Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act, is an American Act of Congress, passed on October 22, 2009,[1] and signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009,[2] as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010 (H.R. 2647). Conceived as a response to the murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., the measure expands the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.[3]





The bill also:




Removes the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity, like voting or going to school;


Gives federal authorities greater ability to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue;


Provides $5 million per year in funding for fiscal years 2010 through 2012 to help state and local agencies pay for investigating and prosecuting hate crimes;


Requires the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to track statistics on hate crimes based on gender and gender identity (statistics for the other groups were already tracked).[4][5]





The Act is the first federal law to extend legal protections to transgender people.[6]



The Act is named after Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.^[7] Shepard was a student who was tortured and murdered in 1998 near Laramie, Wyoming. The attack was widely reported due to his being gay, and the trial employed a gay panic defense.^[7][8] Byrd was an African American man who was tied to a truck by two white supremacists, dragged behind it, and decapitated in Jasper, Texas, in 1998.^[7] Shepard's murderers were given life sentences—in large part because his parents sought mercy for his killers. Two of Byrd's murderers were sentenced to death, while the third was sentenced to life in prison. All the convictions were obtained without the assistance of hate crimes laws, since none was applicable at the time.



Supporters of an expansion of hate crime laws argued that hate crimes are worse than regular crimes without a prejudiced motivation from a psychological perspective. The time it takes to mentally recover from a hate crime is almost twice as long as it is for a regular crime and LGBT people often feel as if they are being punished for their sexuality, which leads to higher incidence of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.^[12] They also cited the response to Shepard's murder by many LGBT people, especially youth, who reported going back into the closet, fearing for their safety, experiencing a strong sense of self-loathing, and upset that the same thing could happen to them because of their sexual orientation.^[12]

LGBT issues

In April 2009, Mike Ross voted against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.