[House Report 117-251]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
117th Congress } { Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2d Session } { 117-251
======================================================================
EMMETT TILL ANTILYNCHING ACT
_______
February 25, 2022.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on
the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Nadler, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the
following
R E P O R T
together with
ADDITIONAL VIEWS
[To accompany H.R. 55]
[Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]
The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the
bill (H.R. 55) to amend section 249 of title 18, United States
Code, to specify lynching as a hate crime act, having
considered the same, reports favorably thereon with an
amendment and recommends that the bill as amended do pass.
CONTENTS
Page
Purpose and Summary.............................................. 2
Background and Need for the Legislation.......................... 2
Hearings......................................................... 6
Committee Consideration.......................................... 6
Committee Votes.................................................. 6
Committee Oversight Findings..................................... 6
Committee Estimate of Budgetary Effects.......................... 6
New Budget Authority and Congressional Budget Office Cost
Estimate....................................................... 7
Duplication of Federal Programs.................................. 8
Performance Goals and Objectives................................. 8
Advisory on Earmarks............................................. 8
Section-by-Section Analysis...................................... 8
Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported............ 8
Additional Views................................................. 11
The amendment is as follows:
Strike all that follows after the enacting clause and insert
the following:
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Emmett Till Antilynching Act''.
SEC. 2. LYNCHING; OTHER CONSPIRACIES.
Section 249(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding
at the end the following:
``(5) Lynching; other conspiracies.--Whoever conspires to
commit any offense under paragraph (1), (2), or (3), shall--
``(A) if death results from the offense, be
imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined in
accordance with this title, or both; or
``(B) in any other case, be subject to the same
penalties as the penalties prescribed for the offense
the commission of which was the object of the
conspiracy.''.
Purpose and Summary
H.R. 55, the ``Emmett Till Antilynching Act,'' would amend
section 249 of title 18, United States Code, to specify
lynching as a hate crime under federal law. The bill corrects a
longstanding omission from federal civil rights law.
Background and Need for the Legislation
Lynchings were violent and public acts of torture used for
nearly a century to enforce racial segregation.\1\ Despite
claiming the lives of thousands of victims, most of the
perpetrators of these acts of terror were never held
accountable and official inaction has left lasting scars on
impacted communities.\2\ Despite enacting a broad range of
civil rights protections, the federal government has never
specifically outlawed lynching, despite the unique damage it
caused to the fabric of democratic society.
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\1\Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America; Confronting the
Legacy of Racial Terror, at 5 (3rd ed. 2017),
www.lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report-landing (last visited Oct. 29,
2019).
\2\Id. at 4.
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Lynching has been generally defined as a premeditated
extrajudicial killing by a group.\3\ The term has been most
often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob
in order to punish an alleged transgressor or to intimidate a
group. Lynching can also be employed as an extreme form of
informal group social control, and often conducted with the
display of a public spectacle for maximum intimidation. H.R. 55
is named in honor of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African
American youth from Chicago who was lynched in 1955 while
visiting an uncle in Mississippi.\4\
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\3\See Amy Louise Wood, Rough Justice: Lynching and American
Society 1874-1947, (North Carolina University Press (2009)).
\4\At his mother's insistence, Till received an open-casket funeral
so that people could see how badly her son had been beaten, which
galvanized the response of the African American community throughout
the nation. The state of Mississippi tried two defendants for his
murder, but they were acquitted by an all-white jury, and later
admitted their guilt.
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During the period between the Civil War and World War II,
thousands of African Americans were lynched in the United
States. Though lynching touched all races and religions, the
practice was predominant in the South, and four out of five
victims were African American. In 1892, the Tuskegee Institute
began to record statistics of lynchings and reported that 4,742
reported incidents had taken place by 1968, of which 3,445 of
the victims were African-Americans.\5\ Through additional
research, the Equal Justice Initiative (``EJI'') documented
4075 ``racial terror lynchings'' in twelve Southern states
between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and 1950.\6\ These
violent incidents profoundly impacted race relations and shaped
the geographic, political, social, and economic conditions of
African American communities in ways that are still evident
today and were largely tolerated by state and federal
officials.
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\5\See Tuskegee University Archives Repository, Lynching, Whites &
Negroes, 1882-1968, retrieved at http://archive.tuskegee.edu/archive/
handle/123456789/51; Jessie P. Guzman, Negro Yearbook (1952), at 275-
279, https://archive.org/details/negroyearbook52tuskrich (last visited
Oct. 29, 2019).
\6\See Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America; Confronting
the Legacy of Racial Terror, at 5 (3rd ed. 2017),
www.lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report-landing (last visited Oct. 29,
2019). EJI distinguishes ``terror lynchings'' from racial violence and
hate crimes that were prosecuted as criminal acts, classifying the
incidents as acts of terrorism because the murders were carried out
with impunity, sometimes in broad daylight, often ``on the courthouse
lawn.''
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By the end of the nineteenth century, Southern lynching had
become a tool of racial control that terrorized and targeted
African Americans and their communities for wider violence.
Though the circumstances of the thousands of African Americans
lynched between 1877 and 1950 differed in many respects, in
most cases, their murders can be categorized as one or more of
the following: (1) lynchings that resulted from a wildly
distorted fear of interracial sex; (2) lynchings in response to
casual social transgressions; (3) lynchings based on
allegations of serious violent crime; (4) public spectacle
lynchings; (5) lynchings that escalated into large-scale
violence targeting the entire African American community; and
(6) lynchings of sharecroppers, ministers, and community
leaders who resisted mistreatment, which were most common
between 1915 and 1940.\7\ EJI research revealed that lynchings
peaked between 1880 and 1940, with Mississippi, Georgia, and
Louisiana having the highest absolute number of African
American victims during this period.
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\7\Id. at 10.
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The antilynching movement set the stage for the creation of
the civil rights movement that we recognize today. African
Americans undertook efforts to combat the terror of lynching
and the threat of racial violence through grassroots activism
and the founding of integrated social justice organizations.
The work of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (``NAACP'') was pivotal in awakening the nation
to the urgency of combatting lynching. Founded in 1909 as an
interracial civil rights protest organization, the NAACP
conducted thorough investigations of lynchings and other crimes
committed against African Americans and issued regular reports
concerning the incidents. In 1919 the NAACP published Thirty
Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918, which
examined the causes of lynching and the circumstances under
which the crimes occurred.\8\ Beginning in 1921, the NAACP also
actively began endorsing antilynching legislation to make
lynching a federal crime. Antilynching activists, like
journalists Ida B. Wells and T. Thomas Fortune and Tuskegee
sociologist Monroe Work, further harnessed the growing power of
the black press to demand national accountability for racial
violence.
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\8\National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States 1889-1918 (April 1919),
https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/
naacp/pdf/lynching.pdf (last visited Oct. 29, 2019).
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The first federal antilynching legislation was introduced
by Congressman George Henry White, then the only African
American Member of Congress, in 1900 and referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.\9\ During the first half of the
20th century, nearly 200 antilynching bills were introduced in
Congress, but none were successful. Between 1920 and 1940, the
House of Representatives passed three strong antilynching
measures, the closest of which Congress came to enacting was
sponsored by Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer in 1922. The Dyer
Anti-Lynching Bill provided fines and imprisonment for persons
convicted of lynching in federal courts, and fines and
penalties against states, counties, and towns which failed to
use reasonable efforts to protect citizens from mob violence.
Although the bill was quickly passed by a large majority in the
House of Representatives, and supported by then-President
Warren G. Harding, it was prevented from coming to a vote in
1922, 1923, and 1924 in the U.S. Senate, due to filibusters by
the Southern Democratic bloc who claimed the legislation would
be unconstitutional and an infringement upon states'
rights.\10\ However, the extensive debate on the bill, in
combination with the 1919 NAACP report and the related National
Conference on Lynching, moved local and state governments to
take lynching more seriously, leading to a dramatic decrease of
incidents after 1922.\11\
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\9\See Benjamin Justensen, George Henry White and the Anti-Lynching
Bill of 1900 (2016), https://www.georgehenrywhite.com/single-post/2016/
09/17/George-Henry-White-and-the-Anti-Lynching-Bill-of-1900 (last
visited Oct. 29, 2019). Rep. White's legislation was ultimately
unsuccessful and would not be voted on by the House of Representatives
before his departure from that body in 1901.
\10\See Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives,
Black Americans in Congress, 1870-007, Anti-Lynching Legislation
Renewed, U.S. Government Printing Office, (2008) https://
history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Essays/
Temporary-Farewell/Anti-Lynching-Legislation/ (last visited Oct. 29,
2019).
\11\Southern white organizations also began to condemn lynchings
during the two decades before World War II. Among them were the
Commission for Interracial Cooperation, which did research and issued
publications which provided additional facts on lynchings, and the
Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, which was
founded in Atlanta in 1930. See Robert A. Gibson, The Negro Holocaust:
Lynching and Race Riots in the United States 1880-1950, Yale New Haven
Teacher's Institute (2004). http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/
curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html (last visited Oct. 29, 2019).
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The enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was the
closest that Congress ever came in the post-Reconstruction era
to enacting antilynching legislation. Codified at title 18,
United States Code, section 241, the civil rights conspiracy
statute makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire
to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any
state, territory, or district in the free exercise or enjoyment
of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the
Constitution or the laws of the United States (or because of
his/her having exercised the same) and further makes it
unlawful for two or more persons to go in disguise on the
highway or premises of another person with intent to prevent or
hinder his or her free exercise or enjoyment of such
rights.\12\ Though section 241 does not specify the offense of
lynching as a federal crime, this section has been used by the
Department of Justice to prosecute civil rights era crimes and
hate crimes that were described as lynchings in public
discourse.
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\12\Depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and any
resulting injury, the offense is punishable by a range of fines and/or
imprisonment for any term of years up to life, or the death penalty. 18
U.S. Code Sec. 241. Conspiracy against rights.
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H.R. 55 seeks to amend section 249 of title 18 to specify
lynching as a hate crime act. Section 249 includes a
certification requirement from the Attorney General, or his or
her designee, prior to initiating prosecution under this
section.\13\ Certification requires satisfying one of four
elements: (1) that the state does not have jurisdiction; (2)
that the state requested federal jurisdiction; (3) that the
verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to state charges left
demonstratively unvindicated the federal interest in
eradicating bias-motivated violence; or (4) that a prosecution
by the federal government is in the public interest and
necessary to secure substantial justice. This requirement
ensures that while states are able to investigate and prosecute
criminal conduct at the state level, the Department of Justice
will be able to prosecute the act of lynching as a federal hate
crime. When an offense is motived by the victim's actual or
perceived race, color, religion, or national origin, this bill
will also enable federal law enforcement to investigate in
instances where the state is unable or unwilling to prosecute
the crime.
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\13\18 U.S.C. Sec. 249(b).
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The significance of a federal antilynching statute became
even more apparent following the murder of Ahmaud Arbery on
February 23, 2020, which was described as a modern day
lynching.\14\ The county prosecutor in that case is currently
charged with violating the oath of public office and
obstructing and hindering a law enforcement officer for not
only failing to adequately investigate the murder of Arbery,
but even attempting to prevent arrest of a suspect.\15\ Three
men were ultimately arrested for Arbery's murder only after
cell phone video footage of the attack was released online and
public outcry motivated the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to
take over the case. In April 2021, a federal grand jury
indicted the three men on charges under section 245 that they
intimidated Arbery, interfered with his right to use a public
street, and attempted to kidnap him because of his race.\16\ On
February 22, 2022, a jury convicted the three men, finding that
they were motivated by racism when they chased and murdered
Arbery.\17\ The men now face a federal sentence of up to life
in prison in addition to the life sentences they received in
state court.
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\14\The Associated Press, Ahmaud Arbery's death called a modern day
lynching, AL.com, May 20, 2020, https://www.al.com/news/2020/05/ahmaud-
arberys-death-called-a-modern-day-lynching.html.
\15\Alyssa Lukpat, Former Prosecutor in Ahmaud Arbery's Death Faces
Criminal Charges, New York Times, published September 2, 2021, updated
November 24, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/us/jackie-
johnson-indicted-ahmaud-arbery.html.
\16\U.S. v. McMichael et al, United States District Court, Southern
District of Georgia, https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/
1390396/download.
\17\Mzezewa, Burch, and Fausset, Three Men Are Found Guilty of Hate
Crimes in Arbery Killing, New York Times, February 22, 2022, https://
www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/us/gregory-mcmichael-travis-mcmichael-
william-bryan.html.
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Despite the existence of federal criminal enforcement
against hate crimes, it remains important to enact federal
antilynching legislation due to the historical context of these
violent incidents. Lynching was a violent tactic of racial
subordination and closely linked to the deprivation of
freedmen's post-Reconstruction constitutional rights. The fear
of lynching was also a major factor in the Great Migration to
the North and changed the demographics of the nation.
Politically, the terms of the lynching debate still echo
through Congress and influence the debate around social justice
policy. For that reason, in 2005, the Senate passed a
resolution, sponsored by Senators Mary Landrieu and George
Allen, apologizing for the Senate's failure to enact
antilynching legislation as a federal crime, with Senator
Landrieu commenting that, ``There may be no other injustice in
American history for which the Senate so uniquely bears
responsibility.''\18\ Taking a further step to equal the record
of the House of Representatives, the Senate voted unanimously
in favor of the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act on December
19, 2018, putting to rest nearly a century of opposition to
antilynching legislation in that chamber. The House of
Representatives, however, failed to pass the Justice for
Victims of Lynching Act prior to the end of that Congress.
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\18\Avis Thomas-Lester, A Senate Apology for Lynching, Washington
Post, June 14, 2005, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/
2005/06/14/a-senate-apology-for-history-on-lynching/324dade8-ec0e-46d9-
9674-c81c247eb214/.
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Representative Bobby Rush introduced H.R. 35, the Emmett
Till Antilynching Act on January 3, 2019, which passed the
House of Representatives on February 26, 2020 without amendment
and nearly unanimously. The current Emmett Till Antilynching
Act, H.R. 55, builds on the consideration of prior antilynching
legislation to ensure the Department of Justice is able to
appropriately prosecute the crime of lynching as a federal hate
crime.
Hearings
For the purposes of clause 3(c)(6)(A) of House Rule XIII,
the following hearing was used to develop H.R. 55: On February
17, 2022, the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland
Security held a hearing titled, ``The Rise in Violence Against
Minority Institutions.'' The witnesses were: Dr. Seth G. Jones,
Senior Vice President, Harold Brown Chair, and Director of the
International Security Program and Transnational Threats
Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Dr.
David K. Wilson, President, Morgan State University; Rabbi
Charlie Cytron-Walker, Colleyville, Texas; Pardeep Singh
Kaleka, Executive Director, Interfaith Conference of Greater
Milwaukee; Margaret Huang, President and CEO, Southern Poverty
Law Center; Dr. Demetrick Pennie, Retired Police Sergeant,
Dallas Police Department; and Brandon Tatum, Former Tucson
Police Officer, Founder and CEO, The Officer Tatum. The hearing
explored, among other issues, the roots of domestic violence
extremism in the United States, including the legacy of
lynchings that took place in the early part of the 20th
Century.
Committee Consideration
On December 8, 2021, the Committee met in open session and
ordered the bill, H.R. 55, favorably reported with an amendment
in the nature of a substitute, by a voice vote, a quorum being
present.
Committee Votes
No recorded votes occurred during the Committee's
consideration of H.R. 55.
Committee Oversight Findings
In compliance with clause 3(c)(1) of House Rule XIII, the
Committee advises that the findings and recommendations of the
Committee, based on oversight activities under clause 2(b)(1)
of House Rule X, are incorporated in the descriptive portions
of this report.
Committee Estimate of Budgetary Effects
Pursuant to clause 3(d)(1) of House Rule XIII, the
Committee adopts as its own the cost estimate prepared by the
Director of the Congressional Budget Office pursuant to section
402 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
New Budget Authority and Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate
Pursuant to clause 3(c)(2) of House Rule XIII and section
308(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, and pursuant to
clause (3)(c)(3) of House Rule XIII and section 402 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the Committee sets forth,
with respect to the bill, H.R. 55, the following analysis and
estimate prepared by the Director of the Congressional Budget
Office:
U.S. Congress,
Congressional Budget Office,
Washington, DC, January 27, 2022.
Hon. Jerrold Nadler,
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has
prepared the enclosed cost estimate for H.R. 55, the Emmett
Till Antilynching Act.
If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be
pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Lindsay
Wylie.
Sincerely,
Phillip L. Swagel,
Director.
Enclosure.
H.R. 55 would classify the act of lynching as a hate crime.
Individuals who violate the bill's provisions could be subject
to criminal fines, so the federal government might collect
additional fines under the legislation. Criminal fines are
recorded as revenues and deposited in the Crime Victims Fund.
Those funds are later spent without further appropriation
action, which is classified as direct spending. CBO expects
that any additional revenues and associated direct spending
would not be significant because few additional cases would
probably be affected.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Lindsay Wylie.
The estimate was reviewed by Leo Lex, Deputy Director of Budget
Analysis.
Duplication of Federal Programs
Pursuant to clause 3(c)(5) of House rule XIII, no provision
of H.R. 55 establishes or reauthorizes a program of the federal
government known to be duplicative of another federal program.
Performance Goals and Objectives
The Committee states that pursuant to clause 3(c)(4) of
House Rule XIII, H.R. 55 will increase public safety and heal
past and present racial injustice.
Advisory on Earmarks
In accordance with clause 9 of House Rule XXI, H.R. 55 does
not contain any congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits,
or limited tariff benefits as defined in clause 9(d), 9(e), or
9(f) of rule XXI.
Section-by-Section Analysis
The following discussion describes the bill as reported by
the Committee.
Sec. 1. Short Title. Section 1 sets forth the short title
of the bill as the ``Emmett Till Antilynching Act.''
Sec. 2. Lynching; Other Conspiracies. Section 2 amends
section 249(a) of title 18 of the United States Code to add a
new subsection that designates lynching as a hate crime. If
death results from the offense, it is punishable by a prison
term up to life, a fine, or both. In any other case, the
punishment is the same as the penalties for the offense the
commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.
Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported
In compliance with clause 3(e) of rule XIII of the Rules of
the House of Representatives, changes in existing law made by
the bill, as reported, are shown as follows (new matter is
printed in italics and existing law in which no change is
proposed is shown in roman):
TITLE 18, UNITED STATES CODE
* * * * * * *
PART I--CRIMES
* * * * * * *
CHAPTER 13--CIVIL RIGHTS
* * * * * * *
Sec. 249. Hate crime acts
(a) In General.--
(1) Offenses involving actual or perceived race,
color, religion, or national origin.--Whoever, whether
or not acting under color of law, willfully causes
bodily injury to any person or, through the use of
fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or
incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to
any person, because of the actual or perceived race,
color, religion, or national origin of any person--
(A) shall be imprisoned not more than 10
years, fined in accordance with this title, or
both; and
(B) shall be imprisoned for any term of years
or for life, fined in accordance with this
title, or both, if--
(i) death results from the offense;
or
(ii) 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.
(2) Offenses involving actual or perceived religion,
national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender
identity, or disability.--
(A) In general.--Whoever, whether or not
acting under color of law, in any circumstance
described in subparagraph (B) or paragraph (3),
willfully causes bodily injury to any person
or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a
dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary
device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any
person, because of the actual or perceived
religion, national origin, gender, sexual
orientation, gender identity, or disability of
any person--
(i) shall be imprisoned not more than
10 years, fined in accordance with this
title, or both; and
(ii) shall be imprisoned for any term
of years or for life, fined in
accordance with this title, or both,
if--
(I) death results from the
offense; or
(II) 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.
(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 channel,
facility, or instrumentality of
interstate or foreign commerce;
(ii) the defendant uses a 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; or
(II) otherwise affects
interstate or foreign commerce.
(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.
(4) Guidelines.--All prosecutions conducted by the
United States under this section shall be undertaken
pursuant to guidelines issued by the Attorney General,
or the designee of the Attorney General, to be included
in the United States Attorneys' Manual that shall
establish neutral and objective criteria for
determining whether a crime was committed because of
the actual or perceived status of any person.
(5) Lynching; other conspiracies.--Whoever conspires
to commit any offense under paragraph (1), (2), or (3),
shall--
(A) if death results from the offense, be
imprisoned for any term of years or for life,
fined in accordance with this title, or both;
or
(B) in any other case, be subject to the same
penalties as the penalties prescribed for the
offense the commission of which was the object
of the conspiracy.
(b) Certification Requirement.--
(1) In general.--No prosecution of any offense
described in this subsection 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.
(c) Definitions.--In this section--
(1) the term ``bodily injury'' has the meaning given
such term in section 1365(h)(4) of this title, but does
not include solely emotional or psychological harm to
the victim;
(2) the term ``explosive or incendiary device'' has
the meaning given such term in section 232 of this
title;
(3) the term ``firearm'' has the meaning given such
term in section 921(a) of this title;
(4) the term ``gender identity'' means actual or
perceived gender-related characteristics; and
(5) the term ``State'' includes the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, and any other territory or
possession of the United States.
(d) Statute of Limitations.--
(1) Offenses not resulting in death.--Except as
provided in paragraph (2), no person shall be
prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense under
this section unless the indictment for such offense is
found, or the information for such offense is
instituted, not later than 7 years after the date on
which the offense was committed.
(2) Death resulting offenses.--An indictment or
information alleging that an offense under this section
resulted in death may be found or instituted at any
time without limitation.
(e) Supervised Release.--If a court includes, as a part of a
sentence of imprisonment imposed for a violation of subsection
(a), a requirement that the defendant be placed on a term of
supervised release after imprisonment under section 3583, the
court may order, as an explicit condition of supervised
release, that the defendant undertake educational classes or
community service directly related to the community harmed by
the defendant's offense.
* * * * * * *
Additional Views
Lynching is a tragic vestige of a dark period in our
nation's history. It is a particularly wicked and horrific
crime that deserves a just and serious punishment. We write
separately to note particular concern with how the Democrat
majority amended the definition of ``lynching'' in H.R. 55, the
Emmett Till Antilynching Act, during the Committee's business
meeting in a manner that threatens to trivialize this atrocious
crime.
Commonly defined as mob-led, extrajudicial killings (often
by hanging), lynching was prominent in the United States
following the emancipation of slaves after the Civil War.
Between 1882 and 1968, 4,743 people were lynched in the United
States, including 3,446 African Americans and 1,297 whites.\1\
More than 73 percent of lynchings in the post-Civil War period
occurred in the Southern states.\2\ Although some lynching
victims were accused of crimes, these accusations were often
pretexts for lynching African Americans who violated Jim Crow
etiquette or engaged in economic competition with whites.\3\
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\1\Aneurin Canham-Clyne, Despite repeated efforts, a federal anti-
lynching law has not passed Congress in 130 years, Howard Center for
Investigative Journalism (Oct. 31, 2021).
\2\Id.
\3\Lynching in America, Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror,
Equal Justice Initiative (2017).
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In 1918, Representative Leonidas C. Dyer, a Missouri
Republican, introduced the first bill in Congress to make
lynching a federal crime. Over the next century, Members of
Congress introduced more than 200 antilynching bills. Between
1920 and 1940, the House of Representatives passed three
antilynching bills, but Southern Democrats in the Senate
opposed the bill and blocked further action.\4\ Most recently,
Representative Bobby Rush (D-IL) has introduced antilynching
bills in the 115th, 116th, and 117th Congresses.\5\
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\4\Aneurin Canham-Clyne, Despite repeated efforts, a federal anti-
lynching law has not passed Congress in 130 years, Howard Center for
Investigative Journalism (Oct. 31, 2021).
\5\H.R. 6086, 115th Cong. (2017); H.R. 35, 116th Cong. (2019); H.R.
55, 117th Cong. (2021).
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H.R. 55 is named after Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy
from Chicago who was visiting family in Mississippi. After
being accused of whistling at a white woman, he was kidnapped,
beaten, shot in the head, tied to a large metal fan with barbed
wire, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River. His mother
bravely chose to have an open casket during her son's funeral
to show the world the truth about lynching.\6\
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\6\DeNeen L. Brown, Emmett Till's mother opened his casket and
sparked the Civil Rights Movement. The Wash Post. (Oct. 28, 2021)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/07 /12/emmett-
tills-mother-openedhis-casket-and-sparked-the-civil-rights-movement/.
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The Committee should appropriately treat lynching as a
serious crime, and an antilynching bill should set forth a
clear and accurate definition of lynching. H.R. 55, as
introduced, included such a definition. Indeed, its definition
was identical to the definition in Representatives Rush's bills
in previous Congresses, including the version approved by the
Committee in 2019 by voice vote.\7\ H.R. 55, as introduced,
would add a new federal crime of lynching to 18 U.S.C. 249 and
define lynching as ``willfully, acting as part of any
collection of people, assembled for the purpose and with the
intention of committing an act of violence upon any person,
caus[ing] death.''\8\
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\7\H.R. 35, 116th Cong. (2019). For reasons unclear to Republicans,
the Democrat majority altered H.R. 35's definition of lynching between
Committee consideration and floor debate. The new definition, which was
never explained by the bill's proponents, changed ``lynching'' into
conspiracy to commit any of four crimes under federal civil rights laws
and reduce the punishment from life in prison to a maximum of 10 years
in prison. Although H.R. 35 with this new definition passed the House,
it did not pass the Senate due to concerns from Senator Rand Paul (R-
KY) that the new definition trivialized the crime of lynching by
lowering the standard of injury from death to ``bodily injury.''
\8\H.R. 55, 117th Cong. (2021).
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During the Committee's consideration of H.R. 55, however,
Chairman Jerry Nadler offered an amendment in the nature of a
substitute (ANS) that minimized the importance and the gravity
of the crime of lynching altogether. Departing from the
commonly accepted definition of lynching, the ANS would simply
criminalize conspiracies to commit any type of hate crime.
Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX), a cosponsor of H.R. 55,
offered an amendment to the ANS to revert the definition of
lynching back to the text as introduced. In explaining his
amendment, Representative Gohmert voiced serious concern that
the new language would reduce the standard of injury to
``bodily injury'' and minimize the heinous act of lynching as
an act that results in injuries as minor as a scratch or a
bruise. This negligible standard, Representative Gohmert
explained, would ``minimize our discussion about lynching, and
it should never minimize how serious it is.'' Unfortunately,
Representative Gohmert's amendment failed, with 20 Democrat
cosponsors of H.R. 55 voting against the definition of
``lynching'' as introduced.
Representative Gohmert's concerns mirrored those
articulated by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) during Senate debate in
the 116th Congress on a previous version of this bill. In
seeking to clarify the standard of injury as ``serious bodily
injury,'' Senator Paul explained at the time:
I seek to amend this legislation, not because I take
lynching lightly, but because I take it seriously and
this legislation does not. Lynching is a tool of terror
that claimed the lives of nearly 5,000 Americans
between 1881 and 1968, but this bill would cheapen the
meaning of lynching by defining it so broadly as to
include a minor bruise or abrasion. Our nation's
history of racial terrorism demands more seriousness
from us than that.\9\
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\9\166 Cong. Rec. S2715 (2020).
The Senate ultimately failed to act on Senator Paul's
amendment, and the bill languished until the end of the 116th
Congress.
The barbaric violence inflicted on Emmett Till and other
victims of lynching deserves serious treatment. It is not
comparable to, and should not treated like, mere bruises or
scratches. The Committee and the House should ensure that a
federal definition of lynching appropriately captures the
seriousness of the crime so that we may ensure it never happens
again.
Jim Jordan,
Ranking Member.
[all]