I am talking about Louisiana Statute RS 14:225, linked to above--the one that the local prosecutor is responsible enforcing--most hate crimes are investigated by "hate crime squads" that are operated under the authority of state and local governments--the federal government prosecutes relatively few hate crimes--the Federal Hate Crime statute applies only if a Federal Felony of Violence has been committed-

Here is a quote from the following article, from the Houston Chronicle
Federal Prosecution of Hate Crimes

>Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, chose not to >pursue hate crime charges against the three teens accused of hanging nooses at Jena High >School because it could not be established that the nooses were meant to intimidate black >classmates. He also did not bring hate-crime charges against the Jena Six, black students >accused of attacking a white classmate, because there was no evidence the beating was >acially motivated.

>Washington said that the noose-hanging would have been a misdemeanor anyway and a hate->crime must be "a federal felony of violence."

Note that the federal prosecutor indicated that he considered the noose-hanging to be misdemeanor--which means that it could have been prosecuted under Louisiana law(see the link above), had the local prosecutor wanted to do so, but that it didn't meet the criteria of the Federal Law--

The only investigation of these crimes was conducted locally-- the information on the crimes that the federal prosecutor received came only from Reed Walters, the local prosecutor, who had decided already that there were no racial motivations in the noose hangings--so obviously, he wouldn't have made a strong case to the federal prosecutor that it was a racial incident--