What is a Hate Crime Law?
Though the phrase is somewhat vague, references to “hate crime” laws generally encompass criminal statutes that identify what would already be criminal conduct and treat that conduct as worse (by federalizing the offense, for example, or by enhancing its penalty) because of its connection to invidious discrimination on the basis of such qualities as race, sex, national origin, or religion. To give a simple example, a hate crime law might take a garden-variety assault and battery prosecution and allow for harsher penalties if the perpetrators chose to attack the victim because of his race. The Supreme Court Strikes Down One Type of Hate Crime Law In 1992, in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, the Supreme Court invalidated a bias-motivated crime ordinance on First Amendment grounds. The act alleged in the particular case was the burning of a cross on a black family’s lawn. The law in question had prohibited “the display of a symbol which one knows or has reason to know ‘arouses anger, alarm or
