The state Supreme Court tossed out Georgia's hate crimes law
Monday, meaning state lawmakers will have to revisit a roiling debate
that divided them deeply four years ago. The law barely passed the
Legislature in 2000 after bitter arguments about whether some crimes
are worse than others when bigotry is in the heart of the accused. It
passed only after protections for gay people were removed and the law
rewritten to vaguely refer to "bias or prejudice." Of the 48 states
with hate-crimes laws, Georgia's was the only one not to specify who
would be protected. The 7-0 Supreme Court decision, which called the
4-year-old law "unconstitutionally vague," came in the case of a man
and woman convicted of assaulting two black men in Atlanta's Little
Five Points neighborhood. Angela Pisciotta and Christopher Botts, both
white, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for badly beating brothers
Che and Idris Golden while screaming racial epithets in April 2002 and
were sentenced to six years in prison. A Fulton County judge added two
more years to their sentences under the hate crimes law, which called
for up to five extra years in prison. [more ]
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