Hate Crime Legislation
 

If you support hate crime legislation, please give your case here.

My points:

1. Why should you be punished more for murdering someone out of hate than murdering someone to take their money?

2. How is it feasible to determine what is a hate crime and not? Shall we just assume that when a straight white person commits a crime against anyone who isn't straight and white, it's a hate crime?

3. Doesn't it just make sense to punish people for their actions which abridge other peoples' rights, instead of punishing them for their emotions?

4. It seems like hate crime legislation is a roundabout way of giving gay people more rights than straight people, and non-white people more rights than white people. Has anyone heard of any cases of a minority attacking a white person and getting charged with a hate crime?

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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Has anyone heard of any cases of a minority attacking a white person and getting charged with a hate crime?

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hahahahahahahahaha.

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WHITE PLAINS — The Westchester County District Attorney's Office is considering a hate-crime charge against a 43-year-old rapist accused of stabbing a legal secretary to death Wednesday, because he told police he had planned to kill a white woman, sources familiar with the case said yesterday.

Law-enforcement officials would not comment, but the sources said the District Attorney's Office would seek a grand jury indictment charging Phillip Grant, 43, with second-degree murder as a hate crime, based on his statements to investigators.

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link

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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1. Why should you be punished more for murdering someone out of hate than murdering someone to take their money?

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I'm not really for hate-crime laws, but surely motive can be taken in to account. A particularly heinous crime should come with a harsher punishment.

If you discard that argument, it's still possible that the reason the crime was commited in the first place might affect the likelyhood of ultimate rehabilitation.

In fact, if an insane person commits murder it is treated differently than a robbery-homicide, so it's not totally illogical to consider other motives that might warrent seperate attention.

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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In fact, if an insane person commits murder it is treated differently than a robbery-homicide, so it's not totally illogical to consider other motives that might warrent seperate attention.

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Insanity is a factor in intent, not motive.

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I'm not really for hate-crime laws, but surely motive can be taken in to account. A particularly heinous crime should come with a harsher punishment.

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Aggravating and mitigating circumstances. We already have these, so why the legislation? Could it be because politicans want another arrow in their quiver come election time?

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

I don't support this stuff.

I'm just not sure that you can legislate against how someone thinks.

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1. Why should you be punished more for murdering someone out of hate than murdering someone to take their money?

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Beats me.

(Excuse the pun.)

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2. How is it feasible to determine what is a hate crime and not?

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I can't think of a way. The legislation leaves the door open for serious abuse by the judiciary, or the law enforcement agencies.

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3. Doesn't it just make sense to punish people for their actions which abridge other peoples' rights, instead of punishing them for their emotions?

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Absolutely. Anything else is the think end of the wedge that brings in totalitarianism.

Passing judgement on thought should be absolutely forbidden. In fact, we should be taking extreme pains to avoid it, even if that means losing on something else in civil rights.

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4. Has anyone heard of any cases of a minority attacking a white person and getting charged with a hate crime?

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Whites/Caucasians are the master race, in many ways -- and I'm referring strictly to economic and political powers (or is this a redundancy?) and I trust we do not need to debate this too much!

The minorities will always need special protection to protect themselves against the potential for abuse by the majority, just as the weak against the strong, and this redressing of balance necesserily limits certain privileges or intrudes in certain rights of those that hold the high ground. (To tax more money out of a "richer person" is to operate under that very principle.)

But legislating against thought should NEVER be one such measure !

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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Aggravating and mitigating circumstances. We already have these, so why the legislation? Could it be because politicans want another arrow in their quiver come election time?

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It seems like you're for the enforcement of an anti-hate judicial system - but against it being codified in to law?

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

Should a terroist murderer be treated the same as a murder in the course of a burglary?

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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Should a terroist murderer be treated the same as a murder in the course of a burglary?

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Did the terrorist only murder one person? Did he do it in a manner that threatened many other people (i.e. fired a RPG into a crowd but only killed one person)?

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Does it matter? Terrorists commit crime from hate. No?

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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Does it matter? Terrorists commit crime from hate. No?

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Yes it matters. Yes terrorists commit crimes from hate. I still don't support making motivation a factor in defining a crime. Using motive as an aid in proving a case is fine IMO.

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Please expand.

Do you think terrorist murder is not a hate crime? Or is it a hate crime but not the hate crime of a KKK member on a minority? What is the difference?

Should there be special laws to deal with terrorist attackers when they are arrested? Alleged terrorists should be handled differently then alleged baby killers? Suspected terrorists should be guilty until proven innocent?

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In California, we have a "special circumstances" provision, such that murders committed under those special circusmtances are subject to different, more severe, penalties than those than are not.

One of the special circumstances is the murder of a peace officer. Should one be punished differently for murdering a policeman than for murdering, say, a teacher? Or a plumber?

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I still don't support making motivation a factor in defining a crime.

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It seems to me that the reason some one commits a crime has a lot to do with their rehabilitation. Would you agree with that? If so, would you support using motive in parole hearings to determine if someone already convicted stays in jail?

(If you don't agree with that, I'd be curious as to why)

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There are actually very specific reasons for why this is.

Having the Death Penalty behind the murder of police officers makes criminals a lot less likely to shoot police, protecting the men in blue.

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I still don't support making motivation a factor in defining a crime.

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It seems to me that the reason some one commits a crime has a lot to do with their rehabilitation. Would you agree with that? If so, would you support using motive in parole hearings to determine if someone already convicted stays in jail?

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I think those are fine. Considering motive (along with many other circumstances) when sentencing is also OK in my book. I just don't agree with "murder" and "hate murder" being two seperate crimes.

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If this is so effective why don't we use it to deter the killing of anyone?

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My son's a cop, so I like the idea of protecting the police. But doesn't it put a higher value on person X's life than person Y?

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Shouldn't the fact your son puts his life on the line every day (if he's a non desk jockey cop) warrant special consideration/protections? He's a lot more likely to run into a guy with a gun than I am. Having that little extra incentive to not shoot a cop is well worth it. If a cop is killed by a burglar while sleeping in his own bed at night he shouldn't be treated any differently than doing the same to me.

I just can't wrap my mind around the reason to have hate crime legislation.

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Should one be punished differently for murdering a policeman than for murdering, say, a teacher? Or a plumber?

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My mom is a teacher, and my dad is a plumber, so... no.

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natedogg

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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it's still possible that the reason the crime was commited in the first place might affect the likelyhood of ultimate rehabilitation

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I would suspect that someone who lynches a black man because he is black is MUCH more likely to repeat offend than someone who murders a man he has found to be sleeping with his 3 year old daughter.

Hate crimes, like terrorism, also have a larger negative affect on society as a whole. The "victim" of a hate crime is both the actual victim as well as other members of the group who are terrorized by the thought that people are willing and able to kill them because of the fact that they sleep with people of the same sex as themselves.

In my mind, society is harmed to a much greater extent by hate motivated crime than by the sime crime with different motivations.

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

Good post.

Your reasoning is also why it is OK to treat terrorists and (perhaps) alleged terrorists differently. No one wanted to handle the terrorist question in this thread, likely, because it conflicted with their view of how hate crimes should be treated.

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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I would suspect that someone who lynches a black man because he is black is MUCH more likely to repeat offend than someone who murders a man he has found to be sleeping with his 3 year old daughter.

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Which is exactly why motive and other circumstances should be considered in sentencing. Creating a new class of crimes is not neccesary to deal with this problem.

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Please expand.

Do you think terrorist murder is not a hate crime? Or is it a hate crime but not the hate crime of a KKK member on a minority? What is the difference?

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The main difference is that terrorist crimes usually have a large number of simultaneous victims. I'm not interested in using emotional terms in defining the crime.

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Should there be special laws to deal with terrorist attackers when they are arrested? Alleged terrorists should be handled differently then alleged baby killers?

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I don't have a problem with terrorism laws. The crimes of blowing up a plane, hijacking a bus, dispersing chemical weapons over a city, or other mass-terror crimes are clearly different than shooting a guy in a robbery or killing a single baby.

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Suspected terrorists should be guilty until proven innocent?

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Yeah. Put some words in people's mouths. This is a really intellectually lazy and reprehensible debate tactic. I'm adjusting your credibility level downward accordingly.

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I dont think a terrorist crime can or should be defined by the number of simultaneous victims. The Columbine shooting can hardly be referred to as a terrorist crime.

Terrorist crimes, to me, have two attributes one to cause fear that lasts beyond the actual commission of the particular crime. 9/11 is terrorist by this attribute as the reason and reaction lasted far longer than for example the fear of the beltway bandit. The second attribute is that a terrorist crime has as its motive an attack on the entire group being so terrorized, not just the particular victim(s). Again 9/11 is targetting all Americans and not just the ones in the WTC that day.

Terrorist crimes and Hate crimes are closely related though not quite the same. Hate crimes are often spontaneous as opposed to planned attacks on the group that is being hated.

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Yeah. Put some words in people's mouths. This is a really intellectually lazy and reprehensible debate tactic. I'm adjusting your credibility level downward accordingly.

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Just asking!

I am adjusting your touchiness quotient accordingly. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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Which is exactly why motive and other circumstances should be considered in sentencing. Creating a new class of crimes is not neccesary to deal with this problem.

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It seems like if you're okay with the concept and support the outcome that the exact implementation shouldn't matter. Why does it?

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

My son's duties include being on patrol and also doing paperwork behind a desk. I want him (and all cops) to be as safe as possible. I'm in favor of them getting paid a helluva lot more than they get paid now since they're providing a needed service, at great personal danger, to the community.

But I still have problems with a greater punishment for somebody who kills a person engaged in occupation X as opposed to occupation Y. As another poster suggested in this thread, why not make the punishment for any murder severe to discourage would'be murderers from killing anyone?
Seems to me people are not usually at their best when they encounter a cop in a shooting situation, that they probably don't stop to think about what the penalty will be for killing him. Better, I think, to make guns less available to criminals and to make the penalty for using a gun in the commission of a crime severe than to delineating different penalties depending on who is killed or what the person was thinking when they did the killing.

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I dont think a terrorist crime can or should be defined by the number of simultaneous victims. The Columbine shooting can hardly be referred to as a terrorist crime

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It's not the sole defining characteristic. Jesus, you can be mind-numbingly literal at times.

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Terrorist crimes, to me, have two attributes one to cause fear that lasts beyond the actual commission of the particular crime.

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Victims of routine muggings and other violent personal crimes often have lasting fear and other psychological effects.

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9/11 is terrorist by this attribute as the reason and reaction lasted far longer than for example the fear of the beltway bandit.

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The fear of the beltway bandit (are you talking about the sniper?) ended because they caught the guy. The masterminds of 9/11 are still around, presumably. Also, the number of people affected by the beltway bandit wasn't anywhere close to the number affected by 9/11.


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Terrorist crimes and Hate crimes are closely related though not quite the same. Hate crimes are often spontaneous as opposed to planned attacks on the group that is being hated.

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Intent, premeditation, etc is *definitely* a valid criteria for differentiation of crime classes. We already do that with 1st degree murder vs. (eg) manslaughter.

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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It seems like if you're okay with the concept and support the outcome that the exact implementation shouldn't matter. Why does it?

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Because implementing "this is a hate crime" removes a lot of discretion. The outcome is not the same.

Alternative question: if the outcome is the same (which I don't accept) why go through the trouble of making more laws?

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

I don't like hate crime laws either, but what the perpetrator was thinking is certainly a factor in homicide laws. The perpetartors intent (or what the jury believes his intent was) can, in some cases be the difference between manslaughter, second degree murder, or first degree murder.

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But I still have problems with a greater punishment for somebody who kills a person engaged in occupation X as opposed to occupation Y.

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I think it's because it's not only murder but, in the case of police, it's an attack against society/law-and-order as well. (I assume cop-killer laws only apply in on-duty situations)

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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I don't like hate crime laws either, but what the perpetrator was thinking is certainly a factor in homicide laws. The perpetartors intent (or what the jury believes his intent was) can, in some cases be the difference between manslaughter, second degree murder, or first degree murder.

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As has been pointed out several times before in this thread, intent is different than motive. Hatred is part of the motive, not intent.

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

Some arguments in this thread are stupid.

Here's a stupid one:

1) Because the punishment is more severe for calling a cop than an ordinary citizen, bad guys are less likely to take a shot at a cop.

Ok I understand this argument.

Let's say that the penalty for second degree murder of an ordinary citizen is 25 years.

Let's say that the penalty for cop killing is life in prison no parole.

Why not make the sentence for killing ANYONE life in prison no parole or death sentence? Give everyone the most severe punishment possible.

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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It seems like you're for the enforcement of an anti-hate judicial system - but against it being codified in to law?

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It's redundant. Aggravating circumstances are circumstances that make the crime more severe. This is already considered in court, so the act of making a law (which could be too broad or too narrow) has no meaning. It's a waste of legislators' time and our money, and imo, is just another instance showing legislator X being "tough on crime".

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It's a waste of legislators' time and our money, and imo, is just another instance showing legislator X being "tough on crime".

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This sounds an awful lot like an argument against the drug war as well. So why don't you oppose the WOD, BCPVP?

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I didn't realize that I supported the War on Drugs. Methinks you're a little too quick to stereotype, Dead [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img].

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I didn't realize that I supported the War on Drugs. Methinks you're a little too quick to stereotype, Dead [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img].

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Bull. Even if you haven't made any posts supporting it, you're a Republican, which means that you are very, very likely to support it- especially on hard drugs.

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

I am a Republican. But I also believe in states rights. If a state decides drugs should be legal there, I don't think the feds should butt in. So stick that in your pipe ( [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) and smoke it!

PS. you're a lot dumber (yet funnier) than I remember...

Re: Hate Crime Legislation
 

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I am a Republican. But I also believe in states rights. If a state decides drugs should be legal there, I don't think the feds should butt in. So stick that in your pipe ( [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) and smoke it!

PS. you're a lot dumber (yet funnier) than I remember...

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How did you conclude that I am dumb? You may think that my views are dumb, and that's fine, but I want to know why you think that I am dumb.