Hate Crimes Prove Hard to Prosecute : Legal system: O.C. community groups say district attorney’s office should file charges in more cases.

As a youth in segregated North Carolina, Ron Coley recalls times he was chased home by white teen-agers hurling rocks. In college, he remembers being shunned by fellow students because of the color of his skin.

But the 45-year-old analyst with the Orange County administrative office says the most stinging blow of racial discrimination came earlier this month. Someone, possibly a co-worker, used an orange grease pencil to scrawl “KKK” on a framed poster of two black children that hangs in Coley’s private office.

Coley, who has worked for the county for three years, said he considered his past brushes with racism affronts to all African Americans. But this was different.

“This was obviously directed at me, Ron Coley, and it was a true sense of personal violation,” said the former Marine Corps pilot.

Coley’s experience is not all that uncommon in Orange County.

There were an estimated 180 hate-related incidents reported in 1994, according to the county’s Human Relations Commission, which is expected to release a formal report next month.

Few cases are prosecuted in Orange County, however, despite California’s 1992 law that adds as much as three years in prison to sentences if it is determined a crime was committed because of a victim’s race, gender, age, religion, disability or sexual orientation. Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Glazier, who oversees hate crime cases, said there are many obstacles to prosecution. Suspects are not always identified, many incidents are not actual crimes, and it is often difficult to prove the bias motivated an illegal act.

The Orange County district attorney’s office reviewed a record 22 hate crime cases in 1994 but cited insufficient evidence when it rejected 16 of the cases as potential hate crimes. Most of the rejected cases went forward on other charges, such as assault.

“It’s not enough to just say someone used a racial slur,” Glazier said.

For example, Glazier said, two men might sling racial slurs at each other during a brawl--but it’s an assault case unless prosecutors can prove one person attacked the other because of racial bias.

Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi said cracking down on hate crimes is a priority in his office.

“Hate crimes can tear a community apart and we won’t stand for that,” Capizzi said.

But victims, prosecutors, law enforcement officers and even judges often disagree on what constitutes a hate crime.

Last August, for example, someone in a crowd of youths shouted a racial epithet before Ruben Charles Vaughan III, 15, an African American football player at Santa Margarita High School, was stabbed seven times and beaten.

The victim and his family were backed by African American and Latino activists when they demanded hate crime charges be filed against two defendants. Even Judge Pamela L. Iles of Municipal Court in Laguna Niguel took the unusual step of urging prosecutors to consider filing hate crime charges after she reviewed the case.

But prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove a hate crime, saying the slur amounted to fighting words among students from rival high schools.

It’s a case that still angers community activists. Eugene Wheeler, president of 100 Black Men of Orange County, says Capizzi should prove his dedication to fighting hate crimes by allowing juries to decide the issue.

Art Montez, spokesman for the local branch of the League of United Latin American Citizens, agreed. “I think if groups of blacks were setting on white kids, you’d see a different response,” he said.

Capizzi said he is aware of the criticism, but believes it would be unethical to file hate crime charges that prosecutors do not believe they can prove.

“No matter what we do, someone is going to be unhappy. But we are willing to stand up to that criticism,” he said.

Others offer a different assessment of law enforcement’s response. Many Orange County gays and lesbians--long the targets of hate crimes--say the situation has greatly improved.

“I think we have a long way to go to erase intolerance, but 10 years ago no one bothered to complain because no one would do anything. And now that has changed,” said Alex Wentzel, a South County gay rights activist.

Gays’ trust in authorities was bolstered by a high-profile 1993 gay-bashing case, in which two men were convicted of brutally beating a victim walking on Laguna Beach because they believed he was gay.

In another high-profile case making its way through the courts, prosecutors have charged Jonathan Kinsey, 19, with murder and a hate crime in the slaying of an African American and the shooting and injuring of two Latinos in an earlier incident. Kinsey has pleaded not guilty.

Wheeler and other activists applaud prosecutors’ efforts in the Kinsey case and plan to watch it closely.

The majority of complaints to the county Commission on Human Relations involved acts--which are not always crimes--defined by hate and cowardice: racial slurs yelled from passing cars or property defaced with swastikas and epithets in the middle of the night, according to Rusty Kennedy, who heads the commission and the state Assn. of Human Rights Organizations.

Kennedy said there also have been more bizarre incidents, such as several reports of flyers touting white supremacy tucked inside boxes of traditional Latino fare sold at Orange County supermarkets.

Newport Beach attorney Brian Levine, considered a national authority on hate crimes, notes there are usually few clues in such crimes.

“With a shooting, perhaps you have a bullet for ballistics (testing). You don’t always have that kind of evidence in hate crime cases,” he said.

Ron Coley doubts the person who defaced his office will be caught. But he is pleased the Sheriff’s Department appears to be taking the case seriously since it was discovered early this month. He said the same response has been lacking at his office.

Only county budget director Fred Branca and a few friends have expressed their sorrow, gestures Coley said he deeply appreciates.

The defaced picture, which depicts one young black child carrying another, is titled: “He’s My Brother.” Coley said the picture reflects his desire for unity among all people.

“It’s on the wall behind my desk, because that’s what I want people to see when they walk into my office,” Coley said. “That picture sums up the way I want to live my life.”

His worst fear is that the culprit was a co-worker. Visitors to the Hall of Administration must pass a receptionist to reach Coley’s office.

“I can’t understand that kind of resentment still after having been in this office for three years,” Coley said. “It’s very disturbing to think this stuff goes on at the highest level of government, in the county’s Hall of Administration. It’s a disturbing message.”

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A History of Hate Crimes

The Orange County district attorney’s office began keeping track in 1992 of hate-related incidents referred there as potential hate crime cases. A review:

* 1992: 17 defendants faced hate crime charges, including 10 dubbed “Fullerton skinheads.” Prosecutors declined to file hate crime charges in three other cases.

* 1993: 13 defendants, including two men convicted of brutally beating a man in Laguna Beach because they believed he was homosexual.

* 1994: Nine defendants; prosecutors declined to file hate crime charges in 16 other cases, citing insufficient evidence. One rejected case: an attack on a black football player from Santa Margarita High School.

Source: Orange County District Attorney; Researched by RENE LYNCH / Los Angeles Times