Bush angers slain man's family

Bush's opposition to the bill reportedly revolved around the fact that it would cover gays and lesbians. The governor's office "contacted the family and asked if we would consider taking sexual orientation out of the bill," Harris says. "And our answer was no, because the bill is for everybody. Everybody should be protected by the law."

But in 1994, Bush pledged to veto any effort to repeal an anti-sodomy law, calling it "a symbolic gesture of traditional values." Protecting gays under a hate crimes law presumably wouldn't even be a thought he would entertain.

In this, Harris and other members of the family take issue with Bush's claim to be "a uniter, not a divider." "If he was a uniter, then he'd be for all people and not just some people," Harris says. "He's very judgmental. He can't say 'uniter.' He divided himself when he tried to take sexual orientation out of the bill."

Bush spokesman Sullivan says the governor never took a position one way or another on the bill: "Ultimately, the 1999 bill failed in the Legislature and never made it to Governor Bush's desk. It never made it out of the Legislature."

Would Bush have voted for the House version?

"The bill never made it out of the Legislature," Sullivan says.

What about reports that he would have supported the bill had sexual orientation been removed from the list of prejudices included in the law?

"The bill never made it out of the Legislature," Sullivan says.

Democrats point out other holes in Bush's statements during the second presidential debate. He argued that "we have a hate crimes bill in Texas," referring to a bill signed into law in 1993 by then Gov. Ann Richards. Many Texas prosecutors consider the law too vague, and point out that as of the push for a stronger bill in May 1999, only two hate crimes cases had been prosecuted under state law.

District attorney Gray disagrees, saying that the current law -- which increases penalties for criminals motivated by "hatred of any group" -- is a "good law."

"No court has ever said that it's not good," Gray says, "though there haven't been a whole lot of prosecutions under it -- that's true."

Additionally, Sullivan says, Bush helped to strengthen the law in 1995 and 1997. "In '95 they clarified the law," making it less vague, he says, "and in '97 the Legislature passed, and Governor Bush signed, a law increasing the minimum sentence for misdemeanor hate crimes."

Plus, had a stronger hate crimes law been on the books, the case against the three men who brutally attacked Byrd would probably not have turned much different.

Texas law allows for the death penalty only when a criminal has been convicted of another crime -- in addition to murder -- that is included on a list of specified aggravated offenses. In the Byrd case, the additional charge to murder was kidnapping. The proposed Byrd hate crimes bill, however, would not have counted any "hate crime" as a second offense toward capital punishment.

"The various hate crimes bills, none of them call for the death penalty," Gray says.

"That was a little bit of a problem for us, finding the second offense," Gray says. "We were able to do it, but it would have been easier if in the capital statute there was something like a hate crime, something involving torture or dragging." Gray says there were other reasons why Berry didn't receive the death penalty. "I made a mistake in jury selection," Gray says. "The verdict was 10-2 on the death penalty, and one of them was pretty vocal against it. Also, part of it was he really wasn't as culpable as the other two. He hadn't been in the Klan; he hadn't been in the penitentiary before."

Also, Gray says, "one of his jailers allowed him a little extra freedom to get outside and paint and things. And that had an impact on the jury, that the jailer didn't think he was very dangerous."

What of Bush's portrayal of himself as part of a system that pushed for the most severe punishment for King, Brewer and Berry?

During the trials of the three men, Byrd's sister Harris says, Bush "didn't offer any support. The FBI and the prosecution team fought hard and proved kidnapping and murder -- that wasn't because of state of Texas laws. For him to sit there and take credit for things he didn't do was offensive to me and my family."

While the Bush campaign counters that Bush approved the $100,000 grant to aid the prosecution's efforts, Gray estimates the cost of the prosecutions to be around $750,000, about a third of which came from the federal government.

But the technical details, at least for the Byrds, don't seem to be the point. Beneath the surface of their outrage lies the failure of Bush -- usually a master of superficiality -- to make basic gestures of humanity toward a grieving family.

"It's really not a Democrat thing or a Republican thing," says Mullins, Byrd's oldest daughter, of her support for Gore. "I usually vote for the best person, regardless of what party they're in. But I just think that Gore is more sympathetic."

Members of the Byrd family think that Bush was indifferent and duplicitous in their time of grief; cold and callous during their efforts to pass a law so that, in their minds, James Byrd Jr. didn't die in vain; misleading and woefully ignorant on the campaign trail whenever Byrd's name was raised. They think he's lying about his phone call to them, that he's lying about meeting with Mullins for 45 minutes, that he's lying about caring in any way about their plight. And though Bush may be fundamentally correct in his assertion that the proposed hate crimes bill would not have made a difference in this case, his clumsiness as a "healer" has manifested itself in some strong suspicions by the Byrd family.

"If he had his way, he would be standoffish to black America," Harris says. "But since he's running for president, he has to do his campaigning as if he loves all people. But I have my doubts about that. I think it's all a ploy. I'm not in a position to judge anybody's heart, but actions speak louder than words."

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