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| October 4, 2000 | |||
The False Premise of "Hate Crimes"
Are "Hate Crimes" Unique? Are They Worse Than All Other Crimes? President Clinton wants to sign a hate-crimes law before he leaves office. The language he wants to sign is on the Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4205), which is in conference.
The President wants us to believe that government-defined "hate crimes" are more terrible than other crimes. A few weeks ago at the White House he said, "It is just not true that hate crimes are like other crimes. It is not even true that every crime is a hate crime. And that is fundamentally at the heart of this debate."
The President is wrong, and on several counts.
The official crime numbers for 1999 will not be available for a couple of weeks. For now, the latest year for which official information is available is 1998 when there were 16,914 murders in the United States, 13 of which were government-denominated "hate crimes".
- The President wants us to believe that each of the 13 "hate-crimes" murders was more terrible than any of the 16,901 other murders.
- The President wants us to believe that if the murderers in the 13 "hate-crimes" cases had acted slightly differently -- for example, if they had been heard to utter slightly different words -- then their crimes would not have been so very terrible.
- The President wants us to believe that the social harm caused by the cumulative effects of the 13 "hate-crimes" murders is greater than the social harm caused by the cumulative effects of the 16,901 other murders.
Can such views possibly be correct?
The President, like all supporters of "hate-crimes" legislation, regularly invokes the names of two victims of "hate crimes", James Byrd, Jr. of Texas and Matthew Shepard of Wyoming. Their stories are well known to most Americans because thousands and thousands of news stories recounted their tragedies. The 16,912 other victims of murder do not get that kind of press -- even the 11 other victims of "hate crimes" are unheralded, but it is their stories that we are going to tell here, state by state:
Arkansas. In Arkansas in 1998, there were 201 murders. One of them was an officially reported "hate crime", but few Americans have ever heard of it.
James Boyd Ward, a 37-year-old black man, was killed November 17, 1998 by an 18-year-old white male who says that Ward threatened to sexually assault him. Ward's attorney seems to believe that this is a case of self-defense, and the prosecuting attorney seems to believe that the defendant is lying through his teeth, but the official hate-crimes publication of the United States Government counted this tragic confrontation as a hate crime. The case is still pending, but at the time of the crime the local paper reported the events as follows:
"An El Dorado man who was arrested Tuesday afternoon for first-degree murder told police the man he is accused of killing made sexual advances to him twice, according to an El Dorado Police Department probable cause affidavit. Jeremy Cole Leggett, 18, . . . was arraigned Wednesday for capital murder in Union County Municipal Court. He is accused of murdering James Boyd Ward, 37, in Ward's residence. . . . * * *
"According to the affidavit, Leggett said he had been in Ward's residence on Monday when Ward asked 'how much it would cost him to have sex' with Leggett. Leggett said he told Ward he was 'straight.' * * * Leggett said he was sitting in the living room floor when Ward came out of a bedroom wearing only a shirt. He said Ward grabbed him and was going to sodomize him. Leggett said he removed a knife from his pocket and stabbed Ward in the chest. * * *" [Source: "Probable cause affidavit released in murder case," El Dorado News-Times, Nov. 19, 1998.]
The reason most Americans have never heard of this "hate-crime" murder is that not even one story appeared in an out-of-state newspaper, and we could find only three stories in Arkansas papers. Perhaps they don't read Arkansas papers at the White House anymore, and perhaps that explains why the President makes frequent reference to a murder in Texas and another in Wyoming but no reference at all to a murder that occurred in the State he once claimed as home.
California. In California in 1998, there were a total of 2,171 murders. Two of them were officially denominated hate crimes. One involved a blow with a fist and the other was a case of road rage.
Brian Wilmes, age 45, was killed on March 12, 1998, in San Francisco. The perpetrator hit Wilmes once in the jaw. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the defendant's "motive behind the attack was a question throughout the case. Prosecutors charged that a drunken [defendant] lashed out at Wilmes in an anti-gay rage, while defense attorneys argued that Wilmes' sexual orientation had nothing to do with the attack." The jury deadlocked 9-3 against convicting the defendant of murder motivated by anti-homosexual bigotry. The defendant then pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to imprisonment for five years.
In the second California case, Russell Craig Lebard, a white male, was killed on July 4, 1998, in Sacramento when he was struck by a car driven by a 25-year-old black male. Lebard, a passenger in one car, had shouted racial expletives at the driver of the other car who responded in kind. After taking their argument off the main road, Lebard threw a pair of gardening sheers at the second driver who then ran over Lebard and killed him. Final disposition of the case is unknown. There was no out-of-state press coverage of Mr. Lebard's killing.
Many "hate crimes" are only arguments that get violently out of hand. The consequences of such crimes are tragic, but the crimes are not racist conspiracies or insurrections or lynchings.
Florida. In Florida in 1998, there were 967 murders. Two of them were officially designated as "hate crimes".
Denzil Jeffrey Amburgey, a 35-year-old homeless man, was killed May 25, 1998, in Pompano Beach. The perpetrator, a black man, had been smoking crack and drinking alcohol and declared before attacking Amburgey that he was going to "f--- that cracker up." The defense said there was no intent to kill, but that the defendant "was frustrated over a failed relationship, got drunk and attacked the first person he saw." The defendant was found guilty of second-degree murder. You wouldn't have heard of Mr. Amburgey's murder; there was no out-of-state press coverage.
In the second "hate crime", Steven Goedereis, a 29-year-old homosexual, was beaten to death by two white males in the city of Greenacres on April 27, 1998. The defendants and their girlfriends were out together when they passed Goedereis who told one of the defendants he was "pretty". That remark started a chain of events that led to Goedereis's death. One defendant was sentenced to 50 years in prison for murder and 30 years for robbery, and the other defendant was sentenced to 25 years for third-degree murder.
Idaho. In Idaho in 1998, there were 36 murders, yet the President wants us to believe that the one that occurred inside prison walls poses a special threat to all Americans. That crime was designated an official "hate crime".
John Alfred Williams, a 38-year-old black man, was beaten to death at the Idaho Maximum Security Prison on April 17, 1998 by a Hispanic prisoner who used a baseball bat. Final disposition of the case is not known.
Nevada. In Nevada in 1998, there were 170 murders. One of them was a "hate crime".
George Sullivan, a 19-year veteran of the University of Nevada-Reno campus police force, was killed January 13, 1998. Officer Sullivan was bludgeoned to death in his squad car at one o'clock in the morning. The perpetrator then took the officer's weapon and committed two armed robberies. The perpetrator, a native of Tonga, apparently had said that he wanted to kill a white cop. The defendant was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
Officer Sullivan was one of 61 police officers killed in the line of duty in 1998. His murder received fairly wide attention in the news media, but not because it was a "hate crime". The crime was newsworthy because it involved the killing of a police officer and an interstate manhunt that ended in a shootout in Salt Lake City.
New York. Almost no one has heard of the New York City "hate-crimes" murder. The police authorities we spoke with did not have a name of the victim, but he was a white male, age 38, who was killed by a black male, age 58, on August 31, 1998. The killing occurred on Summit Avenue in the 44th precinct of the Bronx and was preceded by racial slurs. No other information is available.
In New York State in 1998, there were 924 murders, of which 633 occurred in the City of New York. During the same year, there were 13 "hate-crimes" murders in the entire country. To put it differently, there were about as many murders in New York City (population 7,358,000) in a week as there are hate-crimes murders in the entire country (population 270,296,000) in a year. The President thinks the "hate-crimes" murders make us more afraid.
Ohio. In Ohio in 1998, there were 443 murders, but you've never heard of the one "hate-crimes" murder because it went virtually unreported.
Randy Holman of Massillon, a white man, was killed on December 2, 1998, when he went to a bar looking for a black friend. The bar has a reputation as a drug market. Holman asked several black males if his friend were present, and they said they didn't know. Holman then said he was looking to buy some crack. Apparently, one of the men took offense at that statement because he thought Holman was implying that the man was a crack dealer, solely because the man is black. Holman was beaten to death by two men. One defendant was given 10 years for voluntary manslaughter, and the other was given 10 years for complicity.
Texas. In Texas in 1998, there were 1,346 murders. Three of them were officially designated "hate crimes". You have never heard of two of the Texas victims of "hate crimes".
Rafael Enrique Alvarado, a 27-year-old Hispanic male was stabbed to death January 18, 1998, in the city of Rosenberg. The perpetrators were a 29-year-old Hispanic male, a 34-year-old Hispanic male, and a 21-year-old black male. The murder was classified as a hate crime because the perpetrators set out to "roll a wetback." There was no out-of-state coverage of Mr. Alvarado's murder.
Zacchaeus "Zack" Field, a 36-year-old African American, was killed on October 18, 1998, in the city of Wichita Falls. The two killers were white, ages 25 and 38. Field could have been killed because he was black, because he had some money, or because he was mistaken for someone else, police documents say. However, the case was finally considered a racial matter because one of the defendants had bragged of being a member of the Aryan Brotherhood and said he hated minorities. On the other hand, that defendant said that he is friends with and works with people of color, and that he is not a racist. There was no out-of-state coverage of Mr. Field's murder.
The third "hate-crimes" murder in Texas is well known, it was James Byrd's. He was an African American male who was chained to a pickup truck and dragged to his death by three white males. All three have been found guilty of murder, and two of the three have been sentenced to death.
Although Mr. Byrd's death is classified as a "hate crime" in the Federal Government's official book, his murderers were not charged with "hate crimes". They were charged with capital murder and duly convicted thereof.
Wyoming. The general circumstances of Matthew Shepard's death also are well known. He was beaten by two white males and tied to a fence where he died. Both of the murderers have been sentenced to two life terms. The crime was attributed to prejudice against homosexuals, and thousands upon thousands of news stories have told the story of Matthew Shepard's death.
Although Mr. Shepard's death is classified as a "hate crime" in the Federal Government's official book, his murderers were not charged with "hate crimes" by the State of Wyoming. They were charged with murder and duly convicted.
In Wyoming in 1998, there were 23 murders, including eight-year-old Christin Lamb who was raped and murdered on July 19 and whose badly decomposed body was discovered in a duffel bag in the Powell, Wyoming landfill. Her remains had to be identified through dental records. The President does not think that the outrage committed upon Christin Lamb was a "hate crime".
Crime and Harm
We have summarized the 13 "hate-crimes" murders from 1998, but there is a danger in writing a paper like this. The danger is that our readers -- like the President of the United States -- will focus exclusively on those 13 murders and not on the 16,901 other murders committed in 1998. (In truth, the President focuses almost exclusively on just 2 of those nearly 17,000 murders.) We regret being unable to tell the stories of the other 99.923 percent of murder victims, and of the 1.5 million victims of other crimes of violence.
This paper has sketched the stories behind just 13 murders, but those stories are perfectly sufficient to show that "hate-crimes" murders are not unique. They are not uniquely vicious, they are not uniquely terrifying, and they are not uniquely harmful to the community.
Some official "hate crimes" are especially vicious or terrifying or harmful, but most are not. At the same time, there are many, many other crimes which are not official "hate crimes" that are especially vicious, terrifying, or harmful.
Not one of 1998's official "hate-crimes" murders involved a child victim, a sexual assault, or multiple victims, yet the President wants us to believe that those officially designated "hate crimes" are uniquely the most heinous crimes committed in America. He is wrong, and the information in this paper shows how he is wrong.
In 1998, there were 13 "hate-crimes" murders but 16,901 other murders.
In 1998, there were 1,226 violent crimes motivated by officially designated "hatred", but 1,530,000 violent crimes committed for other reasons, including the old-fashioned kind of hatred that was not judged politically incorrect.
If we can judge social harm by measuring the wickedness of a crime and multiplying it by the number of times it is committed, then we see that the President is wrong again, and this time by several orders of magnitude.
Sources: Our data are taken from Crime in the United States, 1998 (also known as Uniform Crime Reports) and Hate Crime Statistics, 1998, both of which are published by the United States Department of Justice. As used in the reports and in this paper, the term "murder" includes the crime of nonnegligent manslaughter. This paper counts "hate-crime" robbery as a crime of violence against persons although Hate Crime Statistics inexplicably counts robbery as a property crime. (We are following the lead of the Uniform Crime Reports which counts robbery as a violent crime against persons.) Hate Crime Statistics does not give names of victims or perpetrators; it lists only the jurisdictions in which "hate crimes" have been committed. The Republican Policy Committee did its own independent research to identify the victims of "hate crimes" and the circumstances of the crimes. If readers have additional information on any of the crimes described in this paper, we would appreciate having it sent to us. Unlike the well-known "hate-crimes" murders, information on many of the other "hate-crimes" murders was difficult to come by. In 8 of the 13 "hate-crimes" murders, not one story appeared in an out-of-State newspaper. In 3 of the 13 murders, we could not find even one "hit" in a search of the Lexis-Nexis data base. In 3 other cases, there were 3 "hits" or fewer.
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