Current Federal criminal and civil rights laws have many limitations that point to the need for State laws on hate crimes. Most of the current State criminal codes leave too much discretion to the prosecutor. As a result, bias crimes are unlikely to be prosecuted. However, both unconscious racism and the involvement of the police in bias-related incidents make bias crime an area that is uniquely affected by prosecutorial discretion. A model State law should define a bias crime as any act or threat made due to some immutable characteristic that the victim possesses or is perceived to possess as a member of a disfavored group. The model law also specifies the duty of the prosecutor, establishes and funds a State bias reporting agency, sets a judicial standard for according declaratory judgment, empowers the judiciary to appoint a special prosecutor if a prosecutor disagrees with the rationale of a declaratory judgment, and punishes bias crimes by either imprisonment or a fine. Footnotes