The recent beating death of 19-year-old Marcellus Andrews of Waterloo has some groups wondering if Iowa’s hate crimes statute is strong enough.
They point to the relatively few prosecutions under the law as evidence that it doesn’t have strong enough teeth.
They want the law to do more to deter and punish those who would commit offenses against others because of their race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, age, disability or sexual orientation.
But Iowa is right to have a high standard of evidence for hate crimes, to require prosecutors to show that bias was the motivation for the crime, rather than simply show the perpetrator was biased.
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Complete article at The Gazette : http://bit.ly/qrhuan
