George's Project

The Federal Constitution of 1988 Title II, Article 5, Section XLII makes it a crime to racially discriminate. According to the Penal Code, article 140, paragraph 3º, this crime is considered a crime against a person’s honor and state criminal courts have jurisdiction to hear the case. However, there are several procedural impediments to successfully prosecuting this type of crimes. First, unlike other crimes, the victims of honor crimes do not get to use the state prosecutor and have to hire a private attorney. Private attorneys are expensive and many of the victims of these sorts of crimes are black and poor. Further private attorney tend to not take these cases because the low amount of money received in damages for the victim. In addition, the damages are rewarded in the form of a tort. Consequently, the victim has to go to the civil court to actually receive his or her money. Another potential impediment is that the burden of proof is on the victim, and she or he has to prove that the incident actually occurred. These types of impediments concomitant with other substantial and procedural difficulties justify the selection of the research question posed above.