a first amendment analysisof hate- crime laws（第一修正案对恨——犯罪的法律）（38页）.docVIP

A First Amendment Analysis of Hate-Crime Laws Revisiting Wisconsin v. Mitchell and recommending change Nathan R. Sellers Gustavus Adolphus College Introduction In 1993, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a Wisconsin state statute that enhanced the penalty for the conviction of a crime that was committed “because of” the “race, religion, color, disability, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry” of the victim (Wisconsin v. Mitchell, n1). The Court’s opinion in Wisconsin v. Mitchell was initially hailed by the media, politicians, and legal scholars and has received little criticism since then (Gey 1014). This paper will challenge the Court’s decision in Mitchell and will show that the Court erroneously upheld the Wisconsin statute, and thus set a precedent for the constitutionality of similar laws throughout the United States. Penalty-enhancement hate-crime laws are unconstitutional because they criminalize motive, and the only way to prove motive is to use a defendant’s speech, thought, and associations. All of these are forms of expression that have been traditionally protected by the Supreme Court. As long as hate-crime laws criminalize motive – the reason an individual commits a criminal act – they will necessarily criminalize constitutionally protected forms of expression. Under current penalty-enhancement hate-crime laws, criminals are punished for their prejudicial or bigoted thoughts. This country has long held that even the most objectionable beliefs are constitutionally allowable. In place of existing penalty-enhancement hate-crime legislation, this paper will propose a new approach to hate-crime statutes. Under this proposal, the intent of the perpetrator of hate crimes will be criminalized. Intent, which is different from motive, is the desired result for a given action. States are constitutionally allowed to more severely criminalize the intention of a criminal, if that intention caus