During the last decades, dozens of political representatives and party leaders have faced legal prosecution for inciting hatred and defamation of outgroups. However, there is only limited scholarly knowledge about the (unintended) consequences of such legal actions. In this dissertation, I aim to shed light on two questions: 1) How does the public debate on hate speech prosecution evolve in the news media? and 2) What are the (unintended) consequences of exposure to decisions about hate speech prosecution on citizens’ democratic support? I demonstrate that decisions made by political authorities about hate speech prosecution can have important consequences for democratic support. They have the potential to decrease democratic support among a large group of citizens who agree with the political ideas spread by the politician on trial. Yet, the public sphere in which the audience is exposed to news about hate speech prosecution is influenced by the reciprocal relationship between journalists and frame sponsors in frame building. As the public debate in the news media is dominated by frame packages propagated by the prosecuted politician—who consistently blames the trial for being political, unfair, and an attack on free speech—it is not unlikely that political evaluations such as democratic support are influenced by the shape and content of this public debate. After repeated news exposure to legal action against political actors, lower democratic support may have consequences for, amongst other things, willingness to comply with the law, and conventional forms of political participation (e.g., voting behavior and party membership). This, amongst others, may complicate authorities’ decision-making processes and the implementation of new policies in liberal democracies. The question remains if the genie should not be left inside the bottle.