Kansas legislators divided on hate crime legislation

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - The fatal shooting of three people last year outside a Jewish community center and retirement complex by a white supremacist has revived debate for tougher hate crime laws in Kansas.

A bill filed to the state legislature this session would double the maximum sentence for crimes motivated by the race, religion, sexual orientation, or national origin of the victim.

Seventy-three-year-old Frazier Glenn Cross, of Aurora, Missouri, is charged with capital murder in the April 13 shooting deaths of three people at an Overland Park Jewish community center. Cross is a former Ku Klux Klan leader and in 2010 was blocked by the Federal Communications Commission from broadcasting anti-Semitic campaign ads as a part of a bid for a Missouri congressional seat. He is currently awaiting trial in a Johnson County court.

Sen. David Haley, a Democrat from Kansas City who sponsored the legislation, said the shootings reinforce the need for such a change.

"This was offered in 2002 and 2003, and we still have these examples like the Jewish community center where we aren't punishing adequately people who walk around with their minds set on mayhem due only to prejudice," Haley said.

Ben Scott, vice president of the Kansas branch of the NAACP, said it is important to have more severe punishments for hate crimes because the judicial system underestimates their impact on minorities.

"Hate crimes are a very serious issue because there's no way that you can stand in my shoes and feel what I feel," Scott said.

But critics of hate crime laws argue that existing statutes forbid any activity considered to be a hate crime and stiffer penalties would not deter criminals acting out of irrational hatred.

Republican Sen. Greg Smith of Overland Park, who chairs the Senate panel considering the measure, also expressed worry the measure would increase the population of Kansas' prisons, which are expected to be over capacity by the end of the year.

Kansas police departments reported an average of 81 hate crimes per year from 2003-2013, according to the FBI's Uniform Crimes Reports. However, a Department of Justice study released in 2013 claims most hate crimes go unreported. It also said that more than 250,000 Americans over the age of 12 are victimized every year by hate criminals.

The Kansas bill has been endorsed by the Anti-Defamation League, but Sen. Forrest Knox, a Republican from Altoona on the Senate Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee, said that he doesn't think laws should punish people differently based on their motivations.

"I don't like trying to get inside someone's head, so I don't really support the 'hate crimes' point of view. I'm just saying for whatever reason you did a terrible thing, you need to pay the price," Knox said.

Johnson County District Attorney Stephen Howe, whose office is prosecuting Cross, said he understands the skepticism, but argued the bill would still make communities safer.

"No, it won't cure all social ills, but we know that increasing penalties gets those committing the crimes behind bars and that has an impact," Howe said.