for a regular crime and LGBT people often feel as if they are being punished for their sexuality which leads to higher incidence of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.”
This squares with what Mikey Partida told News 10, that “what really hurts is the hate portion of the crime, the intolerance.”
His mother wrote on their Facebook page, “While the immediate challenges posed by the severity of his physical injuries are clear, the long-term impacts of PTSD are not.”
But it is not just the impact on the individual that makes hate crimes different – it is the impact on the community as a whole.
Research noted consequences that followed the murder of Matthew Shepart in 1998 included: “especially youth, who reported going back into the closet, fearing for their safety, experiencing a strong sense of self-loathing, and upset that the same thing could happen to them because of their sexual orientation.”
A published article in the American Behavioral Scientist Journal in 2002 investigated the psychological impact of the Shepard murder on nonvictims who were members of the targeted group and found “vicarious traumatization effect; that is, this event challenged participant fundamental assumptions of benevolence and meaningfulness of the world and worthiness of self.”
The impact of this attack on Mikey Partida, therefore, is far greater, both on Mr. Partida and our community, than other sorts of attacks.
With that being said and without minimizing this incident in any way, it seems important to bear in mind that the perpetrator – at least from what we know – appears to be a deeply troubled individual.
As we reported yesterday, just six months prior to this attack, Mr. Garzon was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon producing great bodily injury for a stabbing incident at a Dixon party on September 11, 2012.
Given that, it may not have mattered who was on the street in those early morning hours on Sunday morning – no one would have been safe. With that being said, Mr. Partida’s sexual orientation appeared to be the defining characteristic that made him the target of Mr. Garzon.
Community response is critical in incidents like this. On the one hand, it is very important to have a strong showing. Tonight at 7 pm will be a vigil at Central Park, while on Monday at noon at the UC Davis Quad, the LGBT center will be putting on an event as well.
As the UC Davis event notes, “This is not okay” and the attack on Mikey Partida demonstrates the continued need not only for strong community response, but continued education about tolerance and hate.
At the same time, we need to remember that Mr. Garzon, while accused of a horrific crime, still has the presumption of innocence as far as the law goes, he is entitled to a strong and vigorous defense, and the prosecution will have to prove that he not only committed the crime but did so under the guise of hatred for Mr. Partida’s sexual orientation.
This incident serves as a stark reminder of the original incidents that triggered the need for hate crimes legislation. However, the fact that the community has responded with outrage suggests a day when this will no longer be needed.
“After more than a decade of opposition and delay, we’ve passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray or who they are,” President Obama said in 1999.
“We should remember that each of us almost wakes up every day with the scales of light and darkness in our own hearts, and we’ve got to keep them in proper balance,” President Clinton said a decade earlier. “And we have to be in the United States absolutely resolute about this. That’s why I think this hate crimes issue is so important.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
You raise good points about use of hate crimes charges. I think it was misused in the bar fight case–the idea should have been to pursue the intent of the “attacker,” not how offended the “victim” might have been by the act.
P.S.–Time to retire the close up photo of Mikey Partida’s horrible beating.
When you really think about it, hate crime laws are a manifestation of just another type of hate. There are people that for some reason see the world through a prism of the powerful and the powerless. They see this as a largely static circumstance that requires compensation for those groups they associate as powerless or even less powerful. But if we are to be a truly color, race, gender, religious, sexual-orientation, (etc.) neutral society, hate crime laws begs the question why? Assuming this can be answered, then the next question is “how long”? For example, if the goal is equal treatment of all people and all groups of people, then wouldn’t we expect hate crime statutes to be temporary util society evolved to a level where they were no longer required?
The answer is that those that support hate crime laws will never be happy letting them expire because they provide a tool of retribution. They provide a way for some people feeling cut by expression they dislike and can label as hateful, to cut back at other people. They provide a way for those feeling hated to hate back.
Hate crime laws were a mistake just like affirmative action was a mistake. If we are all equal, then we are all equal… and hate is a universal malady we should strive to reduce just like discrimination is a universal malady we should strive to reduce.
“But if we are to be a truly color, race, gender, religious, sexual-orientation, (etc.) neutral society, hate crime laws begs the question why? “
The answer is simple – we aren’t a neutral society, if we were we wouldn’t need the hate crime laws, since we aren’t, we do. You seem to be advocating that you can’t become a neutral society because we have hate crime laws, I think the answer is the opposite, when we become a neutral society we won’t need hate crime laws anymore.
Frankly
Your argument does not allow for consideration of different aspects of life. The equality that I refer to is equality before the law. Obviously we are not all equal in other aspects of life. Declaring equality as a goal does not mean that it currently exists. Saying that we are all philosophically equal does not mean that all are treated equally.
Until that is the case in reality as well as in our goals, I will support social efforts to move in the desired direction.
Frankly, two of your comments from the previous article on this issue:
[i]Growing up there was a lot of fighting among young men. In many cases people were beat badly like Mikey. However, it never was a seventeen article story with a candelight vigil. Most of the time it was a small page-5 story in the paper, or nothing at all.
I think we need to take stock of the situation in the context of life in general.[/i]
and then,
[i]One of the key lessons a male child learns from his father is how to control his aggressiveness and anger that is the result of the inevitable flood of testosterone.[/i]
Do you not see a little inconsistency here? On the one hand, you suggested that we are all making too much of this instance male youth violence, that somehow it’s understandable and expected, then you go off on how a father should serve as a role model to control such aggression. I can at least accept that a father should seek to serve that role as required, but it’s also just as important that a father in this role should make it clear that initiating this kind of violence is unacceptable.
That said, I make no judgement about the Garzon family on this. I’ll wait and see what comes out in the legal process.
If a group of minority gang members beat up a white kid, would that be an equally despicable hate crime?
“Frankly” does make a good point that hate crime laws allow retribution and may be inflammatory.
Single mothers, middle aged mothers, chubby people, unattractive people, and so on, are very often on the receiving end of hate and prejudice.
We can’t legislate against all prejudice and intolerance, so
it doesn’t seem right to favor some groups over others, protecting some and not others.
Information, statistics, and examples from the Justice Dept. about hate crimes: [url]http://www.justice.gov/crs/pubs/htecrm.htm[/url]
“If a group of minority gang members beat up a white kid, would that be an equally despicable hate crime?”
You’re leaving out a critical element of the crime with your question. You would have to establish that race was a critical motivation in the attack: “a criminal act committed, in whole or in part, because of one or more of the following actual or perceived characteristics of the victim…”
Re: David ‘You would have to establish that race was a critical motivation in the attack: “a criminal act committed, in whole or in part, because of one or more of the following actual or perceived characteristics of the victim…” ‘
Part of the difficulty might be figuring out the motivation of an attack.
For example, in the latest case of the beating, suppose it is entirely accurate that the perp shouted anti-gay comments at the victim. Do these verbal statements then provide evidence that the perp was motivated by hatred of gays? An alternative explanation would be that the perp wanted to hurt the victim for unknown reasons, not because the victim is gay; i.e. his motivation was not anti-gay, but just to hurt the victim. To achieve his objective of hurting the victim; he employs two methods (1) Physical; beating him and causing bodily damage (2) Psychological. How can he hurt him psychologically? By saying something that hurts the feelings of the victim. What might hurt the feelings of a gay guy? Saying something demeaning and insulting about gays.
So in other words, shouting anti-gay slurs does not necessarily entail that the perp attacked him because he was gay; that might not have been his motivation. He was just trying to find another way (in addition to physical beating) of hurting him; having a pretty good idea that shouting anti-gay slurs might be psychologically hurtful to the victim. If the victim had a big nose or was obese; he might have hurled insults about big beak freaks or fatties, because these types of insults would be effective against these groups of people.
Who knows what motivated this attack. Does the perp have a history of going after gay people and beating them? Or was he just pissed off at the victim and tried to hurt him every way he could; including physical beating and insults; using anti-gay insults specifically because he thought such insults would be hurtful to a gay person?
jimt said: “Who knows what motivated this attack. Does the perp have a history of going after gay people and beating them? Or was he just pissed off at the victim and tried to hurt him every way he could; including physical beating and insults; using anti-gay insults specifically because he thought such insults would be hurtful to a gay person?”
I think it is a reasonable guess that that is exactly what his lawyer is going to say about that particular charge. But anyone who will offensively beat someone like that for any reason should be out of circulation.
[i]You seem to be advocating that you can’t become a neutral society because we have hate crime laws, I think the answer is the opposite, when we become a neutral society we won’t need hate crime laws anymore.[/i]
This is a disengenuous argument because neither you nor anyone else that demands hate crime laws can ever be convinced that we have become a neutral society. You cannot even define what that is. For example, 40 years ago might you have defined this achievement for blacks as having a black President? What does it take? There will never be any such thing as a neutral society as long folks like you and the media keep making it clear how some groups are more deserving of protections and benefits than others. As we are constantly reminded that we are different in the protections and benefits we deserve, we will always be prevented from achieving greater neutrality.
[i]”…neither you nor anyone else that demands hate crime laws can ever be convinced that we have become a neutral society.”
[/i]
Do you believe we have become a neutral society? What criteria do you use for this?
Yes, this young man should be out of circulation – in a mental hospital.
It seems to this non-lawyer that hate crime laws are just another form of sentencing enhancement, and we apply those in many situations. Capital punishment based on who the victim was, gang enhancements, use of a gun, three strikes — lots of situations where the penalty or the charges are increased due to something that makes the crime seem more serious. In effect, we are saying that exhibiting bigotry does make the crime worse, and the rationale is that such bigotry has sometimes been so pervasive and even tacitly approved that it will take a long period of societal approbation to get the message across that it is no longer acceptable.
Dlemongello–yes, even without the hate crime enhancement, the other charges are serious, and if he’s convicted the sentence could be fairly long-term.
When I put forward my alternative motivation above; I did wonder if it was acceptable for a lawyer could also put forward something like that in court; good to get your feedback on that. I truly think the motive I put forward is fairly common; of course in the particular case of the recent beating I do not know what the perp’s motivation was.
On a personal note; when I am insulted I know that it is not the nature of the insult itself that usually stings; but more so the intent to hurt me that motivates the insult–in other words, I feel bad that the person wants to hurt me, the nature of the insult itself usually doesn’t bother me much (unless it happens to hit too close to home around a weakness in myself I’d rather not face!).
David, good article including critical analysis of hate laws.
I’ve given a lot of thought to the matter, and am still of the opinion that such laws are too close to the grey area of politicization of crime.
It’s my contention that what are prosecuted as hate crimes are more often crimes of malevolence of speech/writing/use of symbols; or other form of communication. Of course if physical violence is involved, this physical violence needs to be prosecuted. But because a perp, while committing physical violence on a victim, says something nasty about a victims status in a socially recognized group (race, sex, sexual preference, handicap status, etc.) it does not necessarily mean that this is what motivates the attack of the perp; the perp is just using what he can to psychologically hurt the victim. So if I have a big nose and while being beaten the perp is insulting my nose and insulting other big-nosed people calling them big-beaked freaks, pinnochio, etc, does he get a hate crime enhancement? After all, he has hurt my feelings about something I’m sensitive about. Surely we don’t want hate crime laws to be about punishing people for making insults about certain politically-protected attributes of people; whereas other attributes don’t get this political protection against insults? Does this lead to a more sensitive society, or to sensitization?
“Part of the difficulty might be figuring out the motivation of an attack.”
“Do these verbal statements then provide evidence that the perp was motivated by hatred of gays? An alternative explanation would be that the perp wanted to hurt the victim for unknown reasons, not because the victim is gay; i.e. his motivation was not anti-gay, but just to hurt the victim.”
“So in other words, shouting anti-gay slurs does not necessarily entail that the perp attacked him because he was gay; that might not have been his motivation.”
“Who knows what motivated this attack.”
I agree with your points here and the prosecution retains the burden of proving it beyond a reasonable doubt. That said, I think at some point actions probably are sufficient to prove motivation.
So if you are kicking someone and calling them the anti-gay f-word, at some point it probably doesn’t matter if he’s actually motivated by hate, his actions themselves make it a hate crime. After all for both the victim and the community, the impact of the crime remains.
Don: I think that’s the appropriate way to think of this.
“This is a disengenuous argument because neither you nor anyone else that demands hate crime laws can ever be convinced that we have become a neutral society. You cannot even define what that is.”
I don’t think my inability to articulate what it is makes it a disingenuous argument. After all there are all sorts of concepts, including obscenity that we struggle to define.
Having a black President doesn’t change the inequality for instance of the rest of society and the treatment of that black president shows that while 53% of the population may be willing, the other 47% is not.
‘You cannot even define what that is.”
I can certainly provide you with my vision for what a “neutral” society would be. For me, it would mean one in which every interaction between people would be based upon the merit of the individual’s character as expressed through their individual actions and not some preconceived notion of what they must be like based on their race, gender, age, sexual preference….
The precedent I use in my mind is that of tryouts for certain musical positions. Realizing that the judges interpretation of the abilities of the applicants was being influenced by the appearance of the applicant rather than the quality of their playing, the judging was done by the applicants being behind a screen thus forcing the judges to make their decisions based on only the quality of the music being produced. When we are as a society to the point where we no longer “see” the superficial differences in a manner which causes us to discriminate on the basis of these differences, then we will have reached the goal.
utopia
An admirable goal.
Thanks for answering that question medwoman. I appreciate that you were the only one willing to take a stab at it.
I think Alan Miller summed it up nicely. I think you are chasing rainbows with your vision. I agree that the goal is admirable; but it is unatainable.
The other problem with your idea for individual merit-based interactions (something I completely support) is that you don’t comment on the practice of focusing on group outcomes and the biases enflamed by a group-victim mentality.
For example…
– Blacks are over-represented as prisoners, so it is proof that law enforcement and the criminal justice system is biased against blacks.
– Some minority groups are under-represented in achieving college degrees and acquiring high-paying jobs, so we need affirmative action policies to compensate for the obvious minority bias.
– Women make less than men, so we need laws to force employers to compensate for the obvious gender bias.
So, with all of this and other government-dictated groupism policies, how in the world do you ever expect your vision of individual merit-based interactions to develop?
In terms of hate crimes, two guys pass each other on the street and get into a fight. One is white and one is black. The black guy says “effing ugly whites, they steal all the wealth so black people are poorer.” The white guy says “effing ugly blacks, they mooch from successful people to make everyone poorer.” They both beat the other up to have Mikey-level injuries.
Now, would the displays of hate offset each other? Or would one be given more weight by prosecutors?
Now consider that these were two separate incidents where the white guy and black guy beat up someone of the opostite race while spewing the same hateful words… without the other guy saying a thing. Do you think both would get the same consideration for hate crime law application?
Of course not. And because of this, it proves that hate crime laws are racist.