From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [soc.rights.human] Re: ADL/Hate Crime Laws
Followup-To: soc.rights.human,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.censorship
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 05:58:39 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

covici@ccs.covici.com (John Covici) writes:

>The Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) hate crimes
>statutes have been denounced as an ``Orwellian'' attack on
>the free speech protections of the First Amendment, by a
>Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling. In its decision, issued
>June 23, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a
>Minnesota hate crime statute, the Wisconsin ruling
>undercuts the legal support for the ``sentencing
>enhancement'' provisions of the ADL-sponsored statutes
>which are now on the books in 48 other states. The only
>element of the ADL program left unchallenged is the
>federal ``Hate Crime Statistics Act,'' which should be
>scrutinized by Congress in light of this ruling. 
>   The Wisconsin case, {State of Wisconsin v. Todd
>Mitchell,} involved a black youth who led a gang which
>attacked a white teenager, beat him unconscious, and stole
>his tennis shoes. Ironically, the attack was precipitated
>by a heated discussion among the youths about the movie
>``Mississippi Burning''--an inflammatory and fraudulent
>propaganda piece produced on behalf of the ADL by
>Hollywood to support the hate crimes statutes. Todd
>Mitchell, one of the older members of the group, asked the
>others, ``Do you all feel hyped up to move on some white
>people?'' Upon sighting the victim, Mitchell urged, ``You
>all want to f-- somebody up? There goes a white boy; go
>get him.'' 
>   The state charged and convicted Mitchell of
>aggravated battery, a felony which carried a maximum
>sentence of two years. The jury found that Mitchell had
>selected his victim because of his race, thereby being
>guilty of committing a ``hate crime'' which increased the
>potential maximum sentence from two to seven years. The
>circuit court and the appeals court denied Mitchell's
>request for relief, and the issue brought before the State
>Supreme Court was the constitutionality of the sentencing
>enhancement provisions themselves. 
>
>          - ADL schemes create thought crimes -
>   The Wisconsin law is based on the ADL model statute,
>which provides for increased penalties for crimes already
>punishable by law. Despite the fact that in some cases the
>enhanced punishments can transform a misdemeanor (such as
>simple battery) into a felony, the ADL claims the statutes
>do not create new crimes, but merely use a sentencing
>procedure to punish bigotry. 
>   Chief Justice Heffernan, writing for the majority,
>ripped this argument to ribbons. First of all, he said,
>``The hate crimes statute violates the First Amendment
>directly by punishing what the legislature has deemed to
>be offensive thought and violates the First Amendment
>indirectly by chilling free speech.'' He pointed out that
>``in any assault upon an individual there is a selection of
>the victim'' and that is part of the underlying offense,
>the ``intent'' in committing the crime. The inherent problem
>with the hate crimes statutes is that they specifically
>target the ``motive'' or thought behind the selection, and
>do so in a subjective, and even political fashion. 
>   The seemingly plausible defense of the statutes
>raised by the ADL and the National Gay and Lesbian Task
>Force (the other main sponsor of these laws), asserts that
>the statutes are the same thing as the anti-discrimination
>features of civil rights laws. The ADL, an openly racist
>organization, drapes these laws with the mantle of the
>civil rights movement. 
>   Justice Heffernan correctly points out that
>``discrimination and bigotry are not the same thing'' and
>can't be treated legally as if they were. In
>anti-discrimination statutes, for example, it is a
>discriminatory {act} which is prohibited. Additionally, he
>points out, ``there is a difference between the civil
>penalties [of] anti-discrimination statutes and the
>criminal penalties imposed by the hate crimes law.... It
>is the objective conduct taken in respect to the victim
>which is redressed (not punished) by those
>[anti-discrimination] statutes, not the actor's motives.'' 
>   Heffernan continues: ``The hate crimes statute does
>not punish the underlying criminal act, it punishes the
>defendant's motive for acting. Taking the dissent's
>explanation that the statute is concerned with the
>`decision' of the defendant, it is clear that the hate
>crimes statute creates nothing more than a thought crime.
>Apparently that dissent is comfortable with such an
>Orwellian notion; we are not.'' 
>   In June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a hate
>crime ordinance passed by the city of St. Paul, Minnesota.
>That ordinance banned conduct which ``arouses anger, alarm,
>or resentment in others on the basis of race, color,
>creed, religion or gender.'' The court ruled that the
>historic protections of the First Amendment, which has
>been interpreted to allow for the punishment of especially
>inflammatory or provocative speech, would be nullified if
>legislatures are allowed to selectively punish only
>certain classes of ``fighting words'' based upon the content
>of the expression, i.e., ``bias-motivated'' hatred. 
>   This problem plagues the sentencing enhancement
>provisions of hate crime laws in general. The chilling
>effect on free speech cast by the hate crimes statutes is
>dangerously broad, the court notes. In effect, every
>personal association, every book ever read, every speech
>ever given or listened to by anyone charged with one of
>the underlying offenses, could be introduced as evidence
>that he or she held ``bigoted'' views and was acting upon
>them while committing the offense. 
>
>From Executive Intelligence Review V19, #30.
>
>----
>         John Covici
>          covici@ccs.covici.com
>
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh