Court Upholds Harsher Terms for Hate Crimes

People who commit “hate crimes” motivated by bigotry may be sentenced to extra punishment without violating their free-speech rights, the Supreme Court ruled Friday.

“A physical assault is not by any stretch of the imagination expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment,” Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for a unanimous court.

The decision upheld the doubled sentence of a black man convicted of inciting the beating of a white youth in Kenosha, Wis.

Bias-motivated crimes are “thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm,” Rehnquist wrote. “The state’s desire to redress these perceived harms provides an adequate explanation for its penalty-enhancement provision over and above mere disagreement with offenders’ beliefs or biases.”

In other action Friday, the court ruled unanimously that religious groups have a constitutional right to sacrifice animals in worship services. In striking down a ban on such rituals in Hialeah, Fla., the court said the prohibition was aimed only at conduct motivated by religious belief and thus “violated the nation’s essential commitment to religious freedom.”

Animal rights activists blasted the decision as “an obscene, bizarre and disastrous mistake.”

In the hate-crimes case, Rehnquist noted that judges traditionally have been allowed to consider defendants’ motives in imposing sentence.

At least 20 states have laws allowing longer prison terms for crimes motivated by racial or other bias, and federal legislation has been introduced in the House.

Friday’s ruling was the high court’s second decision in as many years on the divisive issue.

The justices last year struck down a St. Paul, Minn., ordinance that banned cross-burnings and other expressions of racial bias. The ordinance violated free speech because it sought to ban some viewpoints, the court ruled.

“Whereas the ordinance struck down (in the St. Paul case) was explicitly directed at expression . . . the statute in this case is aimed at conduct unprotected by the First Amendment,” Rehnquist wrote Friday.

But he added that sentencing judges may not take into account “a defendant’s abstract beliefs, however obnoxious to most people.”

The ruling reinstated a Wisconsin law that had been struck down by the state’s highest court.

The law does not create new types of crimes attributed to bias. Instead, it allows longer sentences for people convicted of violating existing laws if they chose their victim because of race, religion, disability or sexual orientation.

Todd Mitchell was sentenced to four years in prison in the October, 1989, beating of a 14-year-old white boy. Mitchell, then 19, was among a group of blacks who were discussing the movie “Mississippi Burning.”

“Do you all feel hyped up to move on some white people?” Mitchell asked the group. The youths saw Gregory Reddick walking nearby, and Mitchell said, “There goes a white boy; go get him.”

Samuel Rabinove of the American Jewish Committee praised the ruling, saying: “The key is that this is conduct, not speech. If First Amendment protection were to be construed so broadly, then all laws on discrimination would be vulnerable to challenge.”

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Steven Shapiro agreed, but said he wished the court had stated more clearly that hate-crime laws “are not an excuse to rummage through someone’s political views and political statements and punish people based on these statements.”

The ruling will let states do just that, said Harry Reinhart of the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

“It allows the government to regulate or attempt to regulate . . . thoughts people hold that are presently unpopular,” Reinhart said. “I don’t think people have ever empowered government to do that.”

In the animal-sacrifice case, the court overturned a 1987 ban that the city of Hialeah imposed after followers of the Afro-Caribbean religion Santeria announced plans to open a church there. Santeria adherents routinely sacrifice chickens, ducks, goats and sheep.

The court said the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom protects the right to sacrifice animals, no matter how offensive that might be to others.

The 9-0 ruling was the court’s third decision in a week favoring religion in disputes with government. Undiminished by the rulings, however, is a 1990 Supreme Court decision that mainstream religions say undermined their liberty.

The case was taken to the high court by the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye (pronounced loo’-kuh-mee bah-bah-loo’ eye-ay’), and its priest, Ernesto Pichardo. Animal sacrifices have long been an integral part of Santeria birth, marriage and death rites and the initiation of priests. Most of the animals are eaten.

Writing for the court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said Hialeah improperly aimed the ban at Santeria believers. Other cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles, have passed similar laws.

“Although the practice of animal sacrifice may seem abhorrent to some, religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection,” Kennedy wrote.

Up to 60,000 people in south Florida practice Santeria, which was carried to Cuba by slaves in past centuries but banned by early slave traders and Christian missionaries.

“We are amazed by the decision. As an immigrant, as a Cuban, I feel a great honor,” Pichardo said. “This is why we came to the United States, because we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion.”

Roger Caras, president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, called it “an obscene, bizarre and disastrous mistake” and compared it to the high court’s pre-Civil War ruling that upheld slavery.

“This voodoo-like religion is not legitimate in the context of modern America,” Caras said.

Hialeah Mayor Julio Martinez said the city would accept the decision reluctantly. He said its ordinance had been based on health concerns.

“I don’t think anyone likes to see animal carcasses in front of your house or in front of your car when you’re driving down the street,” Martinez said. “But the Supreme Court says that’s what we have to put up with.”