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Legal expert urges clearer hate-crime statutes and community impact statements in sentencing
Summary
Professor Christina Miller, an experienced former prosecutor, told the commission that Massachusetts law should be clarified to reduce mixed-motive uncertainty in hate-crime prosecutions, improve jury instructions, and allow community impact statements when hate crimes affect broader communities.
Christina Miller, associate clinical professor of law at Suffolk University and a former chief of district court and community prosecutions, told the commission that prosecutors face three common patterns in hate-motivated incidents: group attacks, reactive incidents tied to publicity around foreign events, and unplanned assaults by persons with addiction or mental-health challenges. She warned that "mixed motive" cases '1 where an act (for example, a robbery) includes bias-motivated language or selection '1 can obscure charging and jury comprehension.
Miller…
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