WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has refused to review the hate crime conviction of a New Mexico man who participated in branding a swastika on the arm of a Navajo man with mental disabilities.
The court acted Monday in the case of William Hatch, among the first people charged under a 2009 law targetinghate crimes involving disabilities or sexual orientation. Hatch and two other men lured Vincent Kee from a McDonald’s in Farmington, N.M., to an apartment where they used a metal coat hanger to burn the swastika onto Kee’s arm.
Hatch pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a federal hate crime.
The case is Hatch v. U.S., 13-6765.
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