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Hate crime laws in the United States are state and federal laws intended to protect against hate crimes (also known as bias crimes). While state laws vary, current statutes permit federal prosecution of hate crimes committed on the basis of a person's characteristics of race, religion, ethnicity, disability, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity.
Hate crime laws are distinct from laws against hate speech: hate crime laws enhance the penalties associated with conduct which is already criminal under other laws, while hate speech laws criminalize a category of speech. Hate speech is a factor for sentencing enhancement in the United States, distinct from laws that criminalize speech.
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is a landmark United States federal law, passed on October 22, 2009, [1] and signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009, [2] as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010 (H.R. 2647). Conceived as a response to the murders of Matthew Shepard and ...
Hate speech in the United States cannot be directly regulated by the government due to the fundamental right to freedom of speech protected by the Constitution. [1] While "hate speech" is not a legal term in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that most of what would qualify as hate speech in other western countries is legally protected speech under the First Amendment.
Most states and US territories also have hate crime laws that are enforced by local and state courts. Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst and former deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice ...
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act is a United States federal law which defines lynching as a federal hate crime, increasing the maximum penalty to 30 years imprisonment for several hate crime offences. [1][2] It was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on February 28, 2022, and U.S. Senate on March 7, 2022, and signed into law on March 29 ...
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Pub. L. 90–284, 82 Stat. 73, enacted April 11, 1968) is a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots. Titles II through VII comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applies to the Native American tribes of the United States ...
Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476 (1993), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that enhanced penalties for hate crimes do not violate criminal defendants' First Amendment rights. [1] It was a landmark precedent pertaining to First Amendment free speech arguments for hate crime legislation. [2]