Today was the first use of hate crime sentencing in the state of Georgia. The defendent was a textbook example of trailer trash who attacked his mentally retarded biracial niece, calling her a racial slur and a disgrace to his daddy’s memory (as if his daddy didn’t already have one) while hitting her in the head. He received 2 years for the physical attack (which left a knot on the girl’s head) and 4 years for the racial slur.
While I have between little and no sympathy for the defendant, does anybody agree or disagree with my belief that TRIPLING a sentence due to the use of a WORD is a major violation of the First Amendment? To me this is disgusting and could easily be perverted into ALIEN & SEDITION ACTS 2.3A.
One of the most disgusting points of the whole issue is that he received the higher sentence for the slur, indeed. I’m making an assumption, but what if the child was incapable of understanding the meaning of the word at all? No literal harm would have been done, in which case the 4 extra years were slapped on because somebody else was offended. Obviously that doesn’t excuse his crime, and I find myself wondering why he got only six years total. If he’s low enough to beat the children of his brother/sister (it said niece), then not only should he have received a little merciless beating at the hands of the child’s father, but I’d pay admission to see everybody else in the family take their turn.
A little nitpick. He didn’t get any punishment for a racial slur. He got extra punishment for making it clear that he was targeting her because of her race (And considering how reluctant a previous judge was to apply the same law in a rather clear-cut case, I have the feeling there was no doubt in the court about this). The general rational behind it is that, in a society with so many different racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds coming together, crimes directed at a specific group causes more problems than ones targeted at people without regard for such groups. Attacking members of a group specifically because they are of a particular race, religion, etc, can many times be considered akin to a threat to the whole group. It’s somewhat akin to terrorism.
As for the sentance, I’m not sure, and considering the complete lack of detail about the case, there isn’t enough information to form an informed opinion on the matter. However, seeing as this was a disabled minor that he attacked, a 6 year sentance seems fitting (Perhaps low, even, but I’ll reserve final judgement until I find out more about the case).
That said, I don’t see how it’s comparable to the Alien Act in any way, and it only seems to have only the vaguest resemblance to some parts of the Sedition Act. Could you explain?
No, it is not. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Wisconsin vs Mitchell that it is constitutional to take motivation (in this case, because of racial bigotry) into account in criminal sentencing.
The Supreme Court has also upheld slavery and anti-sodomy laws. While I recognize they are the ultimate source of legality, I think they called this one wrong.
My problem is that the man is being sentence for what he believes, not for his acts. I have no problem with his being sentenced for striking the girl and her grandmother (though I don’t think it warrants 6 years or even 2 years- I think 90 days, costs, and a 5 year probation would do nicely) but for the fact the sentence was expanded because of his racist motivation. Not to rollerblade over the slippery slope, but if people’s mindsets are subject to legal punishment, what would stop further legislation from making criticism of a president the equivalent of treason or making the use of the word ‘fag’ or ‘spic’ a legal offense?
No, he’s being sentenced for his perceived intent, and intent matters. If I kill you because you’re going to blow the whistle on my little embezzlement scheme at work, that’s a much worse crime than if I kill because I just walked in on you raping my wife. The difference is intent, in both cases.
You can argue that racially motivated intent is not sufficient grounds to multiply the sentence, but don’t confuse the legal issue here.
Having read the more detailed report of the crime, it’s pretty clearly a hate crime, and I have no problem with the extra sentence. Assuming those facts are correct, then the attacker hit the girl for no other reason than her race. This is exactly the sort of crime for which hate-crime statutes were enacted.
What’s next. Does the government hire psychics and jail people who are racial bigots whether they’ve acted on those feelings or not? I could agree with you if intent were used only as an element in the prosecution of a criminal act. That is, intent is used to prove that a related act is a crime. But when the intent itself becomes a crime, we’ve lost a significant part of our freedom.
Also, it occurs to me that intent only matters sometimes. If it were always considered, then Jack Kevorkian would not be in prison. The principle should be consistently applied. It is not.
Well, as much as it sucks, if the guy had just kept his mouth shut, he probably wouldn’t have gotten the four extra years. But all that says is that if the cops/judge/jury weren’t fully aware of all the facts, then he would have gotten away something he should have been (legally) punished for.
I think you’re mistaken about intent. In my example above, killing the OP to protect myself from exposure is part of the crime, not an element in proving that I killed him. In both cases I’ve committed murder, it’s just that my intent in the latter case mitigates my culpability.
I could be wrong, but intent is always considered; in Kevorkian’s case, his intent was judged not to mitigate his culpability.
You’re also confusing the legal issue: he was not sentenced to four years for being a racist. His sentence for his act was increased because his intent in committing the act was racist. In other words, the whole six years was for hitting the girl; it’s just that he would’ve gotten away with two if his intent was different.
You’re trying to sketch out a slippery slope that’s not there. Racism itself is well-protected by the first amendment. The premise behind hate crime legislation is that the first amendment does not protect one from the legal consequences of one’s acts.
To be clearer about the difference between Kevorkian and the attacker in the OP’s story: it’s not the general quality of intent that matters, it’s that specific intents have greater or lesser legal culpability attached to them. It didn’t matter that Kevorkian’s heart is in the right place; the relevant fact is that mercy killing is not accepted as a mitigating intent. On the other hand, Kevorkian got fewer years, I believe, than had he been robbing the people he killed of their life savings.
It’s not the intent itself that’s criminal; it’s the combination of action and intent. That’s a general principle of law.
That’s my whole point. We should be held legally and morally responsibile for our acts, but not for our thoughts. If the government could read minds, who among us would not be imprisoned for some errant thought? Have you never hated someone? Desired something that wasn’t yours? Do you deserve punishment even if you’ve committed no overt offense?
As I tried to express before, intent can be useful in leading to the perpetrator of a crime. But the crime itself, not the thought, is the only thing that should be punishable. Thoughtcrime is simply wrong. That it exists in law today is irrelevant. It’s still wrong.
The Matthew Shepard case is often brought up in these discussions by people who want to show that evil intent is somehow a crime in itself. But my answer to that is that Shepard (forgive me if I misspelled the name) is not more dead because his killers hated him than he would be if the bastards had killed him for his wallet. The deed was the crime, not the thought. The killing is not more heinous (IMO) because it was done for one motive and not the other.
DesertGeezer, the whole premise of criminal law in our common law tradition is that crimes have two components: a guilty act, and a guilty intent. In other words, to be guilty of murder, you have to kill someone, and intend to kill them. If you kill someone accidentally, it’s not murder. It might be something else (like manslaughter), but it’s not the same crime because of the intent. Intention is an integral part of every crime, and there’s a lot of crimes with variable penalties depending on the nature of the intent, murder being the prime example.
You can’t be charged with a hate-crime without an act based on the intent. It’s as simple as that. Therefore, it’s not the thought being criminalized. It’s simply an adjustment of the penalty based on the particular nature of the intent, as it is in a multitude of other cases, unproblematically. You can be as racist as you want, and you can chat people up at bus stops about it, or publish a manifesto if you so desire. Don’t kill someone for racist reasons, and there’s no hate-crime.
There’s no slippery slope here. As I said before, hate speech is protected speech. And you have freedom of speech in general. You just don’t have freedom to act on every speech.
As for Matthew Shepherd (sp?), he probably wouldn’t be dead if his killers didn’t feel about homosexuals as they did. And because they did, and because he’s dead, it’s that much worse to be gay in Wyoming.
If intent doesn’t matter, then there’s no difference between the guy who goes hunting with his beloved wife, shoots at what he thinks is a deer, and kills her by mistake, and the guy who with malice aforethought kills and dismembers another person because four years before, they were playing their radio too loud for his taste.
It is not illegal to think or believe that all blacks or all gays or all Estonians are something less than human and deserve to be beaten up on sight. It’s not even illegal to say that in a non-inciteful setting. It is illegal to act on that belief and proceed to beat up a black/gay/Estonian. And if the law chooses to regard that as a higher offense than the guy with a chip on his shoulder beating up the first person he sees, with no regard to race, creed, color, etc., because it puts all blacks, gays, Estonians, or whatever in fear of being beaten up, then more power to it.
Every American deserves to be able to walk down the street without fear of being assaulted or harassed – regardless of who or what category he may fit into, or how somebody else feels about that category of people. It’s as simple as that.
I maintain that the crime is not worse because the intent stems from hate. The crime is itself. As in the Matthew Shepard example, the young man is dead and his killers are guilty of murder. They are not more guilty of murder because their motive was hate and not robbery. Hatred only serves to prove that the killing was not accidental. Beyond that, penalizing the killers additionally because the intent was hatred is no different from penalizing them for writing a manifesto of hate. If the one is wrong, so is the other.
Exactly. Intent proves that the killing was a crime and not an accident. I get that. But the intent is not the crime. It merely defines the crime.
There are also people who injure or kill others because they are predisposed to violence against others. We call them bullies. By your logic, anyone who is identified as a bully should serve a longer term for harming another than if he did so for some other reason. Some people are predisposed to rob others. When that robbery culminates in a killing, there is a greater penalty because killing deserves a greater penalty, not because the robber is predisposed to hurt someone. The crime is in the killing, not in the motive.
If you can be prosecuted and incarcerated for what’s in your mind, even if it is only tacked on to your penalty for a criminal act, then no thought is safe. “Thoughtcrime” exists in hate crime laws. It’s only a matter of time before it is applied to unpopular thought of ther kinds or dissent from the policies of whoever is in power. Prosecute and punish deeds, not thoughts. That’s all I’m saying.
No, but millions of people in the US were reminded, very vividly, that they’re being targeted just for being gay. The same can not be said if they had killed him for his wallet. As I said before, it’s somewhat akin to terrorism, in that it causes a greater degree of fear and feelings of insecurity among the targeted group. The people have, not surprisingly, decided that such crimes cause more harm to society, and therefor deserve harsher punishment.
And for goodness sake:
You can not be prosecuted and incarcerated only for what’s in your mind. Period. Intent has always been a factor in crimes. For example, if you pull out a gun and shoot at someone, intent comes into play; if you only meant to scare them, but you end up killing them, it’s a (slightly) lesser offence than if you intend to kill them, IIRC. If you shoot up a guy’s car to teach him a lesson, it’s a lesser crime than if you shoot up his car because you think he’s in it and you want to kill him. Furthermore, you can want to kill a group of people (gays, whites, jews, etc) all you want, that’s just fine. That’s not a crime. If you target a person of that group, and it’s clear that you did it because they were or you percieved them to be of that group, then, and only then, is it a hate crime.
Oooookay… So it’s fine for the intent to make the difference between manslaughter and first-degree murder, but not between a “normal” crime and a “hate crime”? How do you figure?
“Oooookay… So it’s fine for the intent to make the difference between manslaughter and first-degree murder, but not between a “normal” crime and a “hate crime”? How do you figure?”
Murder is a willful act; manslaughter is not. That Gearin attacked a little girl or Reese/Kinney killed Shephard and did so solely for agression and not for self-defense or any provocation is what they should be tried on and not WHY they attacked without provocation.
That the crime stems from hate is not the reason it’s a hate-crime. It’s that the attack on an instance of a group, because they’re an instance of a group, is an attack on the group itself, in addition to the crime. In other words, the crime does damage that goes beyond the specific crime. In Gearin’s case, it was an attack on hispanics in general, and if I were an hispanic in Atlanta, I’d feel less safe, just for being hispanic in Atlanta.
Notice that it’s the consequences of the act that are the justification for the extra penalty, not the motivation. The act, and its consequences, serve to make it a hate-crime, not the hatred from which the attack stems.
That’s a good point, hansel, but I’m not convinced. When hate crimes legislation was first proposed I was all for it, for the reasons that have been offered here. But then I realized that my acceptance of the idea was based more on my desire that racists and other bigots be punished more severely because I thought they were bad people.
Unfortunately, the deeds of the bigoted have the same effect–not a greater one–as the deeds of a serial killer. The serial killer may not hate a particular group, but his crimes cause the same climate of fear that you suggest stems only from hatred of some group. In a neighborhood, or for that matter a wide region as in the sniper case of last year, all citizens in the area are terrorized, all feel like targets. A special hatred on the part of the killer is not necessary to produce that effect.
I don’t think that’s true. If a random person were picked up, beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die in some state on the other side of the country from you, because the attacker just wanted to kill someone, how much would you feel affected by it? I’m willing to bet, not much, even if it got the same degree of media attention. Contrast this to the ammount of effect that Mathew Sheppard’s murder had upon gays in this country.
I can say with absolute honesty that, being on the other side of the country, the Washington DC sniper killings affected me in no way. I wasn’t afraid, or felt like someone would target me for the same reason. If the guy had gone around killing only gay people, I would feel a lot more involved, because it would be a case of a guy going out and specifically targeting a group that I’m a part of.
Plus there’s the wider social effect. Crimes that cause increased tensions between racial, cultural, or religious groups, tend to cause more problems.
Of course intent matters. But hate crimes are not based on intent. That is the whole problem.
Your example has no relevance to hate crimes, because the intent in the two cases is different. In a hate crime case, the intent is exactly the same as the intent in a non hate crime case. It is the motive that is different, and motives should not be punished.
And remember, this does not mean going easy on people that commit crimes. If some commits murder, I’m fine with putting them away for life. But why should they get off lighter for murder because they merely wanted to kill off all the R’s in the phone book, or because they wanted to kill the children of their ex, or because they just wanted a wallet?
This also does not mean going easy on people who intend to terrorize. It just means that spraypainting “I’m going to kill everyone in this house” on someone’s house is just as bad as spraypainting “I’m going to kill all the (protected group) in this house.”