[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 200 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7935-S7936]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SA 4168. Ms. HARRIS (for Mr. Booker) proposed an amendment to the
bill S. 3178, to amend title 18, United States Code, to specify
lynching as a deprivation of civil rights, and for other purposes; as
follows:
Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
following:
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Justice for Victims of
Lynching Act of 2018''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) The crime of lynching succeeded slavery as the ultimate
expression of racism in the United States following
Reconstruction.
(2) Lynching was a widely acknowledged practice in the
United States until the middle of the 20th century.
(3) Lynching was a crime that occurred throughout the
United States, with documented incidents in all but 4 States.
(4) At least 4,742 people, predominantly African Americans,
were reported lynched in the United States between 1882 and
1968.
(5) Ninety-nine percent of all perpetrators of lynching
escaped from punishment by State or local officials.
(6) Lynching prompted African Americans to form the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(referred to in this section as the ``NAACP'') and prompted
members of B'nai B'rith to found the Anti-Defamation League.
(7) Mr. Walter White, as a member of the NAACP and later as
the executive secretary of the NAACP from 1931 to 1955,
meticulously investigated lynchings in the United States and
worked tirelessly to end segregation and racialized terror.
(8) Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in
Congress during the first half of the 20th century.
(9) Between 1890 and 1952, 7 Presidents petitioned Congress
to end lynching.
(10) Between 1920 and 1940, the House of Representatives
passed 3 strong anti-lynching measures.
(11) Protection against lynching was the minimum and most
basic of Federal responsibilities, and the Senate considered
but failed to enact anti-lynching legislation despite
repeated requests by civil rights groups, Presidents, and the
House of Representatives to do so.
(12) The publication of ``Without Sanctuary: Lynching
Photography in America'' helped bring greater awareness and
proper recognition of the victims of lynching.
(13) Only by coming to terms with history can the United
States effectively champion human rights abroad.
(14) An apology offered in the spirit of true repentance
moves the United States toward reconciliation and may become
central to a new understanding, on which improved racial
relations can be forged.
(15) Having concluded that a reckoning with our own history
is the only way the country can effectively champion human
rights abroad, 90 Members of the United States Senate agreed
to Senate Resolution 39, 109th Congress, on June 13, 2005, to
apologize to the victims of lynching and the descendants of
those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-
lynching legislation.
(16) The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which
opened to the public in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 26,
2018, is the Nation's first memorial dedicated to the legacy
of enslaved Black people, people terrorized by lynching,
African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim
Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary
presumptions of guilt and police violence.
(17) Notwithstanding the Senate's apology and the
heightened awareness and education about the Nation's legacy
with lynching, it is wholly necessary and appropriate for the
Congress to enact legislation, after 100 years of
unsuccessful legislative efforts, finally to make lynching a
Federal crime.
(18) Further, it is the sense of Congress that criminal
action by a group increases the likelihood that the criminal
object of that group will be successfully attained and
decreases the probability that the individuals involved will
depart from their path of criminality. Therefore, it is
appropriate to specify criminal penalties for the crime of
lynching, or any attempt or conspiracy to commit lynching.
(19) The United States Senate agreed to unanimously Senate
Resolution 118, 115th Congress, on April 5, 2017,
``[c]ondemning hate crime and any other form of racism,
religious or ethnic bias, discrimination, incitement to
violence, or animus targeting a minority in the United
States'' and taking notice specifically of Federal Bureau of
Investigation statistics demonstrating that ``among single-
bias hate crime incidents in the United States, 59.2 percent
of victims were targeted due to racial, ethnic, or ancestral
bias, and among those victims, 52.2 percent were victims of
crimes motivated by the offenders' anti-Black or anti-African
American bias''.
(20) On September 14, 2017, President Donald J. Trump
signed into law Senate Joint Resolution 49 (Public Law 115-
58; 131 Stat. 1149), wherein Congress ``condemn[ed] the
racist violence and domestic terrorist attack that took place
between August 11 and August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville,
Virginia'' and ``urg[ed] the President and his administration
to speak out against hate groups that espouse racism,
extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and White supremacy;
and use all resources available to the President and the
President's Cabinet to address the growing prevalence of
those hate groups in the United States''.
(21) Senate Joint Resolution 49 (Public Law 115-58; 131
Stat. 1149) specifically took notice of ``hundreds of torch-
bearing White nationalists, White supremacists, Klansmen, and
neo-Nazis [who] chanted racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-
immigrant slogans and violently engaged with counter-
demonstrators on and around the grounds of the University of
Virginia in Charlottesville'' and that these groups
``reportedly are organizing similar events in other cities in
the United States and communities everywhere are concerned
about the growing and open display of hate and violence being
perpetrated by those groups''.
SEC. 3. LYNCHING.
(a) Offense.--Chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code,
is amended by adding at the end the following:
``Sec. 250. Lynching
``(a) In General.--
``(1) Offenses involving actual or perceived race, color,
religion, or national origin.--If 2 or more persons willfully
cause bodily injury to any other person, because of the
actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin
of any person--
``(A) each shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years,
fined in accordance with this title, or both, if bodily
injury results from the offense; or
``(B) each shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for
life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if death
results from the offense or if the offense includes
kidnapping or aggravated sexual abuse.
``(2) Offenses involving actual or perceived religion,
national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity,
or disability.--
``(A) In general.--If 2 or more persons, in any
circumstance described in subparagraph (B), willfully cause
bodily injury to any other person because of the actual or
perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual
orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person--
``(i) each shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years,
fined in accordance with this title, or both, if bodily
injury results from the offense; or
``(ii) each shall be imprisoned for any term of years or
for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if
death results from the offense or if the offense includes
kidnapping or aggravated sexual abuse.
``(B) Circumstances described.--For purposes of
subparagraph (A), the circumstances described in this
subparagraph are that--
``(i) the conduct described in subparagraph (A) occurs
during the course of, or as the result of, the travel of the
defendant or the victim--
``(I) across a State line or national border; or
``(II) using a phone, the internet, the mail, or any other
channel, facility, or instrumentality of interstate or
foreign commerce;
``(ii) the defendant uses a phone, the internet, the mail,
or any other channel, facility, or instrumentality of
interstate or foreign commerce in connection with the conduct
described in subparagraph (A);
``(iii) in connection with the conduct described in
subparagraph (A), the defendant employs a firearm, dangerous
weapon, explosive or incendiary device, or other weapon that
has traveled in interstate or foreign commerce; or
``(iv) the conduct described in subparagraph (A)--
``(I) interferes with commercial or other economic activity
in which the victim is engaged at the time of the conduct;
``(II) otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce; or
``(III) occurs within the special maritime or territorial
jurisdiction of the United States.
``(3) Offenses occurring in the special maritime or
territorial jurisdiction of the united states.--Whoever,
within the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of
the United States, engages in conduct described in paragraph
(1) or in paragraph (2)(A) (without regard to whether that
conduct occurred in a circumstance described in paragraph
(2)(B)) shall be subject to the same penalties as prescribed
in those paragraphs.
``(b) Attempt.--Whoever attempts to commit any offense
under this section--
``(1) shall be imprisoned for not more than 10 years, fined
in accordance with this title, or both; or
``(2) if the offense includes kidnapping or an attempt to
kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit
aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be
imprisoned for any term of years of for life, fined in
accordance with this title, or both.
``(c) Conspiracy.--If 2 or more persons conspire to commit
any offense under this section, and 1 or more of such persons
do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall
be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the
offense the commission of which was the object of the
conspiracy.
``(d) Certification Requirement.--
[[Page S7936]]
``(1) In general.--No prosecution of any offense described
in this section may be undertaken by the United States,
except under the certification in writing of the Attorney
General, or a designee, that--
``(A) the State does not have jurisdiction;
``(B) the State has requested that the Federal Government
assume jurisdiction;
``(C) the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State
charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal
interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence; or
``(D) a prosecution by the United States is in the public
interest and necessary to secure substantial justice.
``(2) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this subsection
shall be construed to limit the authority of Federal
officers, or a Federal grand jury, to investigate possible
violations of this section.''.
(b) Table of Sections Amendment.--The table of sections for
chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by
inserting after the item relating to section 249 the
following:
``250. Lynching.''.
______