FIRST GENDER-BASED HATE CRIME CONVICTION

[Richards, Edward P.]

-----Original Message-----
From: William Slomanson [mailto:bills at tjsl.edu]
To: 'LAWPROF at chicagokent.kentlaw.edu'
Subject: FIRST GENDER-BASED HATE CRIME CONVICTION

According to the National Organization for Prevention of Hate Crimes, a San
Diego D.A. obtained the first gender-based hate crime conviction in the US
last week. Calif. Penal Code 422.76--effective Jan. 1, 1999--authorizes
misdemeanor battery to be charged as a felony hate crime, when directed at
a protected class. The prosecutor successfully prosecuted on the basis that
the statute treats gender as such a class. (Defense counsel argued that
every confrontation between a man and a woman could thus be chargeable as a
hate crime.) According to a newspaper account of this prosecution, one of
the women which the D mistreated was the SD police chief's daughter--whom
he pushed, after being rebuffed at a popular SD nightclub--with the video
camera attack being replayed at the D's trial. People v. McCall (no
citation available, but story is on p.1, of tomorrow's Los Angeles Daily
Journal, March 6, 2000). Smooth operator, huh?

Bill Slomanson
Thomas Jefferson
San Diego

(forwarded with permission)

Ed