STATE HATE-CRIMES LAW UPHELD

In a tight 4-3 decision, the Missouri Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the state's hate-crimes law that allows for harsher punishment in cases where discriminatory motivation is believed to be a factor.

Writing for the majority, Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr. said that though poorly worded in one section, the statute was not so vague as to be unconstitutional. The court issued its ruling Tuesday.

The law, enacted in 1999, allows for enhanced penalties for crimes "the state believes to be knowingly motivated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or disability of the victim."

Joseph Callen was charged with felony trespass under the hate-crimes law. Prosecutors alleged Callen, who bears tattoos with white supremacist slogans, was harassing the black manager of a plasma bank in St. Joseph, Mo.

A Buchanan County judge dismissed the charge in June after Callen argued that "the state believes" wording in the law allows prosecutors too much subjective leeway as "a person reading the statute ... is left to speculate as to what the state might believe with regard to a person's conduct."

The Supreme Court's decision will allow the charge against Callen to be reinstated.

Judge White dissents

In the high court's dissent, Judge Ronnie White said prosecutors would arbitrarily apply the statute and that it also runs afoul of free-speech protections. The three dissenting judges said the statute should be voided.

"Since discriminatory beliefs and biases are subject to First Amendment protection, a would-be offender would not have notice of when his or her legally protected thoughts might cross into the no-man's land of the state's beliefs' and subject them to enhanced criminal penalties for actions wholly unrelated to those thoughts," wrote White, the court's lone black member.

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said that most judges and prosecutors around the state expected the hate-crimes law to be declared unconstitutionally vague.

"Judge Limbaugh's decision was a pleasant surprise to law enforcement," Swingle said. "I would not have predicted it."

Swingle agreed "the state believes" language is troublesome and supported the majority's interpretation that another section of the statute requiring evidence of a motivating factor beyond the prosecutor's opinion clarifies the Legislature's intent in drafting the law.

Such evidence could include the defendant uttering a racial epithet or other discriminatory language.

"Of course, some things so traditionally associated with racial hatred, such as burning a cross, that you can infer a racial motive, even if you didn't hear them say anything," Swingle said.

The case is State of Missouri v. Joseph Callen.