Bill AB378 was passed on July11. The bill, Hate Crime Civil Remedies Act, sponsored by California Assembly Member Judy Chu (49th Distruct), will extend the time that victims of hate crimes have to file a law suit for civil penalties against their attackers. Current law limits this to time period to just one year. AB 378 would extend the period to three years. This extra time is critical because many victims will not file a civil suit while a criminal suit is pending. Criminal suits can and do take longer than one year. Moreover, it may take longer than one year to uncover the identity of the attacker(s). The bill is also supported by by Asian Law Caucus, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality.
In June of 2003, five young Asian teens were about to enter a diner on Taraval street in San Francisco to celebrate their impending graduation from high school. Before the boys entered, they were accosted by racist slurs like "gook" and "chink." When the Asian boys turned around, they were attacked and brutally beaten by a mob of up to twenty white male youths. The mob did not relent even after the Asian boys tried to escape across the street. Of the up to twenty attackers, only one was ever arrested and charged by the police. It took over one year to bring the perpetrator to trial. And it was only at trial that the identities of some of the attackers were revealed and confirmed. By then, it was too late for the Asian boys to seek any meaningful civil recovery for the hate crimes that they had endured.
The Bane Act of the California Civil Code currently allow hate crime victims to file civil law suits against their attackers. By far the most meaningful provision of these statutes is the mandatory $25,000 civil penalty imposed upon hate crime perpetrators. However, under California law, any law suit seeking this penalty must be brought within one year of the incident. This one year limitation will unfairly prohibit some hate crime victims, like the five Asian boys in the Taraval Street hate crime, from seeking civil recovery. Victims are often reluctant to bring a civil action before the criminal case concludes. Civil suits provide perpetrators with information not available in criminal cases. Perpetrators, moreover, typically demand that the victims drop the criminal case before settling the civil case. On top of that, as in the Taraval Street hate crime, investigation and identification of hate crime perpetrators may not be completed within one year.