The Constitution State, like most states and the federal government, has enacted a patchwork of hate-crime laws that overlap with the thousands of existing federal, state, and local criminal laws. The question is whether these laws serve a legitimate purpose or add another layer of criminal liability to conduct that is already punishable, further expanding an increasingly punitive and regressive criminal justice system of mass incarceration. Unless limits are placed on the growth of the criminal law and the surveillance state, Americans will one day find themselves living in a society that bears little resemblance to the constitutional republic envisioned by the nation’s founders. The Homeland Security Act, which was originally enacted to protect Americans against foreign terrorism, is now being used against Americans for surveillance with Federal law enforcement agencies activated and fanning out across the country.

When was the last time someone committed a crime out of love? Criminal behavior is driven by anger, resentment, greed, prejudice, jealousy, revenge, or some other negative emotion. I hate being poor, therefore I want to steal that guy’s Mercedes. I hate my girlfriend, therefore I want to hit her. Hate crime laws punish not only conduct, but also the offender’s beliefs, attitudes, or speech. A minor altercation can be transformed into a serious felony prosecution if prosecutors conclude that the defendant was motivated by bias.

Governments have expanded their hate-crime arsenal beyond traditional criminal conduct and into the realm of speech. Federal and state laws increasingly target First Amendment protected online communications, even when the speaker has not directly contacted the victim. Racist and offensive speech is fully protected under the First Amendment, unless it involves “true” threats not just hyperbole. As social media has become the modern public square, efforts to regulate hateful expression have collided with the First Amendment.

In the most relevant, recent case of Counterman v. Colorado, the United States Supreme Court attempted to clarify the First Amendment with regard to on-line hate speech but a split decision with a number of divergent opinions only added more confusion to the state of the law. Justice Sotomayor stated: “A high school student who is still learning norms around appropriate language could easily go to prison for sending another student violent music lyrics. A drunken joke in bad taste can lead to criminal prosecution.” The ACLU’s brief stated that an individual was jailed for sending a single Facebook comment in response to a local activist’s post about being choked by a State deputy. The post: “Wow, brother they wanna hit our general. It’s time to strike back. Let’s burn this motherfucker’s house down.” The ACLU stated: “this was either an example of a single utterance that could be a figurative or hyperbolic expression of outrage over injustice, and therefore protected speech on a matter of public concern, or an unprotected threat to set fire to a deputy’s home.”

The US Supreme Court requires that the government prove that the speaker “acted recklessly by consciously disregarding a substantial risk that the statement will cause harm to another.” Kanye West posted that he wanted to go “Death con 3 on the Jewish people.” Was this a “true” threat to Jewish people? Should Kanye be prosecuted? For at least a decade Alex Jones ranted on his radio show that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a staged government hoax. He repeatedly claimed no one died and that grieving parents were actors, inciting his audience to harass the victims’ families about a conspiracy at Sandy Hook elementary school. Alex Jones never got arrested by the State of Connecticut. The words of Alex Jones resulted in real injuries, as opposed to the words of the men who were recently arrested and convicted for on line hate speech in Connecticut.

67 year old Paul Boyne, a retired Naval officer living in Virginia caring for his elderly parents, wrote a blog for a decade that directed his anger against Connecticut family court judges. Boyne had lost visitation of his daughter some 15 years ago in a Connecticut family court. Boyne was recently convicted in New Haven and sentenced by Judge Peter Brown to 20 years incarceration, an excessive sentence for a guy with no criminal record whose words did not lead to any threat or violence against any family court Judge. Paul was physically disabled living in Virginia when he posted his blog, a long distance from the State of Connecticut. The FBI investigated complaints brought by Connecticut Judges concerning Boyne’s blog and ultimately declined to bring federal charges, most likely due to First Amendment challenges, based on evidence presented in Boyne’s State criminal case. When a 67-year-old man with no prior criminal record receives a decades-long prison sentence for words posted on the internet, it is fair to ask whether the prosecution advances public safety or instead chills protected expression. The family court judges who were the subjects of the online statements argued that a substantial sentence was necessary to deter others from engaging in similar conduct. Deterrence is a recognized goal of criminal sentencing, but when punishment is imposed primarily to send a message to others, courts must take care not to trample constitutional freedoms. A sentence designed to deter future speakers may protect public officials from criticism and harassment, but it may also discourage lawful speech by citizens who fear that intemperate political rhetoric could result in criminal prosecution and lengthy imprisonment.

A 40 year old rapper and father named Joseph Thompson, AKA Joe Grits, was recently convicted in Bridgeport for posting a photo of a Bridgeport police officer, who shot and killed his friend, with a tombstone that read RIP. A second posting stated, “Somebody gotta die, somebody should die with a badge on.” Joe Grits is scheduled to be sentenced on July 27, 2026 by Judge Robert G. Golger. Were the postings “true” threats directed at a specific police officer, or were they hyperbolic and emotional expressions of outrage over what Joe Grits viewed as a grave injustice? It is fair to ask whether a defendant should face years of imprisonment for words posted online when no shot was fired, no violent act occurred, and no evidence suggests that anyone was incited to commit violence against the officer. Criminal law has long distinguished between speech and action, even when the speech is offensive, inflammatory, or deeply disturbing. The case illustrates the immense discretion exercised by prosecutors. The state lacks the resources, manpower, and jail space to investigate and prosecute every threatening or reckless statement made on the internet. As a result, prosecutors make discretionary decisions every day about which cases to pursue and how aggressively to pursue them. Two individuals may engage in similar conduct yet receive dramatically different treatment. One may never be charged, another may face misdemeanor allegations, and a third may be prosecuted for serious felonies carrying years of potential incarceration. Such disparities raise legitimate questions about consistency, fairness, and the proper role of criminal law in regulating online speech.

Was the prosecution of Joseph “Joe Grits” Thompson motivated by racial bias? Thompson’s supporters believe so. They argue that society is more likely to view a Black man expressing anger toward authority figures as more dangerous than a similarly situated white defendant. In their view, prosecutors and jurors often interpret the words of Black artists through a lens of fear, particularly when those words are expressed in the language and style of rap music. Across the country, defense attorneys, civil-rights advocates, and legal scholars have criticized the increasing use of rap lyrics and artistic expression as evidence in criminal prosecutions. They argue that rap music is frequently treated differently from other artistic genres because of stereotypes associated with race, crime, and violence. Lyrics that might be dismissed as metaphor, exaggeration, fantasy, or artistic performance in another context are often presented to juries as literal statements of intent when written or performed by rap artists. A legal brief in a similar case in Texas, posted below, argued the following: “Today rap is one of the most popular musical genres in the world, and one of America’s most celebrated and wide-reaching exports. Yet rap music has found its way into the courts, used increasingly as evidence against criminal defendants in a manner that exploits and perpetuates stereotypes associated with the genre and the artists who engage in it. The manner in which prosecutors presented rap lyrics to an almost all-white jury during his capital sentencing hearing presents an ideal vehicle for addressing this issue because the prosecutors’ conduct here was particularly egregious. The prosecutors argued Mr. Broadnax was likely to be dangerous in the future simply because he engaged in “gangster rap.” Such an argument functionally operates as a categorical and straightforwardly unconstitutional content-based penalty on rap music as a form of expression.”

Paul Boyne may have been subjected to the same “fear” stereotype regarding members of the anti-authority far right as Joe Grits experienced as a rapper at the opposite end of the anti-authority political spectrum, when he was sentenced to 20 years by Judge Peter Brown. The First Amendment protects speech from the far left, the far right, and those who reject conventional political labels altogether. It protects criticism of government officials, judges, police officers, and public institutions, even when that criticism is harsh, inflammatory, or even anti-authority. Paul Boyne made reference on occasion to a far right group known as the “Oath Seekers,” although it doesn’t appear Boyne belonged to any violent fringe group, or the FBI would have arrested him. It didn’t help Paul by referring to his Black sentencing Judge Peter Brown as “Brown-boy.” But justice is supposed to be blind. Equal justice under the law is a bedrock principle of the American legal system. Courts derive their legitimacy from the public’s confidence that the same legal standards apply to everyone and that justice is not influenced by popularity, power, or prejudice. When citizens begin to believe that laws are enforced selectively or that similarly situated individuals are treated differently, confidence in the legal system erodes. The law is intended to protect the powerless and the powerful alike, applying the same standards to all regardless of wealth, status, political beliefs, race, religion, or social standing. A defendant should not receive a harsher punishment because a judge, prosecutor, or jury finds his views repugnant. In a constitutional system committed to free expression, courts must be especially careful to distinguish between punishing unlawful conduct and punishing unpopular beliefs. When speech becomes the basis for judging a defendant’s character rather than the legality of his actions, justice will cease to be impartial and instead become a reflection of personal or political preferences of the Judge.

A 24 year old East Haven man Mark Williams was recently arrested for sending threatening messages to an officer at the East Haven Police Department over the internet. After he posted bond he sent more messages leading to another arrest. The crime of threatening a member of law enforcement is far more punitive than crimes involving threats against layman, even without the new on line “hate” crime laws. A 36 year old man from East Haven, ie., Paul Smith, was recently arrested and charged with felony hate crimes for yelling “baby killers” at a group of Jews wearing skull caps. He smelled of alcohol and had suffered a drug overdose a few weeks prior to his arrest. Smith and Williams have obvious mental health issues. The criminal justice system is not designed to function as a substitute for medical or psychiatric care. Yet, in practice, incarceration is often used as the default response to conduct that may stem in part from addiction, instability, or untreated mental illness. The result is a system that may incapacitate individuals temporarily but does not necessarily address the conditions that contributed to their behavior.

Having worked for many years with the Connecticut Public Defender’s Office as a special public defender, and having argued criminal and civil appeals before the Connecticut Appellate and Supreme Courts, and Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and tried Federal and State criminal and civil cases I have seen the inside of the criminal justice system. I also spent time volunteering inside the New Haven State’s Attorney’s Office under Senior State’s Attorney Wilensky in a high profile sex abuse prosecution involving a case against a politically powerful pedophile rabbi defendant known to me personally. I intimately know how the system works. I also served am 18 month federal sentence a decade ago for mortgage fraud related to the 2008 housing crash in which I was a very minor player, handling a handful of closings for no money other than my fees, practically ‘ministerial’ in the words of Attorney Willie Dow. The realities of prison life cannot be understood from courtrooms or legal briefs, nor will Judges or prosecutors, who mostly control the system, ever experience what goes on inside the walls of a prison. What I witnessed inside jail was not rehabilitative in any meaningful way. Instead, incarceration functions as a system of isolation and containment. Many individuals leave custody more hardened, more alienated from society and their broken families than when they entered. Their children have a higher rate of delinquency and eventual incarceration. The experience can deepen resentment toward institutions rather than foster respect for the law. The public has no inkling of the level of “discretion” that prosecutors and judges who “run the system” have over their personal lives. The prosecutors’ and judges’ personal views and petty “politics” regarding crime, deterrence, and punishment factor more into plea bargaining and sentencing than the public is aware. Former US Attorney and Federal Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York Hon. Jed Rakoff, stated the following in one of his many articles and books lambasting how politics has compromised the Judiciary and US Attorney’s Office: “In the U.K., where the members of their Supreme Court are nominated by an independent commission, the justices of our Supreme Court are nominated by the President, who, inevitably, picks people of kindred ideology to his own… our Supreme Court justices, whether liberal or conservative… make their decisions in controversial cases primarily on the basis of their personal ideologies, only afterwards seeking the camouflage of ostensibly neutral rationales…” Having been an insider in the Connecticut legal establishment for twenty years, I believe Judge Rakoff’s words equally apply to Connecticut’s legal system.

May we all live to see a day of peace and harmony in the land of the marginally “free”!

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