Her words were sincere and to the point, just as they were an hour earlier when she spoke at a hate-crimes symposium about the slaying of her brother James Byrd Jr. in 1998. In front of a group of Utah community leaders, Harris recounted some of the details of how her brother, a black man, was brutally murdered by three white men outside Jasper, Texas.
"How can you heal from that?" she asked. "How can you go on from that? There's no closure."
Harris' goal during her first visit to Utah was to encourage lawmakers and community leaders to support the passage of stronger hate-crime legislation in the Beehive State.
Sens. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake, and Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, will co-sponsor the legislation, Hale said Friday. The bill increases the criminal penalties for bias crimes by one step; for example, increasing a class A misdemeanor to a third-degree felony. Bias would include any crime based on race, color, disability, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age or gender. The list is based on classifications already in laws that have been upheld before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Utah's current hate crimes law is one of four nationwide that fails to include a list of protected groups. When challenged in the courts, as a Georgia law was recently, legislation without a list of groups has been ruled ''unconstitutionally vague.''
That is the argument that Rep. David Litvack, D-Salt Lake City, has tried to make over the past five years without success. Litvack, who had planned to make a sixth run at the bill this year, will now hold his legislation pending the performance of the Hale-Bell bill. "I really feel very optimistic," he said.
Weber State University professor Forrest Crawford, who helped organize the symposium, invited Harris to speak. "We really did want a national voice to give local meaning to a pressing problem," Crawford said. "We think she has some very unique insights."
During her visit, Harris also met with local religious leaders and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. "I'm here to put a face behind James Byrd Jr.," she said at the symposium.
Harris also met with former Democratic Sen. Alicia Suazo at Parkview Elementary School, where Suazo teaches second grade. Suazo championed hate-crime legislation after filling the seat of her husband, Sen. Pete Suazo, after his death in an ATV accident.
"Hate is a learned behavior," Harris said while sitting in the school's library. "Everything learned can be unlearned. . . . People need to be aware, not relaxed about hate crimes because it could happen to them."
Harris said she helped pass Texas' first hate-crime legislation in 2000. She called on Utahns to help do the same here.
"There is a season for all things and this is the season for Utah to step up and pass a strong hate-crime bill," she said.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Case history
* James Byrd Jr., 49, died June 7, 1998. He was beaten by John William King, Shawn Allen Berry and Lawrence Russell Brewer before being chained to a pickup and dragged down a street near Jasper, Texas. Byrd was decapitated in the dragging. The men, who stood trial separately, were convicted of Byrd's murder in 1999. King and Brewer both received the death penalty and Berry was sentenced to life in prison.
