Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act

Mostly, though not completely. Essentially what the law is attempting to do is, add a Federal element so that there is no argument that State law should prevail, although it does not appear to be excluding the possibility of bringing criminal charges on both the Federal and State levels.

Well, you can look at the law in terms of how it is written and what its writers intended.

The way it is written doesn't imply that it was intended to trump State law. It creates a federal offence with perscribed penalties. Federal Civil Rights statutes were, we can all probably agree, intended to trump State court decisions, if not necessarily State laws, and perhaps this Federal Hate Crime statute is intended to do the same.

Let's be honest, there is also a very strong political aspect of this law. A certain constituency in America believes that there is such a thing as a "hate crime" and that it is somehow worse than a non-hate crime.

Here's a scenario. The victim is in Tennessee and hitchhikes. He is picked up by someone who drives him to Kentucky and the crime is committed there. Jurisdiction should apply. Or, the victim is kidnapped in Tennessee and driven to Kentucky, where the assault, etc. are performed. In that case, not only is their jurisdiction but there is also a case for kidnapping.

I'm not sure how this is relevant to the statute at hand. You are pointing out how a federal court can assert juridiction over a state court, but the example has no aspect of a "hate crime."

Or, the victim is murdered in Tennessee and their body is dumped in Kentucky. Or the victim is murdered in Tennessee and the perpetrator escapes to Kentucky. I believe jurisdiction would also apply in both of those instances although I admit I'm not 100% certain about the latter fact pattern (the one with the escape across state lines). It may also be possible to obtain jurisdiction if the victim, crime and perp are all in Tennessee, so long as the act occurs on or near an Interstate highway in Tennessee. By the way, nota bene, even though Hawaii does not border any other states, it does have an Interstate highway.

It seems as if the law is attempting to close a loophole and cover acts committed against a specific class of persons in connection (at least tangentially) with interstate travel. This is because in-state travel would/should be covered just by state law, although, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the law might also be covering acts on interstate roadways even when interstate travel did not specifically occur.

There is no shortage of ways a federal court can seize jurisdiction from a state court. Generally speaking the federal court will concede jurisdiction to the state court, but that isn't particularly pleasing to people who want certain state courts to rule in a manner which is in conformance with their ideology.

Someone in Boston or New York has no real influence over the laws of Wyoming, but they can influence federal law which they can then hope will trump the laws of Wyoming.

Anyone within a given state need not worry about this federal statute unless they intend to commit harm to a fellow citizen.

It is not a statute that requires a business to change the way they do business nor any party to change practices that are already not considered criminal.

You are not going to run afoul, on a state level, of this statute if you don't complete particular forms or post particular notices in your break area.

Pure and simple, this statute asserts that there is something more heinous, or distinctly different about a crime based upon hatred of the specified classes than an identical crime based upon motivations not covered by the statute.

So, if a black man murders a white woman in a Wal-mart parking lot, that's obviously a horrible crime but not as horrible as if a white man murders a black woman in a Wal-mart parking lot.

If you slaughter an innocent family of five in their home and there is no way to suggest you did so because of bigotry, that's horrible , but not as horrible as if you slaughter a family of five in their home because they are black or Muslim or homosexuals.

Three criminals in Wyoming take someone and nail them to a barb wire fence and then proceed to torture them to death.

If the person was simply someone they didn't like, or someone who had cheated them, someone who had messed up their plans, or just some random poor bastard, that would be terrible, but not subject to the federal statute.

However...if the person was tortured to death because he was homosexual, or Muslim or black, that would be a much more heinous crime and necessarily subject to the federal statute.

Naturally, we cannot trust the States to protect homosexuals, blacks, Muslims etc fromm violent crimes and therefore we need a Federal statute that will enable the Feds to swoop in and seize jurisdiction from the bigoted neanderthals in any given state.

What a better country we might have if we could only get rid of the bigoted and ignorant cowboys and rednecks.