We Don't Need New Hate Crime Laws

I've long been an opponent of hate crime legislation. I don't think it's the American way to punish people for what they think, regardless of how objectionable that may be. You should be free to think whatever wacky thoughts you want, and unless you act on them, the government should leave you alone. We have plenty of criminal laws designed to punish actual acts, and the motivation for such acts should not be part of the punishment.

The Chicago Tribune seems to agree with that in an editorial today:

But why expand the use of a federal hate crime law?

Not only are crimes of violence already punishable under state laws, most states also have their own hate crimes statutes. The vast majority of street crime has always been handled by state and local authorities, and nothing suggests they are abdicating that responsibility. It's telling that only a tiny percentage of existing hate crimes leads to federal indictments.

The Senate version is called "The Matthew Shepard Act," after a gay man beaten to death in 1998 in Wyoming. But that case fails to prove the need for an expanded law. His two assailants were not charged with a hate crime, since the state had no such law. They were, however, convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Hate crime laws may be justified when the crime has a broad societal impact. A brick through the window of the first black family on a block is more than a prank. But hate crime laws raise concerns when they punish criminals differently not because of what they do, but because of what they think. In the view of Northwestern University law professor Martin Redish, it's the equivalent of tacking on extra punishment if a crime is meant to promote the cause of communism. Beat a man because he looks rich, or because he's got a Republican bumper sticker on his car, and there's no hate crime. Beat him because you think he's Jewish, or Cuban, or (under this bill) gay, and there is.

Violence ought to be punished regardless of the motive. Hate crimes are not acceptable -- but neither is any other crime.

The problem with hate crime legislation is outlined nicely in the next to last paragraph of the excerpt above. Hate crime laws tend to follow the current political correctness, and thus create situations where identical crimes are punished differently based on someone's perceptions of what the perpetrator was thinking. Since we can never know for sure someone's thoughts, they should be left out of the sentencing equation and there should be no additional charges based on what we can't know.