Jeff Sessions attempts to kill Matthew Shepard Act

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL, embarrassingly), has introduced three amendments to the Matthew Shepard Act that the Senate tacked on the Defense appropriations bill last week. These amendments are unnecessary and are designed to diminish support for the bill.

"The first Sessions Amendment would allow the death penalty to be applied in hate crimes cases under some circumstances. This Amendment is unnecessary and is a poison pill designed to kill the bill. The Amendment is being offered by and supported by Senators who oppose the Matthew Shepard Act. It’s ironic that the very Senators who have falsely argued that this bill would put clergy in jail because of their beliefs think that those same clergy should be subject to the death penalty.

"The second Sessions Amendment would place an additional burden on the Justice Department to revise its long established guidelines for hate crimes cases. This Amendment is unnecessary. The Department already contains well-established, clear and precise guidelines to govern cases involving bias-motivated violence that work well.

"Finally, the third Sessions Amendment would provide additional penalties for crimes involving service members or their families. This Amendment is unnecessary. Existing statutes already provide special penalties on attacks against members of the Armed Services and veterans. In addition, the vague language of the Amendment is problematic. The Amendment provides for additional penalties for injuring the property of a serviceman or immediate family member. The scope of “family member” or what constitutes an “injury” to their property is unclear."

Today the Senate may vote on these amendments, as well as the proposed amendment to the appropriations bill to remove the F-22 funding, the clause that will cause the President to veto the bill. We might know the results of these votes later today.

Opposition

James Dobson, founder of the socially conservative lobbying group Focus on the Family, opposed the Act, arguing that it would effectively "muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality." However, HR 1592 contains a "Rule of Construction" which specifically provides that "Nothing in this Act...shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution."

Senator Jeff Sessions, among other Senators, is concerned that the bill does not protect all individuals equally.

Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina has spoken against the bill, saying that the bill is unnecessary, that it violates the 14th Amendment which guarantees equal justice under the law, and that it would move us a step closer to the prosecution of thought crimes.

Origin

This act is named for a gay American student, Matthew Shepard, who was tortured and murdered in 1998 near Laramie, Wyoming. During the ensuing trial of his attackers, witnesses stated that Shepard was targeted because he was gay. His killers were not charged under hate crime laws because, at the time, the hate crime law in Wyoming did not recognize homosexual persons as a suspect class.
Shepard's murder and the subsequent trial brought subsequent national and international attention to the desire to amend U.S. hate crime legislation at both the state and federal levels.

Background

The 1969 federal hate-crime law (18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)) extends only to crimes motivated by actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin, and only while the victim is engaging in a federally-protected activity, like voting or going to school. Penalties, under both the existing law and the LLEHCPA, for hate crimes involving firearms are prison terms of up to 10 years, while crimes involving kidnapping, sexual assault, or murder can bring life in prison.

According to FBI statistics, of the over 113,000 hate crimes since 1991, 55% were motivated by racial bias, 17% by religious bias, 14% sexual orientation bias, 14% ethnicity bias, and 1% disability bias.

The Act is supported by thirty-one state Attorneys General and over 210 national law enforcement, professional, education, civil rights, religious, and civic organizations, including the AFL-CIO, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the NAACP. A November 2001 poll indicated that 73% of Americans favor hate-crime legislation covering sexual orientation.

The LLEHCPA was introduced in substantially similar form in each Congress since the 105th Congress in 1999. The 2007 bill expands on the earlier versions (originally called the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act) by including transgender provisions and making it explicit that the law should not be interpreted to restrict people's freedom of speech or association.

Matthew Shepard Act

The Matthew Shepard Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act or LLEHCPA), is a recently passed bill in the United States Congress that would expand the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

The bill would also:

* remove the current prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally-protected activity, like voting or going to school;
* give federal authorities greater ability to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue;
* provide $10 million in funding for 2008 and 2009 to help state and local agencies pay for investigating and prosecuting hate crimes;
* require the FBI to track statistics on hate crimes against transgender people (statistics for the other groups are already tracked).[