Woman Charged With Hate Crime After Stomping On 'Back The Blue' Sign

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A 19-year-old woman has been charged with committing a hate crime after she stomped on a 'Back the Blue' sign in Garfield County, Utah.

A law professor who assisted in the drafting of Utah's 2019 Hate Crimes bill has said that the statute she is being charged under isn't even a hate crime law. They even believe it's unconstitutional.

An officer that was conducting a traffic stop for speeding at a gas station saw the woman "stomping on a 'Back the Blue' sign near where the traffic stop was conducted, crumble it up in a destructive manner and throw it into a trash can all while smirking in an intimidating manner towards me."

The woman was then charged with criminal mischief with a hate crime enhancement.

Clifford Rosky, constitutional law professor, says the hate crime enhancement in the Garfield County case is an "intimidation" enhancement. 

A hate crime is described as a "person who commits any primary offence with the intent to intimidate or terrorise another person or with reason to believe that his action would intimidate or terrorise that person is subject."

Rosky has said, "It's very confusing to call it a hate crime enhancement, because it has nothing to do with anything that people would normally regard as a hate crime."

"But how are they going to prove that she was trying not just to annoy the police officers, but actually frighten them? And prevent them from exercising their constitutional rights? I don't even know. I mean, they have guns. they're not going to be physically afraid of a woman stomping on a sign." 

"The compromise was this law. That doesn't mention any particular characteristics. It just talks about intimidating and terrorising people...to prevent them from exercising their constitutional rights...We have a constitutional right o do just about everything, except the things that are illegal."

"If someone intimidates a person, you could say, 'Well they've intimidated them, for the purpose of preventing them from exercising their constitutional right to walk down the street.' ...So every crime could be charged under this statute, which suggests that the statute is vague and overbroad and unconstitutional."

"The 'Back the Blue' incident is not a hate crime. And it's not even being charged as a hate crime. It's being charged as a crime of intimidation and terrorising, and even on those terms it's a very weird fit."

"I think there's a very good argument that the law they're charging her under itself violates the free speech clause because it's unconstitutionally vague. Certainly, if it were applied in this case, it would raise very serious problems under the free speech clause. Because all she did was stomp on a sign."