hate crimes

Who should serve on the Hate Crimes Commission?

February 20, 2024 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

Last fall, the director of an American-Islamic advocacy organization stated that he “was happy to see” Palestinians break out of Gaza on Oct. 7, the day of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

The Biden administration removed the name of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) from a document discussing commitments to fight antisemitism.

Last April, a Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention was enacted by the General Assembly.

Can this year’s legislature pass a bill that would remove the CAIR member from the commission and substitute two representatives of the Muslim community?

That’s what House Bill 763, introduced by Delegate Dalya Attar, would do.

I am a co-sponsor.

I also asked Professor Mark A. Graber, who teaches at the University of Maryland School of Law, to testify.

Among the reasons he gave that HB 763 is constitutional: people who give advice to government officials that is inconsistent with the leader’s policy views are not protected by the First Amendment.

A related bill was before my committee.

House Bill 809, sponsored by Delegate Joseph Vogel, would allow for the suspension or removal of an appointee to a commission on the grounds of “misconduct, incompetence, neglect of duties, or other good cause.”

It’s now my job to help my committee refine this bill and send it to the House floor.

A B- Grade and a 94-41 Vote

April 6, 2022 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

A victim of a hate crime could seek damages in a civil action under House Bill 290.

During today’s debate on the House floor, too many of my Republican colleagues spoke inaccurately about what the bill would do.

That prompted me to speak.

As the House sponsor of the original Hate Crimes Act, I rise in support of this bill.

Hate crimes are underlying criminal acts. We enhance the penalty because of the nature of the motivation to commit that act – because it’s directed against people of certain characteristics.

Such a law was approved by the Supreme Court unanimously, and this bill simply applies that standard to a civil action.

Free speech is in no way harmed or limited by this bill.

My Torts professor in law school might have given me a B-. The bill passed the House, 94-41.

Harmful to us all

May 26, 2021 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

Maryland’s hate crimes law was enacted in 1988.

I sponsored House Bill 1095, which enhanced the penalty for a crime committed because of the person’s “race, color, religious beliefs, or national origin.”

Since then, the law has been expanded to protect a victim of a crime “motivated…by another person’s or group’s race, color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender, disability, or national origin, or because another person or group is homeless.”

Those additions didn’t come about in one bill.

Each time, legislators and advocates made the case that was first made in 1988.

If a crime is motivated by a certain characteristic of the victim, the penalty should be greater.

Recent events should remind us that criminal acts or rhetoric directed at one group are harmful to us all.

“We must be concerned with the anti-Semitic attacks and they must be condemned as strongly as attacks against Blacks. We must speak out against all wrongs or else we have no standing when we have been wronged.” Reverend Al Sharpton said that.

“ADL is the first call when acts of antisemitism occur. ADL’s ultimate goal is a world in which no group or individual suffers from bias, discrimination or hate.” Jonathan Greenblatt, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League said that.

Threat to our democracy

February 22, 2021 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

The United States faces “a more dangerous period” from domestic extremists today than it did when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred in 1995.

That was Judge Merrick B. Garland’s assessment when he testified today at the hearing on his nomination for Attorney General.

What should we do in Maryland in response to this threat?

Senator Shelly Hettleman and I have introduced legislation to create a task force to study and make recommendations regarding policies and procedures for preventing and countering domestic terrorism.

Can we have advance knowledge of illegal and deadly acts without stepping on legitimate protest?

Are ideologically motivated hate crimes and domestic terrorism overlapping phenomena that need to be addressed in that context?

Those are some of the questions that we need to deal with as we confront this threat to our democracy.

February 12, 2019 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

A hate crime is a criminal act committed because of a certain characteristic of the victim.

Maryland’s hate crimes law dates back to 1988 when House Bill 1095 was enacted. I introduced that bill.

Five years later, I attended the oral argument at the Supreme Court on Wisconsin’s hate crimes statute. In a unanimous decision, Chief Justice Rehnquist held that the law did not violate the First Amendment.

Today I testified in support of House Bill 240.

It is already against the law to threaten to commit a criminal act. My bill would add such crimes to the hate crimes law.

What prompted me to introduce HB 240?

In 2017, bomb threats were emailed to the Jewish Community Centers in the Baltimore and Washington areas.

That email was read in full to the Judiciary Committee today. It was harrowing.

An identical bill failed in the Judiciary Committee last year. Starting tomorrow, I will ask the members what they thought of today’s hearing.

A Bill Hearing and a Constituent

January 31, 2018 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

We are here to pass bills.

My work starts long before the 90-day session begins.

A constituent comes to me with a problem.

I read about how another state is dealing with an issue.

I meet with an advocacy group to learn what they want to accomplish.

I make a bill drafting request.

Then I begin to strategize.

Who will support the bill? How do you mobilize them?

Who will oppose the bill? How do you address their concerns without compromising away your policy goals?

Yesterday was my first bill hearing of the session.

House Bill 246 would extend our hate crimes law to include a threat to commit a hate crime.

That was the case with the bomb threats to the two Jewish Community Centers in Baltimore last year.

There was a phone call that prompted the evacuation and closure of buildings, but not what our criminal law considers an attempt to commit a crime.

The hearing went well.

The bottom line: we need to answer the question that every bill sponsor must answer.

Why do we need this bill?

—

The bill hearing ended at 7:00.

I was late to my committee’s dinner, which was sponsored by a health care provider.

No one’s views on legislation are swayed by the lobbying that takes place at these events.

In reality, it’s an opportunity to get to know your fellow committee members better and to lobby them on your bills.

Since I was late, the open seat was not among my colleagues but our hosts.

One is a young professional. During the course of our conversation, he told me that his parents emigrated from the former Soviet Union.

His mother was pregnant and gave birth to him in Rome.

He grew up in Baltimore County. His 95-year old grandmother lives alone in the Glen neighborhood.

She’s a constituent.

A Unique Program and Astounding Legislation

August 14, 2017 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2017 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Saturday morning, I heard about the torch carrying white supremacists and neo-Nazis who marched around a church, shouting a Nazi slogan.

I thought of Nazi Germany and the American South during the civil rights protests.

That afternoon, not yet aware of the loss of life in Charlottesville, I was campaigning and knocked on the door of an acquaintance in Mt. Washington.

I knew that he was one of the students who sued in 1952 to integrate Poly. I knew one of his local attorneys, Marshall Levin. I also knew that Thurgood Marshall had argued the case before the Baltimore City School Board.

As a loyal City alumnus, I had to ask why Poly, instead of City.

“The engineering program there was unique,” he replied.

“Did you meet with Marshall beforehand?” I asked.

“Yes, he met with the 14 plaintiffs one weekend.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Behave. Everyone is watching you.”

—

Last night, while watching MSNBC, I learned about legislation providing that “a person driving an automobile while exercising due care is immune for civil liability for any injury to another if the injured person was participating in a demonstration or protest and blocking traffic.”

By a vote of 67-48, it passed the House of the North Carolina legislature this past May. It awaits Senate action.

That such legislation would even be introduced is astounding.

I read Maryland’s hate crimes law. A death resulting from a criminal act, in this instance vehicular homicide, could be a hate crime.

I emailed committee counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in Annapolis: “If there had not been a death when a car was driven into the crowd in Charlottesville this weekend, would that have constituted a violation of Maryland’s hate crimes law?”

She responded this morning: “Driving a car into a crowd under these circumstances, not involving a death, would be a separate felony” and punishable as a hate crime.

My Key Issues:

Tag: hate crimes