Hate Expectations: Police and Prosecutors Are Quick to Claim the Presence of Racism — but Juries Are Not So Sure

"Hate crimes seem like the flavor of the month," says defense lawyer and former San Francisco prosecutor Floyd Andrews, who represented Allen in the skinhead case.

Data tracked by the state Department of Justice supports the contention that San Francisco takes a more aggressive approach to charging hate crimes. In 2010, the DA's office here filed 24 such cases, more than any other jurisdiction in the state except Los Angeles, which filed 69. Prosecutors in the larger city of San Diego charged 17 hate-crime cases, while those in San Jose, also larger than San Francisco, filed only 12.

Courtesy of S.F. Disctrict Attorney’s Office

Robert Allen was convicted of assault, but a jury rejected allegations he committed a hate crime.

Courtesy of S.F. Disctrict Attorney’s Office

A jury found that Katherine “KKKatie” Dunbar had not committed a hate crime in a graffiti spree.

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More About

• Robert Allen
• Nancy Meskan
• Justin Meskan
• Trials
• Racial Issues

Deputy Public Defender Vilaska Nguyen, who represented a defendant in another case where a jury acquitted on a hate-crime allegation, says that in a city short on bigotry, the hate-crimes unit at the DA's office has to justify its existence.

"If there are not a lot of cases — if there are no cases — then there's no justification for keeping this civil-rights, hate-crimes unit around. It really feels like these hate-crime cases are overcharged," Nguyen says.

Cases might be overcharged sometimes. San Francisco's juries have certainly thought so. But the prosecution of a handful of such cases over the course of several years hardly seems like a potent electioneering tool. Hate crimes as an issue got virtually no attention in the just-completed race for DA, which Gascón won.

"Every day, I deal with public defenders who say, 'You're doing this because it's politically motivated, you're trying to get Gascón re-elected,' and it's not true. I don't know what else to say," Hwang says.

Bureaucratic or political motives might contribute to charging decisions in local hate-crime cases, as they do in many other types of cases. But it seems just as likely that the questions arising from San Francisco's recent spate of failed hate-crime trials stem from the often complex nature of the crimes themselves, as well as broad philosophical puzzles about the application of criminal bias laws.

Exhibit A in this regard is the Nite Cap beating case, which was a lot less straightforward than it seemed at the outset.

Neither Allen nor Meskan look like skinheads. Meskan, 29, is tall, with a restless demeanor, large hands, and long, curly black hair. Allen, with his pallor, wide forehead, and short brown hair, could pass as an extra in a Hollywood tween vampire movie.

In interviews with SF Weekly from the San Francisco County Jail, both say that being accused of a racist attack on the Cauich cousins has been a surreal experience.

"The thing about that night is that it was just a drunken brawl, nothing else," says the 39-year-old Allen.

"It's off the hook," says Meskan, who has never acknowledged even being present for the fight at the Nite Cap. "The DA has blown this so far out of proportion. He wants everything to be a hate crime."

Neither man claims to be an angel. Both say they're recovering drug addicts. Both have a rap sheet. Allen has felony convictions on second-degree burglary and marijuana offenses, Meskan for receiving stolen property. At the time of the Nite Cap fight, both say they were staying clean and taking classes in automotive mechanics at City College of San Francisco.

Despite Allen's and Meskan's criminal records, the men's friends and relatives were surprised by news reports that the pair had committed a hate crime against Mexican men. "Justin is my stepson. I've raised him since the time he was 20 months old. He's had problems with the law," says Nancy Meskan, who was in close contact with Justin until he left San Diego, his hometown, at age 20. "And that is not my son. He is not that kind of person. This is not how he was raised."

Adam Chandler has known Allen, who is originally from Virginia, for years. He helped get him a job at the recycling center next to the Castro Safeway after he got out of prison. "In no way, shape, or form do I believe he was racist," Chandler says. "I'm very against racist bullshit. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble to get him this job."

The story recounted by law-enforcement officials about the defendants' skinhead affiliations certainly was not airtight. Neighbors who overheard the scuffle disagreed in their testimony over whether the words "white power" were used — one witness, when he took the stand, merely recounted having heard "white something," according to the San Francisco Examiner.

The Nazi paraphernalia in Allen's apartment — photos of swastikas and Adolf Hitler, some on a computer desktop — belonged not to him but to a guest. Weston, the defendant who turned state's evidence, had an Asian girlfriend. Meskan's girlfriend was part Mexican.

Even Weston, who pleaded guilty to committing a hate crime and was released on probation with credit for time served at the county jail, rejected the idea that bias was involved in the altercation at the bar. "It was Anthony's view all along that this wasn't a hate crime," says Stuart Hanlon, his attorney. "A couple of drunken white guys got in a fight with a couple of guys who happened to be Mexican."