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Blame attribution is a valuable mechanism explaining decision making. However, present literature mainly employs blame attribution as a dependent variable. The shortcoming of this fact is that blame attribution offers a potentially valuable explanatory mechanism for decision making. The authors designed two studies to investigate blame attribution as a moderator of sentencing decisions in sexual orientation-based hate crimes. Study 1 showed that mock jurors punished perpetrators of hate crimes more severely than a control condition. Also, degree of victim blame influenced punitive decision making. In Study 2, mock jurors extended findings that perpetrators of hate crimes are more harshly punished than those of other types of crimes. Victim and perpetrator blame failed to moderate decision making in this more complex scenario. Results are discussed in relation to hate crimes definitions and attribution theory.

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Little empirical work exists examining predictors of support or opposition of hate crime penalty enhancement laws despite such laws remaining a socially and politically contentious issue. Grounded in legal and philosophical arguments concerning hate crime laws, we tested political identity, victim minority status, and hate crime‐related beliefs as predictors of perceptions concerning penalty enhancement laws for bias‐motivated crime. Jury‐eligible Texas community members (n = 382) participating in a community survey of social and legal attitudes took part in the present study. Participants read a vignette of a hate‐motivated homicide that varied victim type (African American, gay, transgender) and answered questions regarding demographics, political identity, and hate crime penalty enhancement support. Qualitatively coded hate crime‐related beliefs yielded the following categories: legal arguments, moral statements, victim‐related beliefs, offender‐related beliefs, and an “other” category. Political identity, legal arguments, victim‐related and offender‐related beliefs all predicted views of penalty enhancement laws in logistic regression analyses. Exploratory mediation tests identified two pathways: (1) political conservatism–legal arguments–penalty enhancement opposition, and (2) political liberalism–offender beliefs–penalty enhancement support. Implications concerning social justice, public policy, trial consultation practice, and future research are discussed.

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