Hate crimes statute seldom used

I neglected to mention that at the Austin Statesman, Eric Dexheimer last week had a lengthy item in which your correspondent was briefly quoted critiquing Texas' seldom-used hate crimes statute, which has yielded just 10 successful prosecutions since Gov. Perry signed it into law in 2001. "'The law should punish bad actions, not unpopular or ignorant beliefs,' said Scott Henson, who writes the Grits for Breakfast criminal justice blog. 'It's another enhancement passed more out of political posturing than from good public policy or common sense.'"

From Grits' perspective, the hate-crimes statute flew in the face of the concept of equal protection under the law, creating an Animal-Farm type scenario where some are theoretically more equal than others. Of course, the same is true of nearly all "enhancements." E.g., when the livestock industry successfully seeks state-jail felony status for theft of a $35 goat, that means stealing from a protected class gets harsher penalties than stealing from you or me. The same theory underlay Texas' hate-crimes enhancements, and like so many special-interest driven enhancements (how many people are prosecuted for Texas' eleven oyster felonies, after all?), the statute in practice is seldom used.

Besides, aren't nearly all murders hate crimes? (Or at least the ones that aren't part of black-market business transactions?) Is the murderer's grim endeavor or the harm they reap worsened because the perpetrator indulged racist thoughts, or mitigated if they were thinking of unicorns and rainbows while dispatching their victims? I think not. Though it was enacted before this blog began, your correspondent disliked Texas' hate-crimes law at the time it passed and sees nothing to dislodge that view now that history has borne out most of its weaknesses and so few of the benefits touted by its proponents.