Hate crime has been defined as "any of various crimes when motivated by hostility to the victim as a member of a group (as one based on color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation)." Hate crime laws make crimes based on this hostility towards a group carry harsher penalties then these crimes would incur if they were being committed for different reasons. While on the surface this may sound like a good idea, in truth it is a major problem with the criminal justice system in America.

Hate crime laws can take away our Constitutional equality. They make the crime against someone of a different race, sexual orientation, or gender more serious than a crime against someone of the same racial and sexual background. These laws do not take into consideration the fact that many crimes are not motivated by hatred against a group, but rather by

Hate crimes are still on the rise, even after the laws passed against them. According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports on hate crime statistics, between 1995 and 1997 hate crime actually increased. In 1995 there were 7947 hate crimes committed for reasons of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and disability. In 1997 there were 8049, 102 more, hate crimes committed for the same reasons. Hate sites on the Internet have increased as well, from 163 in 1997 to 254 in 1998.

Another unconstitutional aspect of federal hate crime laws are that they create a double jeopardy. Double Jeopardy is the trial of one person for the same crime more than once, which is banned by the Constitution. These laws state that if a hate crime is committed it is under federal jurisdiction. Thus, the defendant must be tried once for the crime and once for the hate crime, even though it is the same crime. This creates a double jeopardy, which is prevented under the fifth amendment to the constitution.

For example, in September of 2000, at Galludet University, two students were allegedly murdered by Joseph Mesa, who later confessed to killing them both for their money. The mainstream media claimed that the killing of Eric Plunkett, one of the students, who was a homosexual activist, had b

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