CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — State lawmakers have set aside Wyoming’s latest attempt to adopt a hate-crimes law.
A bill tabled Thursday by the House Judiciary Committee would have allowed prosecutors to consider a criminal’s biases when they seek punishment for crimes.
Such biases could have been against the victim’s race, sex, gender, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity or disabilities.
The bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Pat Sweeney, of Casper, also would have provided for anti-bias training for law enforcement officers to help them identify and respond to hate crimes.
Most public testimony Thursday was in support of the bill, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.
Others said the bill went too far or not far enough to discourage hate crimes.
The murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in 1998 led to hate crime laws in other states and at the federal level but not Wyoming. Wyoming is one of just three states without a hate crime law.
Arkansas and South Carolina also are considering hate crime legislation this year. Several previous attempts in Wyoming to enact a hate crime law have failed.
