Constitutional Limits on Hate Crime Legislation
Released: 2010-01-19T00:00:00

Introduction

Concerns about hate crimes have become increasingly prominent among policymakers at all levels of government in recent years. A hate crime is defined as "[a] criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic/national origin, or sexual orientation." Congress has recognized the special concerns and effects of hate crimes by enacting several laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, and the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act of 1994. Current federal law permits prosecution of hate crimes committed on the basis of a person's race, color, religion, or national origin when engaging in a federally protected activity. On October 28, 2009, the President signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. The law expands the scope of hate crime victims to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. In addition, the law broadens the circumstances under which the federal government would assert jurisdiction to prosecute such crimes.

In light of the United States Supreme Court decision in United States v. Morrison , there are questions as to what underlying authority Congress may utilize to expand the scope of hate crimes to cover violence based on gender, sexual orientation, gender-identity and/or disability. The commerce clause, section 5 of the 14 th Amendment, and section 2 of the 13 th and 15 th Amendments are the grants of power most often mentioned when discussing Congress's authority to proscribe hate crimes and to enact other forms of civil rights legislation.

Commerce Clause

Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the United States Constitution authorizes Congress to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States." There are three categories of activities subject to congressional regulation under the commerce clause. Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, although the threat may come only from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress may regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce (i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce).

The Court narrowed the "affects interstate commerce" category with its decision in Morrison by rejecting the argument that Congress may regulate "non-economic, violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct's aggregate effect on interstate commerce." In this case, the Court considered a suit brought by a former student of The Virginia Polytechnic Institute who alleged that two university football players raped her. The defendants and the university argued that the Violence Against Women Act, which allowed victims of gender-motivated violence to bring federal civil suits for damages, exceeded Congress's authority under the commerce clause. The Court agreed with the defendants despite the congressional findings that gender-motivated violence deterred interstate travel, diminished national productivity, and increased medical costs. The Court concluded that upholding the Violence Against Women Act would open the door to federalization of virtually all serious crime as well as family law and other areas of traditional state regulation. The Court said that Congress must distinguish between "what is truly national and what is truly local," and that its power under the commerce clause reaches only the former. As such, it would appear that any attempts to broaden the scope of hate crime legislation tied to findings and the general nature and consequences of hate crimes under the commerce clause are constitutionally suspect. However, it would appear that hate crimes that involve interstate travel continue to be within the commerce clause's reach.

Reconstruction Amendments16

While the expansion of hate crime legislation may be suspect under the commerce clause, it may be within the scope of other legislative powers such as the legislative clauses of the 13 th , 14 th , and 15 th Amendments. The legislative clauses of the aforementioned amendments give Congress the power to enforce the Amendments by appropriate legislation. Morrison addresses the breadth of Congress's legislative power under section 5 of the 14 th Amendment. Under section 5 the Congress is vested with "power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the [Amendment's] provisions." However, in Morrison, the Court pointed out that state action, not private, is covered. As such, Section 5 does not authorize legislation "directed exclusively against the action of private persons, without reference to the laws of the state, or their administration by her officers." Therefore, hate-driven denials by state officers or those acting under the color of law of equal protection or due process, or the right to vote fall within the scope of the legislative sections of the 14 th and 15 th Amendments. Conversely, it would appear that hate crimes committed by private individuals not acting under the color of law are beyond the scope of amendments.

However, Section 2 of the 13 th Amendment may be a more viable option of broadening hate crime legislation. Unlike the 14 th Amendment, the 13 th Amendment proscribes slavery and involuntary servitude without reference to federal, state or private action. The Court has observed that "the varieties of private conduct that" Congress "may make criminally punishable ... extend far beyond the actual imposition of slavery or involuntary servitude ... Congress has the power under the 13 th Amendment rationally to determine what are the badges and incidents of slavery, and the authority to translate that determination into effective legislation."

Section 2 of the 13 th Amendment envisions legislation for the benefit of those who bore the burdens of slavery and their descendants (race and/or color). But, it is unclear as to whether it is an appropriate authority for Congress to expand the range of victims of hate crimes (e.g., religion, national origin, etc.). Two questions come to mind: First, does violence based on bigotry constitute a "badge and/or incident of slavery?" Second, if so, must the remedial legislation be limited to the descendants of those for whose principal benefit the amendments were adopted?

In a series of cases, the Court has observed that section 2 "clothes Congress with power to pass all laws necessary and proper for abolishing all badges and incidents of slavery in the United States." One could argue that due to the Court's decision in Morrison demonstrating a reluctance to expand Congress's use of the commerce clause to address gender-motivated violence, it is unclear as to whether the Court would consider the same violence as a "badge or incident of slavery" under the 13 th Amendment.

However, the Court has not yet addressed the issue of how broad this congressional authority is. In construing the civil rights statutes enacted contemporaneously with the 13 th , 14 th , and 15 th Amendments, the Court held that Arabs and Jews would have been considered distinct "races" at the time the statutes were passed and the Amendments, drafted, debated and ratified. As this case addressed the issue of race, the question of whether religion can be used as a race indicator remains unanswered. In other words, would a Roman-Catholic, Methodist, or Episcopalian be considered a distinct "race" in the 19 th century? As such, it is unclear as to whether this would be considered sufficient to embrace all religious discrimination.

Other Constitutional Limitations

There are other constitutional limits upon the manner in which Congress and/or states may enact hate crime legislation. The Court has considered constitutional challenges regarding state hate crime statutes under both the 1 st and 6 th Amendments.

The 1 st Amendment declares that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." The 14 th Amendment's due process clause imposes the same restriction upon the states, many of whose constitutions have a comparable limitation on state legislative action. Under the 1 st Amendment, the Court has decided several cases which provide the framework in which states must act to protect the constitutionality of hate crime legislation.

Generally, the constitutional distinction boils down to the difference between conduct and speech. If the statute's aim is to punish conduct, then it will generally be upheld; however, if the intent behind the statute is to punish speech, thought, or expression, then courts are more apt to strike down the statute. For example in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul , the Court struck down a local ordinance as being overbroad and because the regulation was "content-based," proscribing only activities which conveyed messages concerning particular topics. However, in Wisconsin v. Mitchell , the Court found that a Wisconsin statute providing sentence enhancement for bias-motivated crimes did not violate a defendant's 1 st Amendment right as the statute was directed towards the defendant's conduct and not expression. Most recently, in Virginia v. Black , the Court found that the 1 st Amendment permits a state to outlaw cross burnings done with the intent to intimidate because "burning a cross is a particularly virulent form of intimidation." However, in a separate ruling, the Court found that the Virginia statute banning all cross burnings is facially invalid as it impermissibly shifts the burden of proof to the defendant to demonstrate that he or she did not intend the cross burning as intimidation.

The 6 th Amendment also provides constitutional limits on hate crime statutes. The 6 th Amendment provides defendants a right to a jury trial. In Apprendi v. New Jersey , the Court struck down New Jersey's hate crime law, which allowed a judge to increase a sentence to double the statutory maximum if he or she found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant acted with a purpose to intimidate an individual or group of individuals because of race. In reversing the lower court's decision, the Court declared that the jury trial and notification clauses of the 6 th Amendment and the due process clauses of the 5 th and 14 th Amendments embody a principle that insists that, except in the case of recidivists, a judge could not on his own findings sentence a criminal defendant to a term of imprisonment greater than the statutory maximum assigned for which he had been convicted by the jury. In other words, "other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt."