Wyoming shelves hate crime law decades after Shepard's death

Associated Press
Friday, March 12, 2021 8:41 p.m. | Friday, March 12, 2021 8:41 p.m.

3634389_web1_3634389-67d6520e009343a3bc53263ab1cd1608

In this Oct. 26, 2018 photo, mourners hold programs with the image of Matthew Shepard during a “Thanksgiving and Remembrance of Matthew Shepard” service at Washington National Cathedral in Washington.

3634389_web1_3634389-862faf11a5b6433db40323431d2aefb8

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP

In this May 15, 2020 photo, few legislators sit in a nearly empty House chamber during a special legislative session inside the state Capitol in downtown Cheyenne, Wyo., during the coronavirus pandemic.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Lawmakers in Wyoming, where gay college student Matthew Shepard was killed more than 20 years ago, again decided not to adopt a hate crimes law.

Wyoming is one of just three states that haven’t enacted hate crimes legislation since Shepard was beaten and left for dead in Laramie in 1998. The killing of the University of Wyoming student inspired those laws in other states and at the federal level.

A measure tabled Thursday by the Wyoming House Judiciary Committee would have allowed prosecutors to consider a criminal’s biases against race, sex, gender, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity or disabilities when seeking punishment for crimes.

The legislation sponsored by Republican Rep. Pat Sweeney of Casper also would have provided for anti-bias training for law enforcement officers to help them identify and respond to hate crimes.

Most public testimony Thursday was in support of the bill, the Casper Star-Tribune reported. Others said the bill went too far or not far enough to discourage hate crimes.

Arkansas and South Carolina are considering hate crimes legislation this year, though lawmakers removed protections for gay or transgender people from the South Carolina bill Thursday.

Several previous attempts in Wyoming to enact a hate crime law have failed.