A SPECIAL REPORT: NEW LAWS

EXPENSIVE CROSS: Before 1992, most cross-burning cases had to be tried in federal court, using obscure property rights laws. But Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove, above) got a bill passed that makes cross-burning a state crime, with a three-year penalty. . . . “If you burn a cross on a black family’s door, it’s clear you’re trying to terrorize them,” he says. Umberg is familiar with the issue. As a federal prosecutor three years ago, he won a conviction in the last major cross-burning case in the county.