On this date in 2007, Coarsegold, California, high school teacher, Donna Jean Hubbard, 46, pleaded No Contest to Battery and to Possessing an Assault Weapon. The plea deal allowed Hubbard—who hosted a white supremacist rally called "Aryan Unity Fest '06" over the Memorial Day weekend in 2006—to avoid being tried for allegedly committing a hate crime in connection with an alleged attack on a Jewish woman in an Oakhurst, California parking lot in 2005. Hubbard, who at the time of the hate crime taught health careers at the Duncan Polytechnic High School, and her husband, Bobby Hubbard, 47, were arrested in 2006 after police said they found Ku Klux Klan clothing, photographs of burning crosses, and several rifles at their home. Hubbard said she made the plea deal, which was made in the Madera County Superior Court, to avoid losing her teaching credential. She is alleged to have pushed a Jewish woman to the ground, pulled her hair and kicked her while allegedly stating, "You should have burned in the oven with the rest of the Jews." Hubbard had remained on paid administrative leave from her teaching job following her arrest.

A Pakistani immigrant was found guilty of arson on this date in 2007 in Seattle, Washington. Mizra Akram, 40, was sentenced by Judge Marsha Pechman to four years and three months in prison on June 26, 2007, in U.S. District Court in Seattle for burning down his own grocery store, Continental Spices, in Everett, Washington, in July, 2004, and trying to make it look like a hate crime. He and an accomplice, Naveed Khan, were accused of spray-painting anti-Muslim graffiti around the store as a way to deflect the investigation away from them. Khan pled guilty previously for his role in the crime and testified against Akram who, police discovered during their investigation, had also committed over $30,000 worth of food stamp fraud (and for which he was found guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison). According to federal officials, Akram is a legal resident of the United States, but he could be deported following his prison term.

Joseph Kuzlik, a white man from Cleveland, Ohio, was sentenced on this date in 2007 to 27 months in federal prison plus three years of supervised release for committing a hate crime that involved a series of acts to drive an interracial family from their neighborhood. Kuzlik, and fellow accomplis, David V. Fredericy, 50 and also a white man from Cleveland, placed toxic mercury on the porch of the family to intimidate the family. Fredericy was earlier found guilty and was sentenced to 33 months in prison for his role in the crime, although he completed his sentence on June 17, 2008. Kuzlik completed his sentence on February 7, 2008.

On this date in 2008 in Annapolis, Maryland, the Maryland Senate voted 40-4 to expand its hate crimes law to include homeless people. At the time of the favorable vote on Republican Senator Alex Mooney's bill, Maryland’s hate crimes law protected persons based on race, color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and national origin. The bill passed into law after it gained the approval of Maryland’s House of Delegates. Maryland is the only state as of the summer of 2009 to include homelessness as a protected category in a hate crime law.

On this date in 2008 in Pembroke Pines, Florida, African-American high school student Moremi Akinde (pronounced mor-EE-mee ah-KIN-day) found a noose hanging from an umbrella near her lunch table at the Somerset Academy, and until her father, South Florida Times newspaper editor Bradley Akinde, ran a story in his paper about the hate incident the Akinde family were told by the school's headmaster that there was nothing that could be done about the incident. Shortly before she found the hanging noose, Moremi had published an article about Black History Month for a community newspaper. Only after the South Florida Times ran the story, did Somerset Academy Headmaster Bernardo Montero release the following statement regarding the hate incident: "Respect, tolerance and the celebration of diversity is an integral part of our curriculum and school culture. This incident will not be tolerated. School administrators and faculty take issues of racism and disrespect very seriously. We will continue our investigation until the culprit(s) are found. In the meantime, our social studies department has begun using this incident to educate students about bias and racism incorporating it into the curriculum to initiate meaningful discussions. Administrators will also work to determine if underlying issues exist and address them with assistance from parents, community leaders and organizations." In a move of activism that we love at trendsinhate on March 20, 2008, Moremi appeared with two state lawmakers in Tallahassee in support of a bill that would expand Florida's hate crimes law to make criminal the use of nooses and swastikas to intimidate others.

In the early morning hours on this date in 2009 in Mountain View, California, three Hindi-speaking men and one Hindi-speaking woman were allegedly attacked a a group of four to six men and two women as they walked to their car. The Hindi-speaking woman was allegedly first confronted by two women who uttered racial remarks about the group's native language and ethnicity before punching and slapping her. The three Hindi-speaking men were next allegedly attacked by a group of men. Arrested and charged each with a hate crime were four persons from East Palo Alto: Frisco Tuipulotu, 23, Tuutalihihifo Tuipulotu, 20, Richard Juarez, 23, and Caroline Evaimalo, 24. Juarez is Latino and the other three alleged attackers are Pacific Islanders.

In Rochester, Minnesota, on this date in 2009, Justin Charles Conerton, 25, and Wyatt Karl Theuer, 27, both of Rochester, are said to have attacked a man because of the man's sexual orientation outside Billy Mac's Bar. Conerton was charged out of the Olmsted District Court with gross misdemeanor fourth-degree assault motivated by bias, gross misdemeanor tampering with a witness in the second-degree, gross misdemeanor interfering with a 911 call, and two counts of misdemeanor fifth-degree assault. Theuer was charged out of the Olmsted District Court with misdemeanor fifth-degree assault, fourth-degree assault motivated by bias, tampering with a witness in the second degree, and interfering with a 911 call. For more about Justin Conerton, please see our March 22 page.

In the early morning hours in San Antonio, Texas on this date in 2010, a gay man, Troy Martinez Clattenburg, 24 (DOB: September 26, 1985) of San Antonio, was murdered because of his sexual orientation by a white man, Cody Carmichael, 21, who shot Mr. Clattenburg in the back of the head with a .380-caliber gun at the West Bitters Road apartment where Mr. Clattenburg lived with his mother Ruth who was at home and asleep at the time of her son's murder. She discovered her son when she woke up in the morning. Carmichael, who confessed to the murder, said he committed the crime because he claimed Mr. Clattenburg made unwanted sexual advances toward him. The murder, however, was premeditated as investigators said Carmichael left Mr. Clattenburg's apartment and then returned with the gun he used to slay Mr. Clattenburg. Despite his confession, Carmichael was released on $100,000 bond (wthout any conditions) on March 19, 2010, and despite the confession, San Antonio police did not rule the homicide a hate crime until April 13, 2010, when they told members of Mr. Clattenburg's family that the crime was indeed a bias-motivated one. Initially the police refused to investigate Mr. Clattenburg's murder as a hate crime, even after Carmichael's confession.