No capital murder charge. He’s 21 and no doubt will roam free eventually. If his August 19th sentencing doesn’t include a madatory vasectomy as a condition of parole, this truly will be yet another miscarriage of justice.
Well say what you like about Florida and children’s services, at least they don’t let queers adopt children there and really screw up child safety.
I sometimes think that gods were first thought of because of the psychological need for a hell. It’s cases like this that make me wish I believed in an eternal torment. Defenseless people (even defenseless animals) suffering, whether gay, straight, Rwandan Tutsis or Florida children, bother me more than any other type of story.
Really? You think they should all get the same punishment? Let’s take a closer look at the examples in my post:
A) David Duke kills UrbanChic 'cause she’s black: premeditated racially motivated murder.
B) UrbanChic kills David Duke 'cause he’s white: premediated racially motivated murder.
C) Howard Dean kills someone at random because he’s insane: murder due to severe mental impairment.
D) I kill you because you look like a packing crate: an unforunate death due to an understandable mistake.
You think all four crimes should be prosecuted equally? Premeditated murder should be punished the same as an accident should be punished the same as the deranged actions of a man entirely out of touch with reality? Here, let’s expand the list a little bit:
A) A man kills another man in the course of a robbery.
B) A man kills another man to prevent disclosure of another crime.
C) A man kills another man because the other man is of a different race.
D) A man kills another man in a fit of rage because he finds out his wife has been sleeping with him.
E) A man kills another man because he’s convinced the other man is a brain-sucking space alien in disguise.
F) A man kills another man because the other man didn’t look both ways before crossing the street and stepped in front of a moving car.
Are you contending that all six examples should be treated exactly the same, or are you going to concede that motive plays a substantial role in determining the appropriate punishment for a crime? Now, you want to argue that hatred of a specific race/gender/orientation are not sufficient grounds to apply increased punishment, fine. You might even convince me, as I’m not 100% sold on the concept. But I do think it should apply equally to everyone. A white man killing a black man for racial reasons should be treated exactly the same as a black man killing a white man for racial reasons. A crime rooted in homophobia should be treated the same as a crime rooted in heterophobia. A criminal act of misogyny should be treated the same as a criminal act of misandry. Now, you tell me: how does this equate to thinking “certain groups deserve special treatment”?
Vaesectomy, hell. Emasculate him. Without anesthesia.
Then make him fight because after all, without a penis he needs to prove his manhood.
Common law generally considers motive when judging the severity of a crime.
Hate crimes are usually worse than similar actions with other motivations, and pose a greater threat to society as a whole.
A beating that comes about as a result of an escalating argument is not quite as bad as one that is quasi-randomly administered to someone singled out on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, skin colour, or sexual orientation.
Someone who burns down a house because they can’t tolerate the idea that two men share a bed in it is a worse class of criminal than someone who accepts money to do it as part of an insurance scheme.
There’s a qualitative difference – the senslessness of the crime, coupled with the fact that the victim was singled out on the basis of an accidental quality that they share many other members of the community.
Yes and no. Of course, it’s especially horrifying that a man has killed his three-year-old son, but it’s reasonable to look at why. For some people, a homosexual is just about the worst thing they can imagine someone being. It may be hard to comprehend why someone would make assumptions about the sexual orientation of such a young person, but the “gender fascism” that matt_mcl decries is very real, and this is a perfect example of it.
I’m a het guy, but from as early as I can remember, I got a lot of abuse (and some support) for not conforming to gender roles. From the beginning, I socialized mostly with my sisters, and in school with the girls. My mannerisms were “effeminate.” I did a lot of “girl” things, and many “boy” things held no appeal for me. I dropped out of soccer and went to modeling school. More than one person expressed surprise when I turned out “straight,” for some reason.
There’s no harm in that. If my parents had stayed together, however, you can bet your ass I would have had it beaten out of me. My older brother was frequently beaten for “acting queer,” and even for forgetting the ridiculous family euphemisms for genitals (“birdie” and “flower”) and referring to his penis as his “flower,” which is what the girls had.
It’s twisted, but you have to understand that it’s not necessarily antipathy for the child. It’s a fucked-up valuation that mandates that boys must act one way and girls must act another way, and god help you if you reverse or omit any of it. I have little doubt that the fuckwit who beat his son to death considered that he was carrying out his paternal responsibilities – ensuring that the kid turned out “right.” He didn’t mean to kill him – he just thought that knocking him around was the right way to make sure he grew up “to be a man.”
Poison.
Question for the esteemed Dopers.
Why is it so important to understand the twisted emotions and motivations of this monster? Why is it so awful to simply say he is a no good waste of flesh who should be put away or “otherwise disposed of”? Maybe it is instinct, maybe it is a knee jerk reaction, maybe it is my upbringing, but I would have a lot of trouble feeling any pity for him no matter what awful thing could possible happen to him. He should be put away forever, with no parole and no release. Ever. Let him spend his entire life rotting in a cell.
It’s not awful – but it’s a symptomatic approach that, while better than doing nothing at all, isn’t as helpful as examining root causes as well.
Yes, he’s a monster – but there are teratogenic attitudes at work in society that desperately need to be remedied, without which crimes like this wouldn’t occur with such depressing frequency.
Attitudes toward people who don’t fit traditional expectations for their gender foster violence, and it’s important to get people to consider their attitudes.
I’ve harped on this before, but there’s a certain amount of parallelism between attitudes about sexual orientation and attitudes about handedness. For a long, long time, the superstitious belief that left-handedness was wicked was accepted without question. This seems like a dark ages belief, but it persisted for longer than such a silly belief had any right to.
My father had his left-handedness beaten out of him at school, by nuns who sincerely believed that they had a moral right and obligation to instruct him that way. He passed on that “favour” to my brother, because he’d learned that that was right.
At some point, people (for the most part) snapped out of it, and this sort of abuse of left-handed people seems remote and incomprehensible to almost everyone. “Left-handed? What the hell does that matter?”
We’re on the cusp of the light dawning for everyone that sexual orientation matters not one whit more. It’s a natural variation, not something that warrants a beating or needs changing.
The change in attitude about handedness has spared a lot of kids from senseless abuse.
When preoccupation with gender roles and sexual orientation seems as remote and incomprehensible as preoccupation with handedness, a lot of kids will be spared from senseless abuse.
Well, hopefully, in prison…
All of the education in the world isn’t going to change the mind of people like this Ronnie Paris piece of shit. Sure, as a society, we should determine the root causes of violent crimes, and try to educate them away, or promote incentives to prevent them, but only for the next generations will that be a feasible solution.
It’s difficult enough to get people to simply leave one another alone, much less not hate, especially for left-field reasons like this one.
Today, and at least for the next 70 or so years, people like this sub-human waste bag, must die. I don’t believe the justice system is perfect, but when a person, beyond a reasonable doubt, or by admission, willfully and/or violently kills a helpless child, no matter the causation, the person must die. Sane or not, retarded or not, that person is defective, and quite simply must be extricated, like a cancer, from the whole of society.
Of course this does not address accidents, acts committed by juveniles, and other assorted mitigation.
“But” you’ll ask “being retarded, isn’t that like being a juvenile, if the cognitive actions are that of a 7 year old, isn’t that the same?”
No. The normally functioning seven year old will grow to know better over time or perhaps be rehabilitated. The disabled one will never be develompmentally more than seven, though his body grows to normal strengths and sizes.
Ronnie Paris needs to die. Today. Though it looks like the state of Florida in her infinite wisdom do not agree. I hope (though not wish) he simply gets killed in prison, frankly, I care not how.
My mind says I should listen to you, but my heart says make him pay and make him an example. Cognitive dissonance? Maybe.
I think the point being made–if not, the point that I’d like to make–is that you can simply omit “racially motivated” from your A and B and we still have justice.
Certainly he has to pay.
Even if the only reason he raised a hand against his child was a fear that he might grow up to be a “nancy-boy,” it would in no way exculpate him, and as a matter of course he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I don’t think that fifteen years is enough, either – I wish that he’d never again see the light of day. But I recognize that it wasn’t a premeditated murder, and the law has limits.
As it happens, after looking into it a bit, I think that in this case, the abuse would have happened no matter what the pretense was. This boy should never have been sent back to live with his abusive parents.
People witnessed the abuse soon after the kid was returned, too.
That’s the point I’m responding to, sure. But it’s not the point I’m making. The point I’m making is, is it enough justice? Or does the racial nature of the crime warrant a tougher punishment?
Well, that’s a real nice straw man you’ve built up, maybe you should take it to Burning Man, I bet you’d get kudos. Now would you like to address what I really did say? Nowhere in my post did I say anything about mistaking someone for a packing crate, nor did I say anything about insanity. My example has 4 people being murdered in the exact same way, one because she’s black, one because he’s gay, one because he’s a Republican and one for no reason at all. I say the reason is completely irrelevant. 4 people were murdered at random the same way for different reasons. They are all just as dead, the murderers are all just as guilty, they should all fry, motivations be damned. Do you think it matters to the victims here why they were murdered?
Now you are doing the same thing that Queen Tonya did, presenting wildly different scenarios and then asking how I can say that they should all be treated the same, which, of course, I never did.
In the abstract, that makes perfect sense. When talking about multiple instances of the same crime, it does not. Should a person who robs a bank to buy drugs get a harsher or lighter sentence then someone who robs a bank to buy designer clothing?
How? Honestly, how? I completely reject this argument because it makes absolutely no logical sense. Bob goes around beating up people because they are gay. Jerry goes around beating up people to take their wallet. They both beat up the same number of people a day (this example sounds like a math problem). How is Bob more of a threat to society than Jerry? The answer clearly is, he’s not. The only reason to treat Bob’s crimes as “worse” than Jerry’s is so that some group can claim special status. Both man should be punished equally and severely for their crimes. As a point of fact, from the POV of “society as a whole”, Jerry poses a greater threat than Bob. Jerry could beat up anyone to take their wallet; Bob is only a threat to a subset of society.
I never claimed it was.
I would argue that they are a far worse class of person than the paid arsonist, but I can’t see any reason why they should be punished more severely for the same crime.
I agree that there is a qualitative difference between the motivations, but that’s an esoteric point, and should not factor into sentencing. Like someone else said, where do we being to move into the gray world of thought crimes? Take two bar fights- your basic escalating argument from above. In fight A, Jim, a white man, pounds the shit out of Dave, another white man, in an argument over baseball, and yells “Take that you fucking Yankee fan” as Dave collapses under the weight of his blows. . In fight B, Tom, a white man, does the exact same amount of damage to Joe, a black man, in an argument about baseball, but yells “Take that you fucking nigger”. Should these cases be treated differently, and if so, what is it about case B that makes it worse than case A(or vice versa)?
This man was obviously incredibly disturbed. The only thing worse than killing a child is killing a baby. One of the most defencless things on the planet. Stick the needle in him now.
I know you disagree, but I say no. One problem is that it places two different values on human life. If person A walks out of a bar and kills person B with a baseball bat, and person C walks out of another bar and kills person D with a baseball bat, with the same savagery (# of blows), then those crimes are equal. More important, the loss of life is equal. If it turns out that person B was gay and person D was straight, is either of them a greater victim or the crime more heinous? To say that killing the gay person is a worse crime diminishes the life of the stright person. And vice versa.
I am strongly opposed to these tiered structure of placing value on human life. It was not long ago, and not fully eradicated even today, that some people would support the tiered value appriach in reverse.
Also, maybe person A does hate gays. But maybe that’s not why he killed B. Maybe A knew B (and of his sexual orientation) for years, and killed him for running over his dog. Maybe he killed him for both reasons, equally or not. Is any of us then able to climbe inside A’s head in order to apportion his motives accurately?
But for me there is even a stronger reason why I am opposed to hate crime legislation. I punishes people for what they think. My guess that is the Madison and the gang, those who made sure to codify the freedom of speech would be appalled at this legislation. The First Amendment is said to be first because it is the most important. I thiink it’s #1 only because they couldn’t imagine the notion of one’s thoughts being regulated.
If you believe in freedom of speech, I think you have to be an even stronger supporter of freedom of thought. Before words are spoken they are constructed in the mind. And as sweeping as the 1st Amendment is, it has restrictions. You can’t, for instance, scream “Fire” in a crowded theater. But you can think it. You can even think of saying it. But as long as you don’t actually say it, you can think whatever you like.
I feel we are free to think whatever we want. We can think about stealing, comitting arson, murdering, having an affair, we just can’t act on those thoughts. The minute we do, events are taking place not just in our little heads, but in the actual world where they effect other people.
I say: like everyone, love everyone, hate everyone, do whatever makes you happy–I don’t really care. Your thoughts are 100% your own. But if you act on those thoughts and someone gets hurt, we will hold you accountable. Not for your thoughts, but for your ACTIONS.
Your hypothetical bears very little resemblance to day-to-day reality.
Hate crimes are usually more viscious than muggings, which typically use the minimum amount of violence (or even the threat of violence) required to seperate a person from their valuables.
Anyway, I think I can explain why hate crimes are worse than equivalent crimes with some other motivation:
Hate crimes aren’t directed at individuals, they’re directed at an entire class of people. They are terroristic.
When a shop is burned down specifically because the owner is Jewish, gay, black, or whatever, it effects more than just the owner. The intent is to send the message “X are not tolerated here.” That’s what makes it a hate crime.
If someone beats a guy to death with a baseball bat for sleeping with his wife or in an argument over a drug deal, the primary effect, though horrific, is localized. If someone beats someone to death for the offense of being pakistani, lesbian, presbyterian, or whatever, and showing their face in the thug’s perceived “territory,” it has a chilling effect for every person of that persuasion in the neighborhood.
Imagine someone sets a neighbor’s car on fire in your neighborhood over some personal dispute. How does that affect you? Are you worried about your car? Your kids, playing in the yard?
Now imagine someone is targeting people in your neighborhood who share some arbitrary attribute with you, some attribute that’s obvious at a distance – and they haven’t yet been caught. How does that affect you now? Feel comfortable parking on the street? Walking to the store? Letting your children play in the park? Suppose these types of things happen with relative frequency in your neighborhood. What do you do?
Think about this honestly, and you’ll probably come to understand why hate crimes are objectively more harmful than run-of-the-mill crimes with the same initial effects.
Look Otto, this is as far as I’ve gotten in catching up so far, but I have to stop here. My point is, it was a child. 3 years old. Three years old! It doesn’t matter if the TODDLER was gay or straight. Or black. Or white. Or brown.
For my money I’ll take some hate-spewing homophobe fuck over a child killing fuck.
Both are worthless to a civilized society. With one difference. A vociferous gay-basher is loutish, boorish and a general nuisance to everyone. (In particular to the gays that feel a genuine sense of oppression.) However, this is nowhere near the senseless death of a 3 year old for any reason.
I know I’ll never be able to express myself on a message board in the way I intend to. There is no nuance, tone, inflection, etc. Please don’t take it as a slight to the very real problem you not only see, but likely experience.
I think I’ve made it well known here how I feel about anyone killing children. For any reason. That’s what set me off last night. The fact anyone would use this as more proof homophobia is rampant set me into the downward spiral of hateful insanity (towards the killers, not you). Use hyperbole all you want, but I’m deadly serious when I call for these twisted fucks to be put down like the sick animals they are.
You may not beleive it, but I am actually on your side when it comes to a lot of the issues you espouse. It’s just that when you try to tie it all together with the death of a kid, the trench starts getting dug.
In short, I’m looking at the death of a kid before the death of a gay. There, it’s been said. I trust you understand that doesn’t mean I want gays to die. I’m just prioritizing here.
(I just know I’ll have to come and explain this again. Maybe I need a ghost writer to craft my posts better.)
Sorry Larry, I’m not buying it. 50 years ago when groups of people could be targeted with some degree of immunity…maybe. Today, never. I refuse to give that much power to a racist or a bigot or a homophobe. HE may be trying to send a message that XX isn’t wanted here, but that doesn’t mean that we should automatically accept his message as valid. Overreacting to someone trying to sell hate only gives them a status that they don’t deserve, and it gives their message a validity that it has no claim to.
All right, made it through. Just one more thought. Not really relevant to the OP, but the mental defectiveness has been broached. Allow me to paraphrase the great Ron White for anyone defending mental deficiency as an excuse for not laying down the hammer on dangerous psychos.
Death penalty protester: We can’t kill him! He’s too crazy to know why we’re killing him!
Ron White: Look, not all people are the same crazy. We need to separate them out a little bit.
Question: What does that crazy person do?
Pointing at one man: He eats crayons and rolls his turds into little balls.
Question Well what does he do?
Pointing at second man: Well he kills productive members of society
Ron White supporting the death penalty: Well he should have eaten crayons and rolled his turds into little balls.