First Conviction Using Hate Crimes Prevention Law

First Conviction Using Hate Crimes Prevention Law

Monday, May 23, 2011 Frankie Maybee A young man from Arkansas has received the first conviction at trial under the new federal hate crimes law enacted in 2009.

Frankie Maybee, 20, of Green Forest, was convicted by a federal jury on May 19 of multiple counts of committing and conspiring to commit a federal hate crime for attacking a group of Hispanics on June 20, 2010. The incident began when Maybee, along with 19-year-old Sean Popejoy and 19-year-old Curtis Simer, spotted the victims at a local gas station late at night, and then pursued them down the road in Maybee’s three-quarter ton jacked-up pickup truck. The co-conspirators yelled racist remarks at the Hispanics and rammed their vehicle with the pickup, causing the victims’ car to run off the road, slam into a tree and burst into flames. One of the victims suffered a fractured skull and a punctured lung.

Simer testified under a grant of immunity. Popejoy pleaded guilty on May 16. Maybee faces a maximum of 55 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 per violation.

The conviction came under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Shepard was a gay college student from Wyoming who was brutally beaten and left to die on a remote road in 1998, the same year Byrd, an African-American, was murdered by three white men in Jasper, Texas.

http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/First_Conviction_Using_Hate_Crimes_Prevention_Law_110523

Not for the reason you might think, but because it expands the prison-industrial complex which can really hurt the groups this legislation aims at helping, through increased policing and the like. (The Sylvia Rivera Law Project has written some things on that.) However, in the system we have now - and I know I won't see abolition of the PIC in my lifetime - this seems like the closest thing to justice we can get. I just really hope we can address the root causes of hate violence - because it's a systemic, not individual thing - at least in addition to hate crime laws.

On edit: this is the document from the SLRP: http://srlp.org/fedhatecrimelaw