Hate Crime Bill Goes against Constitution | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary

Hate Crime Bill Goes against Constitution | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Said McCain: 'Our legal system is based on identifying, capturing and punishing criminals, and not on using the power of government to try to divine biases.' In opposing what James Madison condemned as 'thought crimes,' McCain added: 'Crimes motivated by hate deserve vigorous prosecution, but so do crimes motivated by absolute wanton disregard for life of any kind.' No matter against whom.

Leahy's bill, like the counterpart 'hate crimes' measure of House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., that passed in the House this past April, violates the 14th Amendment's equal protection under the laws for individual Americans by setting up a special collective class of victims whose assailants, when convicted, will be given extra punishment for crimes perceived to be based on gender identity, sexual orientation or disability, among other biases. Those who attack the elderly, police or those of the poor who are not among the 'protected classes' would not get lengthier 'hate' sentences than the law provides for the ACT itself. Doesn't this make lesser citizens of their victims?"

"But the White House Web site points out that the House bill cites a hate crime is based on actual or PERCEIVED hate against a victim. Both bills include constitutional violations of double-jeopardy prosecutions by making it easier for the federal government to prosecute a defendant in a hate-crime case when the state says it cannot convict or chooses not to prosecute."

James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson: We have "extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind."