Hate Crime Laws Are 'Something from an Orwell Dystopia,' Columnist Says
The federal government and nearly every state have hate crime laws, passed with the noble aim of preventing crimes motivated by bias.
But a New York Times columnist questions the wisdom of such laws, used in the prosecution of Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers University student who used a webcam to spy on his roommate during a gay romantic encounter. The roommate later committed suicide, and Ravi faces up to 10 years in prison. Columnist Bill Keller says he views the verdict as an attempt to use “handy bias statutes” to punish someone for an unexplained death. “It’s not a great reach to say that Ravi faces up to 10 years in prison for being a jerk,” he writes.
Keller relies on reasoning laid out by former University of Illinois law dean Heidi Hurd, now a professor at the law school. She points out that the laws punish not only what people do, but also who people are. The laws ratchet up the penalties for crimes committed by people thought to have an evil disposition, the column says.
Keller sees the laws as “something from an Orwell dystopia. Horrific crimes deserve stern justice, but don’t we want to be careful about criminalizing a defect of character?”
