February 16, 1999MOTION BY SUPERVISOR ZEV YAROSLAVSKY
Hate crimes are unacceptable and must be punished swiftly and severely. Existing law provides for the death penalty if the special circumstance of murder based on specified hate related reasons is proven. Those hate based reasons are race, color, religion, nationality, or country of origin. However, those sick with bias and hate that murder based on disability, gender and sexual orientation are not included under state law. Murderers who kill for those reasons are now eligible for parole after 17 years in prison.
When a hate crime takes the form of a murder, these groups of people who should be protected by more stringent sentencing of the perpetrator are not currently protected. We need to ensure that criminals who commit heinous crimes, such as Matthew Shepard’s sexual orientation slaying in the Midwest last fall, are given life without the possibility of parole.
The Board has an opportunity to correct this injustice by supporting Assembly Bill (AB) sponsored by the District Attorney and authored by Assembly Member Wally Knox. AB 208 denies the possibility of parole for murderers whose crimes were motivated by hatred based on gender, sexual orientation or disability. It’s time to make the life without parole possibility of parole law-co-extensive with other hate crime laws and such an inclusion will promote fairness and uniformity in the law.
I, THEREFORE MOVE, THAT
1. The Board of Supervisors instruct our State legislative advocates to support AB 208 and assist the District Attorney and Assembly Member Knox in the successful passage of AB 208; and,
2. A five-signature letter expressing Los Angeles County’s support of AB 208 be sent to the Los Angeles County legislative delegation and the chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee.
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