Trespassing man gets four years for hate crime

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. -- A Ku Klux Klan member whose case led to the Missouri Supreme Court upholding the state's hate crimes law has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Joseph M. Callen, 42, was sentenced Thursday by Buchanan County Circuit Judge Daniel F. Kellogg. In a bench trial last month, Kellogg convicted Callen of a felony count of criminal trespass under the hate crimes law.

Callen could have received a five-year sentence.

Prosecutors said Callen made repeated visits to a plasma bank in St. Joseph to confront the manager, who is black, despite being told 10 years ago to stay away.

Callen was arrested after going to the center in June 2000.

Trespassing is typically a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine up to $500.

Racism enhances penalty

But a 1999 Missouri law allows enhanced penalties for violations "which the state believes to be knowingly motivated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation or disability of the victim."

Callen was charged in part because of his white supremacist tattoos and clothing and racist signs on his truck.

His case was initially dismissed when Kellogg ruled that the hate-crimes law was too vague, and that the language referring to the state's beliefs infringed upon the First Amendment right to free speech.

Prosecutors appealed, and in May the state Supreme Court reversed Kellogg's earlier decision and ordered Callen's case back to trial. Justices held 4-3 that the "state's belief" clause was designed to ensure that prosecutors had reason to believe a hate crime had been committed before filing charges.

At his sentencing hearing, Callen insisted that he was not guilty of a hate crime.