When the Senate passed a federal hate-crimes measure by a 63-28 earlier this month, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., proclaimed, "This legislation will help to address the serious and growing problem of hate crimes."
I'm baffled. Washington passed the first federal hate-crimes bill in 1968 and 45 states have enacted hate-crime laws. This latest bill, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, expanded the list of hate crimes -- which originally focused on attacks based on the victims' race, color, religion or national origin -- to include those targeted because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
If hate-crime laws prevent hate crimes, shouldn't hate crimes be shrinking, not growing?
Forgive the question, because there's nothing glib about any crime of violence. The 1998 torture-murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard -- who was found tied to a fence, battered and shoeless in the cold -- was so cruel that it took Shepard three days to die.
Attorneys for one of Shepard's killers, Aaron McKinney, tried to introduce a "gay panic" defense, to explain why a crime that started as a robbery ended in death. The judge refused to allow the bogus defense and a jury found McKinney guilty of felony murder. To avoid the death penalty, his accomplice had pleaded guilty to the killing. Both are serving double life sentences.
It's hard to understand how a federal hate-crimes law could send a stronger message than life in prison. Or a stronger message than the response of security guards at the Holocaust Museum, who, after white supremacist James Von Brunn fatally shot guard Stephen T. Johns in June, shot Von Brunn in the face. With or without the Shepard act, Von Brunn could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.
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