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From Tragedy to Change: Horrific Crimes that Transformed Laws — Part 1
Though they couldn’t be saved, their deaths were instrumental in protecting others
When someone hurts or takes the life of another person, we want that person caught and locked away. We not only want justice for the victim but to ensure that the perpetrator is never able to do it again. Sometimes, there is no precedent for specific events that occur in a case, which calls for a reactive addition or change to current laws.
Matthew Shepard & James Byrd, Jr.
Matthew Shepard was a student who was tortured, beaten, and left to die in Laramie, Wyoming on October 6, 1998. He died six days later from blunt force trauma to the head. It was determined that he was targeted because he was a homosexual man.
James Byrd Jr. was an African American man who was tortured and murdered by three white supremacists in Jasper, Texas on June 7, 1998. He was tied to a truck and dragged behind it. He died when his body hit a culvert and it ripped his right arm and head from his body.
Both are what we now recognize as hate crimes. At the time, Wyoming’s hate crime laws did not include homosexuals and Texas had no hate crime laws at all.
