Jane Costen's NYT podcast The Argument did an episode on this, too, March 31 of this year. It's free on podcast apps (I use Antenna). The format is that Jane moderates a discussion between two people with opposing views, in this case Kevin Nadal, professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Steven Freeman, vice president for civil rights at the ADL. They also talked about the Atlanta spa killings. Mostly they came to agreement on the idea that when there is no applicable other law (like, placing an object on someone's lawn and setting it on fire, where it doesn't damage the property, is not actually illegal, so how do you prosecute cross burning where there is a symbolic message) hate crime laws are useful and important, but if there is already an applicable law (murder is illegal) hate crime legislation is basically feel-good and a way to signal to the involved communities that they're being taken seriously.