s has been questioned. An article in The New Republic claims that “in the 1960’s, federal intervention was necessary in order to redress Southern states’ systematic and calculated indifference to crimes committed against blacks. The federal government had to step in because state courts refused to enforce their own laws and protect the lives and liberty of black citizens” (6). Addressing the Matthew Shepard case, the article felt that no constitutional violations were at issue and that it was simply an exercise in symbolic politics. Hate crime statues have been constitutionally challenged. In 1992 and 1993, the United States Supreme Court decided two cases addressing the constitutionality of statutes directed at bias-motivated intimidation and violence: R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul and Wisconsin v. Mitchell. These well-known cases have now substantially defined which hate crime statutes are, and which are not, acceptable under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. These cases challenged the notion of free speech. Based on these cases, the American Defamation League has been strongly urging states to adopt penalty-enhancement statues based on the League’s model (7).Before we examine the individual states approach to hate crimes, it is important to look at the action taken by the federal government in response to this rising concern. The first major act directed specifically at hate crimes was The Hate Crime Statistic Act (28 U.S.C. 534). Enacted in 1990, the HCSA requires the Justice Department to acquire date on crimes which “manifest prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity” from law enforcement agencies across the country and to publish an annual summary of the findings. In the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Congress expanded coverage of the HCSA to require FBI reporting on crimes based on “disability”. The...
