¶ … Matthew Shepard Act
FBI (2009). Matthew Shepard/James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Web.
This source outlines the practical enforcement mechanisms of the Act from the FBI perspective. It provides guidance for FBI agents in dealing with potential hate crimes.
Holder, Eric. (2009). The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. U.S. Department of Justice. Web.
This testimony from then-Attorney General Holder outlines the text of the Act, to clarify what exactly this Act is.
ABC News. (2004). New details emerge in Matthew Shepard murder. ABC News. Web.
This article from a major news source outlines the details of the Shepard case. It provides critical background to understand why the law was passed.
HRC (2016). Hate crimes law. Human Rights Campaign. Web.
This source, from a human rights activist group, highlights the historical context of the Act, the support it had when passed. The context is important to understanding the changes that the Act brought about.
Biography. (2016). James Byrd Jr. Biography.com. Web.
This source highlights the details of the James Byrd Jr. case, including the racist background of the perpetrators, and how the case fits in with the law.
Introduction
The horrific murders of James Byrd Jr. and Mathew Shepard gave rise to legislation to provide protections for individuals of protected classes from hate crimes. The Mathew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed in 2009, signed into law by President Obama. The law has the purpose of providing law enforcement with greater powers to prosecute those who are involved in hate crimes. Essentially, the law elevates hate crimes above other crimes, giving them special status that make it easier for law enforcement to gain a conviction and to ensure more stringent sentencing for hate crimes than for other crimes.
Background of the Law
Civil rights groups had long been seeking a national hate crime law. A hate crime law is defined as a law that specifically targets crimes that were committed as hate crimes. A hate crime is one that is motivated by the "perpetrator's bias against the victim" (HRC, 2016). A hate crime serves as an act of terror against members of these communities, making them afraid to live in certain places or afraid to have freedom to move freely either about the country or in their communities (HRC, 2016). Hate crimes are said to often be more violent in nature than their non-hate equivalents.
Since 1968, there were hate crime laws in place for the basis of race, religion and national origin, if the victim was engaged in specific, federally-protected activities (HRC, 2016). Many categories of people were not included in the law, including members of the LGBTQ community, the disabled, and anybody not engaged in a federally-protected activity. For example, in the Shepard case there were no federal or state laws that prescribe hate crime status, which meant that law enforcement could only prosecute on the basis of regular status for the crime (HRC, 2016).
The murders of James Byrd, Jr. and Mathew Shepard were specifically singled out for the header of the law because of their brutality and the hate-based nature of those crimes. The Shepard case had received a tremendous amount of media attention and had become a cause celebre among the LGBTQ community activists seeking greater hate crime protections (ABC News, 2004). Two of the three killers in the Byrd murder were known racists. In the Byrd trial, those two were specifically given death sentences while the third defendant received life in prison (Biography, 2016). With Shepard, the law demonstrated an extension of protections to the LGBTQ community, and with Byrd it was a matter of extending the somewhat limited 1968 protections on race.
Objective of the Law
The text of the law outlines how it contributes to law enforcement efforts with respect to prosecuting hate crimes. The U.S. Department of Justice outlines three specific subsections. The first section broadens the hate crime standard. Whereas prior law covered only six federally-protected activities, the first subsection specifically allowed that prosecutors do not need to prove any of those activities in order to pursue hate status for a crime (Holder, 2009).
The second subsection extends hate crime protections to a wider class of victims, to include gender, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. This section also provides...
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