Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signs bills creating hate crime law, criminalizing 'sextortion'

Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News on Jan 22, 2025

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LANSING, Mich. — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law Wednesday bills that would reclassify certain crimes as hate crimes, replacing Michigan’s 1988 ethnic intimidation law with expanded definitions of the categories of people who fall under the law’s protections.

The Democratic governor signed the hate crime legislation into law alongside 17 other bills seeking to criminalize sextortion, increase school safety and require the proper disposal of firearms.

“Michiganders should feel safe whether they’re watching a movie at home or heading into the classroom,” Whitmer said in a statement Wednesday. “That’s why I’m proud to sign these 19 commonsense bills that will keep Michigan families and neighborhoods safe from gun violence and other violent crimes."

The hate crime laws, which passed largely along partisan lines in the House and Senate, would expand the ethnic intimidation law to include protections from violent or threatening behavior that is based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or physical or mental disabilities. Religion, ethnicity, and race were already protected under the ethnic intimidation law and would continue to be protected under the hate crime act.

House lawmakers first passed the legislation in June 2023, but introduced a second version earlier this year after the initial legislation went viral based on false claims that the bills criminalize language that misgenders a person.

The legislation, sponsored by Democratic state Reps. Noah Arbit of West Bloomfield and Kristian Grant of Grand Rapids, would allow a prosecutor to pursue hate crime charges if an individual maliciously and intentionally uses force or violence against a person, causes bodily injury to an individual, stalks a person, damages the property of another or threatens any of those actions based in whole or in part on a person's protected characteristics.

Those protected characteristics under the law include race or color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, ethnicity, national origin or an affiliation with any of those individuals or groups, according to the bill.

"As a Jew in a time of rampant antisemitism, and as a gay man in a time of uncertain rights, I promised the people of West Bloomfield, Commerce and the Lakes that I would move heaven and earth to tackle rising hate crimes and extremism," Arbit said in a statement Wednesday. "Today, after two years of tremendous effort, battling disinformation, bigotry, lies and political paralysis, I am incredibly proud to have delivered on that promise in my first term with this new law."

If an individual is found guilty of threatening an individual who is found to be in those protected classes, according to the bill, a first violation is treated as a felony punishable by up to two years in prison and/or a fine of $5,000.

The penalties increase based on frequency and seriousness of the offense. In some cases, the court is able to reduce a sentence by not more than 20% and allow instead for an alternative sentence such as community service.

The main bill includes language that says, "This section does not enjoin any individual's exercise of the constitutional right to free speech."

Whitmer also signed into law bills that would criminalize "sextortion," or a threat to distribute sexually explicit images of a person if that individual doesn’t comply with a demand.

Under the law, a first offense would be punishable by up to five years in prison, a second offense up to 10 years and a third offense up to 20 years. A 25-year maximum sentence would apply if a victim suffers great bodily injury or mental harm, or to a situation involving a suspect 19 or older and a victim under the age of 18 or who is a vulnerable adult.

A suspect younger than the age of 18 would be guilty of a misdemeanor carrying a max of one year in jail.

The legislation, sponsored by Democratic state Reps. John Fitzgerald of Wyoming and Kara Hope of Holt, was spurred by a rise in sextortion cases nationwide, but particularly a case out of Marquette, where 17-year-old Jordan DeMay took his life after he was extorted from individuals from Lagos, Nigeria.

Whitmer also signed into law a series of school safety initiatives that requires standardized response terminology to be used in emergency situations, creates a new School Safety and Mental Health Commission within the Michigan State Police and requires behavior threat assessment and management teams in schools.

Other bills would require the Michigan State Police to completely destroy all firearms collected through gun buyback programs or surrendered to or seized by the state police.

The legislations responds to a a New York Times investigation that found the state police's contract with Missouri-based gun disposal firm GunBusters did not require guns collected through buyback programs to be fully destroyed. Instead, some parts were resold in gun kits.

Two other bills would require the Department of Health and Human Services to develop fact sheets on a law passed by Democrats in 2023 that requires the safe storage of firearms around minors. The information would be required to be distributed to students and their parents.

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