Let this be the year Utah gets good hate-crimes law

Louvon and Judy were living ordinary lives until they were swept up in extraordinary circumstances. In 1998, Louvon's brother, James Byrd Jr., was dragged to death in Jasper, Texas. Later that year, Judy's son, Matthew Shepard, was savagely beaten, lashed to a fence post outside Laramie, Wyo., and left for dead on a freezing night in October.

I've had occasion to meet both women. Judy Shepard visited the Deseret Morning News editorial board last year. Louvon Byrd Harris spent time with us just last week. Both women have become unwitting crusaders against hate crimes.

They have come to Utah because our state has such a lousy hate-crimes law that prosecutors don't use it. Rep. David Litvack, D-Salt Lake, is, for the fifth consecutive year, asking his legislative colleagues to consider a bill that would enhance the penalties to crimes based on hate. This year, Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, and Sen. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake, are running an identical bill in the Senate, SB181.

On Friday, Harris met with lawmakers, religious leaders, journalists and community groups to encourage legislators to pass legislation that would increase by one step the penalty for any crime motivated by "bias or prejudice," based on attributes that include but are not limited to race, color, disability, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age or gender.

"I am here because my family was a victim of a hate crime," Harris explained. "We are saying if you commit this kind of crime, you have to pay for the consequences."

Harris lobbies for hate-crimes legislation as a tribute to her brother, who was beaten, then chained by the ankles and dragged behind a pickup truck to his death on June 7, 1998, in one of the nation's ghastliest racial crimes in decades. Two of his killers, avowed racists, were convicted in 1999 and sentenced to die. A third defendant received a life sentence.

It's impossible to imagine what Harris and her family have experienced since that life-altering day in 1998. She says she doesn't believe that her family has had an opportunity to properly mourn her brother's death because of the roller coaster ride they've been on since. After Byrd's killing, an "ordinary family" was thrust into the national spotlight. There were press conferences, legal proceedings, the desecration of James Byrd's grave (twice) and lobbying trips to persuade the Texas Legislature to pass a hate-crimes statute.

And there was the inescapable hate and anger — the hate that motivated Byrd's killing and the deep-seated anger that roused some people to want to retaliate against Byrd's killers. "We became counselors, our whole family," Harris said.