Wisconsin v. Mitchell 1993

AuthorDaniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
Pages248-252

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Petitioner: State of Wisconsin

Respondent: Todd Mitchell

Petitioner's Claim: That a Wisconsin law that increased the penalty for racially motivated crimes was constitutional.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: James E. Doyle, Attorney General of Wisconsin

Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Lynn S. Adelman

Justices for the Court: Harry A. Blackmun, Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens, Clarence Thomas, Byron R. White

Justices Dissenting: None

Date of Decision: June 11, 1993

Decision: Wisconsin's law did not violate the First Amendment. Mitchell's conviction and increased penalty were constitutional.

Significance: The freedom to have racist thoughts does not give Americans the right to commit crimes for racist reasons.

The United States of America has been described as a melting pot where people of different races and religions happily combine to form one society. Reality, however, is not always this rosy. There is a lot of tension in the United States between people with different characteristics. For

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example, organizations like the Ku Klux Klan fight against Americans who are not white Christians. Women's rights groups often draw fire from men, and many people are criticized because of their religion.

Sometimes the tension results in hate crimes. A hate crime occurs when a criminal picks his victim based on the person's race, color, religion, sex, or other characteristic. To discourage hate crimes, many states have laws called penalty enhancement statutes. These laws increase the penalty for hate crimes. In Wisconsin v. Mitchell(1993), the U.S. Supreme Court had to decide whether penalty enhancement statutes violate the First Amendment by punishing people for their thoughts.

Racial violence

Todd Mitchell was one of many young black men and boys who gathered in an apartment in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the evening of October 7, 1989. Several people in the group talked about a movie called "Mississippi Burning," especially a scene in which a white man beat a black boy who was praying.

The state of Wisconsin wanted to punish people who committed hate crimes, such as cross burning, more severely than other crimes. Reproduced by permission of the Corbis Corporation.

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After the discussion, the group went outside. Mitchell asked his friends, "Do you all feel hyped...

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