ATLANTA, Oct. 25 - The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously struck down
the state's four-year-old hate-crimes law on Monday, saying it was
"unconstitutionally vague."
Justice Carol W. Hunstein wrote in the opinion that hate-crimes laws
could be appropriate, but that this one did not give people of ordinary
intelligence a specific enough warning of what conduct to avoid.
L. David Wolfe, the lawyer for Christopher Botts, one of those
appealing to the court, said, "I don't believe that the statute is
necessary."
"It seems to me that most violent crimes are motivated by some sort of
prejudice or bias," Mr. Wolfe said. "But if, in fact, there is going to
be a hate-crimes statute, I think it should be well defined so the
protected class is identified and known to everybody in the community."
Prosecutors said Mr. Botts and his girlfriend, Angela Pisciotta, who
are white, screamed racial epithets as they beat two African-American
brothers who had passed them as the couple panhandled in Little Five
Points, a district just east of downtown Atlanta known for its
multicultural shops and businesses. Mr. Botts and Ms. Pisciotta pleaded
guilty to aggravated assault and received six years in prison, and a
Fulton County judge in a bench trial added two years for the
hate-crimes violation. He found another participant in the beating not
guilty of a hate crime.
The law required harsher sentencing for someone who "intentionally
selected any victim or any property of the victim as the object of the
offense because of bias or prejudice."
The law's advocates had tried to pass a more specific bill, identifying
race, religion, gender, national origin or sexual orientation as the
motivation for the crime, but were stymied in the House over the
inclusion of sexual orientation. The bill passed when lawmakers removed
all protected categories.
"It was the best that could be accomplished at the time," said Harry
Knox, formerly executive director of Georgia Equality, a gay rights
group. "We tried to get more from the Legislature but couldn't."
By encompassing "every possible partiality or preference," the court
said, the law could be used even against "a rabid sports fan convicted
of uttering terroristic threats to a victim selected for wearing a
competing team's baseball cap" or "a campaign worker convicted of
trespassing for defacing a political opponent's yard signs." It also
said the law put decisions like who should be protected into the hands
of police officers, judges and juries, leaving it open to arbitrary
interpretations.
The state had argued that the law did not need to be so specific
because it was only a sentencing statute, and the aggravated assault
law laid out the unlawful conduct. But the court said the hate-crimes
law established a sentence for additional conduct, selecting the
victim.
State Senator Vincent D. Fort, who sponsored the legislation that
created the law, said the ruling was "a partial victory" because it
upheld the general principle of harsher sentences for hate crimes. He
said he would "aggressively fight for a new law."
By ARIEL HART © New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/national/26hate.html
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