[Congressional Bills 103th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1152 Engrossed in House (EH)]

103d CONGRESS

  1st Session

                               H. R. 1152

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 AN ACT

 To direct the United States Sentencing Commission to make sentencing 
     guidelines for Federal criminal cases that provide sentencing 
                     enhancements for hate crimes.






103d CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1152

                                 AN ACT


 
 To direct the United States Sentencing Commission to make sentencing 
     guidelines for Federal criminal cases that provide sentencing 
                     enhancements for hate crimes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement 
Act of 1993''.

SEC. 2. DIRECTION TO COMMISSION.

    (a) In General.--Pursuant to section 994 of title 28, United States 
Code, the United States Sentencing Commission shall promulgate 
guidelines or amend existing guidelines to provide sentencing 
enhancements of not less than 3 offense levels for offenses that the 
finder of fact at trial determines beyond a reasonable doubt are hate 
crimes. In carrying out this section, the United States Sentencing 
Commission shall assure reasonable consistency with other guidelines, 
avoid duplicative punishments for substantially the same offense, and 
take into account any mitigating circumstances which might justify 
exceptions.
    (b) Definition.--As used in this Act, the term ``hate crime'' is a 
crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the 
case of a property crime, the property which is the object of the 
crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, 
national origin, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation of any 
person.

            Passed the House of Representatives September 21, 1993.

            Attest:






                                                                 Clerk.