Orrin Hatch: “none of these results--none of these death-penalty-eligible cases shown on these charts--would have been possible under…”

“none of these results--none of these death-penalty-eligible cases shown on these charts--would have been possible under S. 625--not one of them. This legislation, while federalizing hate crimes, would not allow capital punishment for those who murder savagely out of bigotry, prejudice, or hatred. The practical effect of S. 625 is to substantially weaken existing State law. In fact, even 18 U.S.C. section 245, the current Federal law that specifically addresses hate crimes, provides for the death penalty. It is truly ironic that S. 625's failure to provide for the death penalty actually represents a decided benefit to those who would commit these heinous crimes, and it takes away some of law enforcement's most important pretrial bargaining techniques in order to get one or more witnesses to these crimes to testify or one or more participants to testify against the others. Not only would this legislation undermine existing State laws, but it would substantially weaken their protections and weaken law enforcement's ability to get to the bottom of some of these crimes. In consequence, this legislation would be less likely to deter future hate crimes as well as many State laws on the books today. If we as an institution are serious about addressing the problem of hate crimes, then we must permit for the possibility of the death penalty as being the appropriate punishment in some of these cases.”