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Researching Hate Crimes & Hate Crime Legislation: The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Hate Crimes Act), Pub. L. No. 111-84 makes it a crime to batter a person because of the person's race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The main provisions, set forth in the Hate Crimes Act § 4707, were codified in 18 U.S.C.A. § 249 and creates two offenses punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a fine or both for : 

  1. "bodily injury" ... "because of actual or perceived race, color, religion or national origin of any person"
  2. violent offenses that are committed because of "actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability" if the actions of the defendant affect interstate commerce. 

If the crime involves an actual or attempted death, kidnapping or sexual abuse the penalty can be up to life imprisonment.

Summary of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 | U.S. Department of Justice

 

Matt Shepard

(December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998)

Matthew Wayne Shepard was a gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured, and left to die near Laramie on the night of October 6, 1998. He was brutally attacked after meeting the Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson in a bar. The two lured him from the bar under false pretenses and preceded to beat and torture him. During the murder they repeatedly called him names and by their own admission intiitated the contact with Shepard because he was gay.

McKinney and Henderson were arrested shortly after the attack and charged with first-degree murder following Shepard's death and were convicted of first-degree murder and each given two life sentences. There was no hate crime law in Wyoming at the time and no federal hate crime legislation either so the two were not charged with a hate crime. Shepard's murder brought national and international attention to hate crime legislation at both the state and federal level.

In the aftermath, many states passed hate crimes laws and the crime was one of the bases for the federal hate crimes legislation. Matthew Shepard’s mother, Judy Shepard, became an lGBT rights activist and her advocacy helped secure the passage of the federal hate crimes law, The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

More information about Matthew Shepard

Legislative History

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed on October 22, 2009, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009, as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010 (H.R. 2647). The Act was adopted as an amendment to S. 1390 (the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010) by a 63–28 cloture vote on July 15, 2009. There is no formal compiled legislative history, but WCL and other ProQuest users may access legislative history documents through ProQuest Legislative Insight here:

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act Legislative History Documents

Commemorating The Tenth Anniversary of the Act

[October 17, 2019] The Department of Justice held an event in honor of the 10th Anniversary of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act with keynote remarks from Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband.

Scholarly Articles

Books & Library Resources

James Byrd, Jr.

On June 7, 1998, in Jasper, Texas, a 49-year-old black man, James Byrd, Jr., was dragged to his death while chained to the back of a pickup truck driven by three young white men. The murder was a modern-day lynching.

Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King dragged James Byrd, Jr. for 3 miles behind a pickup truck. Byrd was conscious for much of the ordeal and was killed about halfway through the dragging when his body hit the edge of a culvert, which severed his right arm and head. The trio drove on for another 11⁄2 miles before dumping his torso in front of a black church.

Brewer and King were the first white men to be sentenced to death for killing a black person in the history of modern Texas. Byrd's lynching spearheaded a Texas state hate crimes law, which later led to passage by Congress of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, commonly known as the Matthew Shepard Act, in 2009.

 

More information about James Byrd