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More On Hate Crime Legislation
Posted by Kevin

I am posting an excerpt of a letter from the ACLU below on the hate crime legislation before Congress on Thursday but I want to point something out here. Unlike other hate crimes bills, the ACLU is on board with this one — they don;t see it as an attack on free speech or creating a class of “thought crimes” The letter itself does a good job of arguing that debunking the notion that the Hate Crimes bill is an attack on free speech. Think about that for a moment. The ACLU is absolutist on free speech grounds, so absolutist about free speech that they once argued for the right of Nazis to march through a neighborhood of holocaust survivors. And they think this is a good bill that does not infringe upon the First Amendment. That’s even more of a sure thing than Billy Beane telling you a pitcher is a real bargain.

The people who use violence to intimidate whole classes of people are not common criminals. They are terrorists and their crimes damage the larger society. They should be punished accordingly. Call your rep and tell them to vote for the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. You can find the contact info for your rep here.

And now the letter (my emphasis):

We are pleased that the sponsors of the legislation are once again including in the legislation an important provision that ensures that the bill will not chill constitutionally protected speech. Specifically, the bill will include a specific provision excluding evidence of speech that is unrelated to the crime. As a result, the ACLU is strongly urging support for this bill expanding the federal criminal civil rights statutes.

The ACLU believes that the Congress can and should expand federal jurisdiction to prosecute criminal civil rights violations when state and local governments are unwilling or unable to prosecute. At the same time, we also believe that these prosecutions should not include evidence of mere abstract beliefs or mere membership in an organization from becoming a basis for such prosecutions. The hate crimes bill accomplishes these goals by providing a stronger federal response to criminal civil rights violations, but tempering it with clear protections for free speech.

… The ACLU appreciates the sponsors’ inclusion of the evidentiary provision that prevents the hate crimes legislation from having any potentially chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech. The evidentiary subsection in the bill provides that:

Evidence of expression or association of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial, unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense. However, nothing in this section affects the rules of evidence governing the impeachment of a witness.

This provision will reduce or eliminate the possibility that the federal government could obtain a criminal conviction on the basis of evidence of speech that had no role in the chain of events that led to any alleged violent act proscribed by the statute.

…. On its face, the hate crimes bill punishes only the conduct of intentionally selecting another person for violence because of that person’s race, color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The prosecution must prove the conduct of intentional selection of the victim. Thus, the hate crimes bill, like the present principal criminal civil rights statute, 18 U.S.C. § 245 (“section 245”), punishes discrimination (an act), not bigotry (a belief).

May 1st, 2007 Legal Issues, Culture | one comment