§30506 — Title 34 Navy | U.S. Code

Summary

Courts must not let in evidence about a person’s speech, beliefs, group membership, or expressive acts in a criminal trial under this law unless the parties agree or the evidence is allowed under the Federal Rules of Evidence. The rule covers violent acts that are motivated by the victim’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The law cannot be used to take away First Amendment rights to speak, practice religion, or join groups. The government can only limit those rights if it proves a very important reason and that it used the least restrictive way to do so, and only when the speech or activity was meant to plan or prepare violence or to incite imminent violence. People cannot be prosecuted just for saying beliefs or just for belonging to a group, and peaceful protest and religious practice remain protected.

Title 34, §30506

Navy — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

For purposes of construing this division and the amendments made by this division the following shall apply:

(1)Nothing in this division shall be construed to allow a court, in any criminal trial for an offense described under this division or an amendment made by this division, in the absence of a stipulation by the parties, to admit evidence of speech, beliefs, association, group membership, or expressive conduct unless that evidence is relevant and admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Nothing in this division is intended to affect the existing rules of evidence.

(2)This division applies to violent acts motivated by actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of a victim.

(3)Nothing in this division, or an amendment made by this division, shall be construed or applied in a manner that infringes any rights under the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Nor shall anything in this division, or an amendment made by this division, be construed or applied in a manner that substantially burdens a person’s exercise of religion (regardless of whether compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief), speech, expression, or association, unless the Government demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest, if such exercise of religion, speech, expression, or association was not intended to—

(A)plan or prepare for an act of physical violence; or

(B)incite an imminent act of physical violence against another.

(4)Nothing in this division shall be construed to allow prosecution based solely upon an individual’s expression of racial, religious, political, or other beliefs or solely upon an individual’s membership in a group advocating or espousing such beliefs.

(5)Nothing in this division, or an amendment made by this division, shall be construed to diminish any rights under the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

(6)Nothing in this division shall be construed to prohibit any constitutionally protected speech, expressive conduct or activities (regardless of whether compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief), including the exercise of religion protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States and peaceful picketing or demonstration. The Constitution of the United States does not protect speech, conduct or activities consisting of planning for, conspiring to commit, or committing an act of violence.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

This division, referred to in text, is division E of Pub. L. 111–84, Oct. 28, 2009, 123 Stat. 2835, known as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. For complete classification of division E to the Code, see

Short Title

of 2009 Act note set out under section 10101 of this title and Tables. Codification Section was formerly classified as a note under section 249 of Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedure, prior to editorial reclassification and renumbering as this section.

§30506 Rule of construction