A question for legal types about motive...

[Misnomer]

I’m preparing a short speech wherein I argue against hate crime legislation: I don’t believe that someone’s motive should have any impact on their punishment. To support my argument I looked up “motive” in FindLaw*, and from what I can tell motive is a factor in establishing guilt, not in determining punishment. So hate crime legislation is an exception to how motive is generally seen (legally).

I also found the following in Wikipedia:

In addition, it is argued that hate crime prosecutions seek to punish an individual for motive rather than intent. For example, the difference between first or second degree murder is intent, not motive. It is one thing to distinguish between different states of mens rea, or guilty mind, such as between knowingly, recklessly, or negligently putting someone at risk. It is another to distinguish whether someone who knowingly attempts to harm another person is motivated by hatred for the particular person or by hatred of a class of persons to which he or she belongs. The law has not traditionally made the latter distinction.

I don’t want to rely solely on my interpretation of a FindLaw article, nor do I want to accept as gospel information found on Wikipedia, so I turn to Dopers familiar with criminal law: am I (and Wikipedia) getting this motive/punishment distinction right?
*When did FindLaw become such a crappy reference for the public? I can still search for the term “motive,” but there doesn’t seem to be a legal dictionary available anymore. So I get one relevant result, and 91 other results that simply mention the word “motive.” Grrr.

[Doctor_Who]

I’ll take a crack at this.

from what I can tell motive is a factor in establishing guilt, not in determining punishment. So hate crime legislation is an exception to how motive is generally seen (legally).

Sort of. Intent is a typical element of a crime (e.g. murder). Determining someone’s motive can go a long way towards demonstrating that they had the requisite intent to kill someone. Another reason that prosecutors introduce motive evidence is that jurors LIKE to hear it. They want to know why the alleged culprit committed the crime.

Let’s look at an example — say that Alan runs over Betty with his car. The prosecution wants to show that he murdered her, but Alan claims that the whole thing was merely an accident. If the prosecution can show motive - for example, that Betty and Alan had dated up until the day before, when she confessed to sleeping with his best friend, that can help establish that Alan intended to murder her.

So motive is not an element of most crimes, but it can help to establish intent.

It’s true that hate crimes are different - and can fairly be described as a exception in that they make the motivation for the crime an element.

However, I believe it is incorrect to say that hate crimes are the only time that motive affects punishemnt. Motive can be important in determining punishment in certain areas. For example, during murder sentencing in many states, motive can be used to demonstrate aggravating factors that would justify harsher punishment (like the death penalty).

Motive can also be important in developing a defense. In my above example - if Betty had told Alan of her unfaithfulness seconds before he jumped in the car, and then he saw red and ran her over - in some states, he could attempt to raise a defense of extreme emotional distress. Thus his motive for running her over gave him a reason to be so upset and thus a reason why his punishment should be lighter.

I have a few other side comments as well:

In the wikipedia quote you provided, please note that the difference between first and second degree murder is statutory and differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. First degree murder in NY is different from first degree murder in HI (as an example). Thus, while the gist of the wiki quote is correct - the law has not typically concerned itself with whether a person is motivated by hatred of a certain group - it is incorrect (IMO and may vary depending on the jurisdiction) to say that the difference between first and second degree murder comes down to intent and not motive.

Also - while we’re on the topic - regrettably, I cannot find the thread - but some wise Doper made an excellent topic regarding hate crimes. It boiled down to whether a person who spraypainted ethnic slurs on the home of a black family who recently moved into a white neighborhood and a person who spraypainted his or her name on the wall of an office tower should receive the same punishment for essentially the same crime - graffitti. I thought that was an excellent point, and perhaps the most cogent argument for hate crime legislation I’ve ever heard. Regrets that I can’t credit the specific Doper.

If I was writing a speech arguing against hate crime legislation - I would make sure that I could address a situation like this. It seems to me that many people intuitively dislike hate crimes legislation when discussing a crime like murder - the thinking being - “Well, he or she killed somebody! Shouldn’t matter why they did it - they should just go to jail!” I think that thinking about whether the motive should matter is much more pronounced in a situation like the graffitti.

That’s my 2 cents, I’m sure our usual legal crew will be along shortly.

The Doctor

[Rigamarole]

@Doctor Who

Also - while we’re on the topic - regrettably, I cannot find the thread - but some wise Doper made an excellent topic regarding hate crimes. It boiled down to whether a person who spraypainted ethnic slurs on the home of a black family who recently moved into a white neighborhood and a person who spraypainted his or her name on the wall of an office tower should receive the same punishment for essentially the same crime - graffitti. I thought that was an excellent point, and perhaps the most cogent argument for hate crime legislation I’ve ever heard. Regrets that I can’t credit the specific Doper.

Still, the objective damage to the victim is still the same: cost of repainting over the graffitti. Any claims to emotional damage is simply unquantifiable, and is entirely a matter of choice to the victim. He can choose to take offense or not at his leisure. But someone’s gotta pay to repaint his house.

[Doctor_Who]

@Rigamarole

Still, the objective damage to the victim is still the same: cost of repainting over the graffitti. Any claims to emotional damage is simply unquantifiable, and is entirely a matter of choice to the victim. He can choose to take offense or not at his leisure. But someone’s gotta pay to repaint his house.

I will agree with you that the cost of repainting the graffitti is fixed and quantifiable. But I respectfully disagree with you on two points:

(1) That any claims to emotional damage are simply unquantifiable. The fact of the matter is that juries routinely quantify emotional damages in civil cases. It should be relatively easy for a factfinder to determine if there is emotional damage done to the specific victim in an event like this.

(2) That it matters whether or not the victim takes offense. Certainly if the victim is going to sue civilly, he or she will want to demonstrate that they incurred emotional damages. But I think it’s completely irrelevant when discussed in the context of criminal hate crime legislation. The issue is public policy. Do we (as a society) want to dissuade racial or sexual graffitti done for the purpose of intimidating an identifiable minority group more, less, or equal to the amount that we want to dissuade “regular” graffitti (that is graffitti which is not motivated by hatred of a specific racial/ethnic/sexual group)? Is it the same to write “KKK” on the side of a wall as to write “Kilroy was here?” Is if the same to spraypaint “KKK” on the front door of a black family’s house as to spraypaint “Kilroy was here” on the front door of a black family’s house?

Perhaps I didn’t note this fully in my first post, but I don’t claim to have all the answers on this issue. The point I was trying to make is that hate crime legislation seems much more reasonable when applied to lesser crimes perpetrated for the purpose of intimidation or harrassment of a protected group.

The Doctor

[Rigamarole]

@Doctor Who

The issue is public policy. Do we (as a society) want to dissuade racial or sexual graffitti done for the purpose of intimidating an identifiable minority group more, less, or equal to the amount that we want to dissuade “regular” graffitti (that is graffitti which is not motivated by hatred of a specific racial/ethnic/sexual group)?

Is there any evidence that harsher criminal penalties dissuade certain actions from taking place at all? I think there is quite a bit of evidence that they don’t.

In any case, I don’t want to turn this into a GD but I couldn’t resist responding, and this is at least tangentially related to the OP. I’ll step aside now for anyone with more insight into his question.

[doreen]

Motive is sometimes an element- for example, first degree murder in NY includes cases in which the intended victim was a witness or family member of a witness to a previous crime, and the murder is intended to prevent or influence the testimony of the witness, and assault is treated differently when the motive is to prevent a police officer from performing his or her duties.

[mazinger_z]

Disclaimer: IANYL blah blah blah, I haven’t practiced criminal law in like 6 years.

The FindLaw article, I think, did a pretty good job in efficiently describing the role of motive in the law. As the article says, it is used to establish a cause and effect. Motive, which I am sure you are thinking, explains the ‘why,’ as in “Why did the D commit the crime?” (D=defendant). Prosecutors use motive to describe mens rea, which establishes the requisite knowledge or intent, that is, the culpability of a guilty mind. As a society, we are more concerned with punishing a felon’s bad acts the more that the felon intended to perpetrate that crime. As Doctor Who pointed out in his car accident example, you don’t want to punish acts which were unintentional as much as you want to punish ones that are. For instance, does it make sense to give D a life sentence for losing control in the snow storm, but give D a $50 fine when he wanted to hit the person in the crosswalk?

Logically, I agree with your distinction between motive/intent in regards to hate crime legislation. The graffitti example is a great example. Let’s take the same example and make it a bit more murkier: let’s say that there are vandals in an art museum, they spray paint mustaches, glasses and goatees on most portraits, they spray paint comments on others, but on one particular portrait of MLK, they write a couple of racist slurs. Also, assume that this is in a predominantly black neighborhood, and 12% of the art is done by black artists. Also, assume that there are two types of legislation in this community: vandalism and hate crime vandalism (which carries the more stringent/draconian/whathaveyou punishment of the two). As a lay person, which law would you apply?

In this example, motive clearly is the defining factor in one’s punishment. One can then logically extrapolate these facts to apply to other types of hate crime legislation. My favorite example, a gunman open fires in a crowded mall, yelling such charming and eloquent discouse as: “Die stupid whore!” “Yeah, want some of that?” “What are you going to do with this?” “Die fag!” With that last observation, he indeed does kill a homosexual male whom he had absolutely no prior knowledge of. Does anti-hate legislation apply here, too?

What it eventually boils down to is that such laws are an attempt to legislate people’s thoughts. Who gave the right for Congress to enact the Thought Police? Is this 1984 we live in? Whatever happened to our personal freedoms? This is what happens when motive becomes an element of the crime.

[Misnomer]

I only provided the info about the topic of my speech as background, so that people could understand what exactly I was asking about motive. If some of you want to argue about hate crime legislation, please go start your own thread in GD. I don’t want this thread to get moved there, because I’m asking a question that has a factual answer – i.e., is motive typically considered during sentencing.

Thanks to everyone who has tried to stay on-topic.

@Doctor Who

It’s true that hate crimes are different - and can fairly be described as a exception in that they make the motivation for the crime an element.

However, I believe it is incorrect to say that hate crimes are the only time that motive affects punishemnt. Motive can be important in determining punishment in certain areas. For example, during murder sentencing in many states, motive can be used to demonstrate aggravating factors that would justify harsher punishment (like the death penalty).

That’s exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for: yes, I’m understanding FindLaw correctly and Wiki is mostly right, but there are already instances of motive having a bearing on punishment.

For clarity, though: in the hypothetical murder sentencing, is it the existence of any motive that can be used to demonstrate aggravating factors, or would the specific motive be taken into account? I’d think that intent would be much more important than why the deceased was killed … but then, I’m not a lawyer.

@doreen

Motive is sometimes an element- for example, first degree murder in NY includes cases in which the intended victim was a witness or family member of a witness to a previous crime, and the murder is intended to prevent or influence the testimony of the witness, and assault is treated differently when the motive is to prevent a police officer from performing his or her duties.

Interesting … thanks!

@manzinger_z

For instance, does it make sense to give D a life sentence for losing control in the snow storm, but give D a $50 fine when he wanted to hit the person in the crosswalk?

But that’s intent, not motive. I’m not quibbling with whether intent has an impact on sentencing/punishment, I’m saying that as far as I can tell it doesn’t matter (legally) why D wanted to hit the person in the crosswalk. In the sentence after the one I quote you write “motive/intent,” but I don’t think they’re interchangeable.