Law Commons^™

Reframing Hate, Lu-In Wang

Articles

The concept and naming of “hate crime,” and the adoption of special laws to address it, provoked controversy and raised fundamental questions when they were introduced in the 1980s. In the decades since, neither hate crime itself nor those hotly debated questions have abated. To the contrary, hate crime has increased in recent years—although the prominent target groups have shifted over time—and the debate over hate crime laws has reignited as well. The still-open questions range from the philosophical to the doctrinal to the pragmatic: What justifies the enhanced punishment that hate crime laws impose based on the perpetrator’s motivation? …

Taking The 'Hate' Out Of Hate Crimes: Applying Unfair Advantage Theory To Justify The Enhanced Punishment Of Opportunistic Bias Crimes, Jordan Woods

Jordan Blair Woods

Unwarranted Assumptions In The Prosecution And Defense Of Hate Crimes, Lu-In Wang

Articles

Although at far from the level of intensity and prominence that it reached 10 years ago, the controversy over hate crimes legislation continues. In the early 1990s, debate centered on two main points of contention: whether such laws, which either criminalized traditionally racist acts or increased the punishment for other crimes when they were motivated by racial or ethnic bias, violated the First Amendment right to freedom of expression, and whether the laws were unwise and illegitimate because they seemed to provide greater protection against crime to minority groups and to emphasize, rather than obscure or obliterate, the racial divisions …

Recognizing Opportunistic Bias Crimes, Lu-In Wang

Articles

The federal approach to punishing bias-motivated crimes is more limited than the state approach. Though the federal and state methods overlap in some respects, two features of the federal approach restrict its range of application. First, federal law prohibits a narrower range of conduct than do most state bias crimes laws. In order to be punishable under federal law, bias-motivated conduct must either constitute a federal crime or interfere with a federally protected right or activity-requirements that exclude racially motivated assault, property damage and many other common violent or destructive bias offenses. In most states, however, hate crimes encompass a …

Anatomy Of An Affirmative Duty To Protect: 42 U.S.C. Section 1986, Linda E. Fisher

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Policing Hatred: Police Bias Units And The Construction Of Hate Crime, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Much of the scholarly debate about hate crime laws focuses on a discussion of their constitutionality under the First Amendment. Part of larger empirical study of police methods of investigating hate crimes, this Note attempts to shift thinking in this area beyond the existing debate over the constitutionality of hate crime legislation to a discussion of how low-level criminal justice personnel, such as the police, enforce hate crime laws. This Note argues that, since hate crimes are an area in which police have great discretion in enforcing the law, their understanding of the First Amendment and how it relates to …

Legislating Against Hate In New York: Bias Crimes And The Lesbian And Gay Community, Martin S. Zwerling

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Back From The Brink: Part Ii, Joel M. Gora

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.