Combating Hate Without Hate Crimes: The Hanging Effigies of the 2008 Presidential Campaign

Abstract

In this Note, effigies hung during the 2008 Presidential campaign are examined in detail to determine the most effective way to prohibit this undesirable conduct. The analysis commences with a detailed description of the various effigies reported to the public media and whether or not the individuals who displayed their respective effigy were prosecuted. Next the Note characterizes the statutes of the states where effigies were hung and analyzes whether individuals could have been prosecuted under federal or the various state hate crime statutes. In the end a review of the reported effigies during the Presidential campaign of 2008 and the various hate crime reporting statutes suggests that the most effective way to deter such conduct is to provide for more expansive hate crime incident reporting statutes rather than more substantive hate crime statutes criminalizing the hanging of effigies.