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Senators keep South Carolina hate crime bill alive for now

Some Republican senators had questioned whether it is necessary to add penalties to violent crimes based on someone’s motives.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s effort to become the next-to-last state to pass a hate crimes law has survived a challenge from some Republican senators. 

The senators had questioned whether it is necessary to add penalties to violent crimes based on someone’s motives. 

The “Clementa C. Pinckney Hate Crimes Act” allows prosecutors to ask the same jury that convicted someone for extra punishment for a violent crime based on the race, color, religion, sex, gender, national origin, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability of the victim. 

The bill is named for the African American state senator killed along with eight others in a 2015 racist attack on a Bible study at Emanuel AME Church.

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