For their part in Byrd’s murder, Brewer and King were sentenced to death. Brewer was executed on September 21, 2011, and showed no remorse for his crimes. On the day before he was executed, he stated in an interview with KHOU 11 News that he had “no regrets,” and would “do it all over again” (via Huffpost). After losing appeals, King was put to death on April 24, 2019. The avowed white supremacist had maintained his innocence throughout the trial and conviction but offered no last words from the execution chamber.
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On October 27, 2009, President Obama signed a historic piece of legislation into law that was inspired in part by the brutality of the Byrd lynching case. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was attached as part of that fiscal year’s defense bill, allowing for its passage after a decade’s worth of stalling (per USA Today). The law took effect in early 2010 and provides funding for state, local, and tribal governments to investigate and prosecute suspected hate crimes. The U.S. Department of Justice states that this law also makes it a federal crime to use any weapon to do bodily harm to anyone based on their actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The law was named in part after victim Matthew Shepard, who was beaten and murdered in Wyoming in 1998. Shepard was gay, motivating his attack.
