Vermont AG’s office tells Judiciary committee H.118 would let hate-crime law cover targets who aren’t the technical property victims

Julio Thompson, an assistant attorney general and co-director of the Civil Rights Unit at the Vermont Office of the Attorney General, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 27 that H.118 would remove a technical barrier in state hate-crime law so incidents motivated by bias can be prosecuted or addressed even when the legal victim is the owner of damaged property rather than the people targeted by the bias.

Thompson said the statute enacted in 1989 (cited in the hearing as 13 VSA 14 55, with the original enacting provision at 13 VSA 14 54) ties the hate-motivation element to the named victim of the underlying crime and that linkage can prevent certain incidents from qualifying as hate crimes. "Under existing law, we are restrained," Thompson said, describing examples such as vandalism of a school bus or a rented home where the owner, not the targeted occupants, is the technical victim of the property crime.

The committee heard that the Office of the Attorney General enforces civil provisions of the Hate-Motivated Crimes Act, may seek injunctions and state penalties, and provides hate-crimes training twice a year at the Vermont Police Academy. Thompson said the proposed change is narrow in wording but substantive in effect: it would substitute wording tied to "another person" and add protection for acts motivated by a person's "perceived membership" in a protected group, which would expand the statute's scope to cover incidents where the immediate legal victim is a property owner or a public entity.

Why it matters: Committee members asked whether the change would raise First Amendment concerns. Thompson cited the U.S. Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Wisconsin v. Mitchell and explained that hate-crime enhancements apply to underlying criminal conduct, not to protected speech itself, and that evidence of speech can be used to prove intent in many areas of law. He said the amendment follows approaches used in other states (Illinois, Pennsylvania, Delaware were cited) and aims to give prosecutors and civil authorities tools to address acts that communities perceive as biased.

The testimony included concrete scenarios the change is intended to cover: school buses or places of worship defaced with slurs or symbols; vandalism of rental housing where the tenants are the apparent targets but the property owner is the legal victim; and attacks or damage to public property such as bridges or police barracks where the targeted group is identifiable even if the owner is a government entity.

Thompson told the committee that the Civil Rights Unit often seeks noncriminal remedies in sensitive cases (for example, juvenile offenders) and sometimes pursues civil actions or restorative approaches when a criminal prosecution is not appropriate. He said communities and prosecutors have raised questions to the attorney generalabout why some clearly biased incidents cannot be treated as hate crimes under current statutory language.

The committee exchanged technical questions about grammar and statutory drafting. Senator Pruf, a Judiciary Committee member, summarized the change as replacing the reference to "victim" with "another person" and adding "perceived membership," and described the wording fix as narrowly technical but important for clarity. Thompson agreed the amendment is partly grammatical cleanup and partly a substantive expansion of coverage.

No formal vote or committee action on H.118 was recorded in the provided transcript.

Thompson closed by noting the officehas provided statewide training and community outreach on how the law operates and that other states have adopted similar formulations to avoid the construction that prevents some bias-motivated conduct from being treated as a hate crime.

The committee did not record a final decision in the excerpt provided; staff or sponsors may provide amended language and further briefing in subsequent sessions.