HOUSTON – When someone in Texas intentionally commits a criminal act against a person or their property because of their race, gender, color, disability, religion, age, national origin or sexuality, that’s a hate crime.
However, Texas doesn’t technically have a category of hate crime offenses. But if you can prove someone intentionally committed a crime motivated by hate for any of the reasons above, that criminal would face stiffer penalties under the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act.
James Byrd Jr. was murdered in 1998. Three white men in Jasper, Texas chained the 49-year-old Black man’s ankles to a pickup truck and dragged him for nearly three miles down a road then left his torn-up body outside an African American church.
Byrd’s family worked to get state lawmakers to pass a hate crime law in Texas. Governor George W. Bush didn’t support the effort. He said, “All crimes are hate crimes.”
In 2001, when Rick Perry was elected, he backed and then signed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Act.
“Technically, there is no such thing in the [Texas] penal code as a hate crime,” KPRC 2 Legal Analyst Brian Wice tells us, explaining that the act can make punishments harsher for criminals.
“It is a sentencing enhancement that increases the length of time and the severity of an offense of an alleged crime by one penalty group if the prosecution can show beyond a reasonable doubt that the motivation for the crime was the victim’s race, creed, color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identification, or his posture, or status as a peace officer, or judge,” Wice said.
President Barack Obama signed a hate crimes bill into Federal law in 2009.
“In the simplest terms, a hate crime must include both “hate” and a “crime,” the U.S. Department of Justice explains on its website.
Hate crimes are on the rise in Texas, according to the DOJ’s website with nearly 57% motivated by hate against race, ethnicity, or ancestry.
In 2020, there were 288 race/ethnicity/ancestry hate crimes and the latest stats in 2022 show that number grew to 350.