THE 5th ANNIVERSARY OF A
LEGAL LANDMARK

The Supreme Court Upholds a Law Incorporating ADL’s Approach to Punishing Hate Crimes.

June 1998 marks the fifth anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s unanimous decision upholding the constitutionality of a Wisonsin law providing for enhanced penalties for bias-motivated crimes.

For almost two decades, ADL has advocated an approach to hate-motivated crimes that provides for stronger  penalites for criminal acts motivated by bias based onrace, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or gender.  In 1991, Wisconsin adopted a hate-crime law that incorportated the ADL penalty enhancement concept embodied in the ADL model hate crimes law which dates back to 1981.  In 1993, the United States Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, unanimously upheld the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s hate crime statute. In a landmark decision, Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the Court approved  enhanced penalties for bias-motivated crimes. Today, more than 40 states have such laws on their books.

In its decision, the Court referred to several "friend of the court" or amicus briefs, including ADL’s, which stated that "bias motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest." The Court agreed. It said that "the State’s desire to redress these perceived harms provides an adequate explanation for its penalty-enhancement provisions over and above mere disagreement with offenders’ beliefs or biases."

Unfortunately, five years later, hate crimes continue to plague our society. The vicious bias-motivated of an African-American in Jasper County, Texas testifies to this. As long as such crimes continue to bedevil us, we must remain committed to using every available legal means of redress. ADL is please to offer its resources and expertise on hate crimes as part of our ongoing effort to combat prejudice, bigotry, and all forms of bias-motivated criminal conduct.