In the “Matthew Shepard died for our sins” thread Esprix wrote
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This is false at least in the case of California law.
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So yeah, at least some hate crime legislation does alter the punishment for the commission of a crime.
I would support hate crime legislation designed to do the following [ul]
Improve collection of hate crime data.
Detect hate crime trends.
Improve the training of Law Enforcement in dealing with hate crimes.[/ul]
Am I way off base here or does anyone agree?
Marc
“Hate” Crime legislation is an odious development.
Take racial crime, for example. Whites are 9 times more likely to be killed by a Black than the reverse. (I’m not saying this vindictively it’s merely an observation) But I would be surprised if the folks charged with ‘hate crime’ reflect these statistics. What do you think? That’s what I thought.
Reviewing the cases of Ronald Taylor and Richard Baumhammers makes me wonder whether we really need ‘hate crimes’ laws.
Both were mass murderers who chose their victims because of their race. Both committed their killing sprees in the same city. Both were caught and plead ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’. Baumhammers was charged immediately with a hate crime, but as was reported from WPXI, WTAE and KDKA (all Pittsburgh network affiliates), Prosecutors had debated charging Taylor with hate crimes (he eventually was charged with a hate crime), but did not debate charging Baumhammers with a hate crime.
But as to the uselessness of the ‘hate crime’ laws - both of these men committed multiple murders. That made both cases capital cases in Pennsylvania. Both of them were charged with multiple counts of murder and tried in open court. The death penalty was sought in both cases.
So here’s my problem with ‘hate crimes’ laws. They committed first degree murder, but their crimes are supposedly different from all the other people who commit first degree murder because they chose their victims based on race? Should it really matter why they committed premeditated murders? The maximum punishment for premeditated murder is death, so why do we care what reason they had for choosing their victims? Do we call them racists and say we’re going to execute them twice? Is killing someone cause they’re black, white, Jewish, Korean any worse than killing someone because they’re a rival drug dealer? Isn’t all premeditated murder equally bad?
I am also concerned about the legislation of crimes based on motive alone. In the US, murder is a capital offense. A criminal can be executed for it. Why do we need a seperate law for hate based murder? Do the proponents of this type of legislation want to dig up the executed and kick them around a bit?
However, what concerns me more is the possibility of double jeopardy. I know of no law on the books that would violate currently this, but I have heard some hate crime laws proposed where someone could be accused of murder in the killing of a memeber of a different race, be found innocent in a court of law, and then be tried again on hate crime charges *stemming from the same death. That’s double jeopardy.
Your comments indicate that you do not understand what a hate crime is. In most cases where a black person kills a white person, the motive for the crime is not hatred (it’s far more likely to have been greed, revenge, or desparation). So I would not expect that a great many such offenses are charged as hate crimes because they are, in fact, not hate crimes. The fact that the races of the victim and the perpetrator differ does not make a crime a hate crime; it is the motivation of the perpetrator in commiting the crime that matters.
The American people have decided that committing a criminal act motivated by the hatred of the perpetrator for a group of which the perpetrator perceived the victim to be a member is especially heinous and deserving of special censure by the criminal justice system. Frankly, I don’t see what the problem is with that conclusion.
In relation to the OP, Esprix is in fact wrong and I have called him on it in the other thread.
Unlike some of my brethren on the far right, I am not opposed to any and all hate crime legislation, even when it increases the penalties for certain crimes. However, people who support hate crime legislation have to understand that it’s pretty meaningless, as a practical matter.
In case we’ve forgotten, two of the men who murdered James Byrd have been sentenced to death and the other is serving a life term in prison. And the guys who killed Matthew Shepard WOULD have gotten the death penalty, if Shepard’s family hadn’t made an impassioned argument for life in prison.
What this proves is, even in the most conservative areas of the most conservative states in the Union (I’d say Texas and Wyoming qualify, wouldn’t you?), it’s not possible to murder a black man or a homosexual with impunity, and walk away scot-free. In SERIOUS cases like these, hate crime legislation would have made absolutely NO difference at all. None (you can’t execute people twice, or sentence them to TWO life terms without parole).
And you know what? It SHOULDN’T make any difference! If you commit murder, I don’t really care what your motives are. I mean, suppose the three creeps who dragged James Byrd behind their truck had said, “Oh, we didn’t do it because he was black… we just had a few beers, and thought it would be fun to kill somebody. Anybody.” Would their crime have been any LESS horrifying, any LESS evil, if their crime had been inspired by boredom or random cruelty, rather than by racism?
Or what if the thugs who killed Matthew Shepard had said, “He was gay? Oh, we didn’t know that… we just killed him because we thought he was an annoying little twerp.” I suppose Exprix would say, “Ohhhh… well, that’s different. As long as they didn’t kill him out of homophobia!”
Frankly, when the crime is as serious as murder, I don’t care what your motives are. Killing a white man to steal his money is just as bad as killing a black man because of the color of his skin.
Killing is killing, and one murder isn’t more reprehensible than another simply because of the killer’s feelings.
Does that make such legislation completely useless? No, not quite. In cases involving SMALLER crimes, it’s perfectly appropriate to take motives into account, and to pronounce harsher sentences for crimes with vile motives.
Examples? Well, a kid who spray paints the name of his favorite rap group on a church wall is guilty of vandalism. So is a kid who spray paints a swastika on the wall of s synagogue. Same crime? Yeah, pretty much. But I’d sentence the first kid to a few hundred hours of community service (maybe scrubbing graffiti off subway cars). The other kid deserves a MUCH more serious punishment.
A kid who pelts a random house with eggs as part of a fraternity initiation prank is guilty of vandalism. So is a kid who throws eggs at the house of the first black family to move into his (formerly) all white neighborhood. But the second kid deserves a much harsher punishment.
In smaller cases, involving lesser crimes, “hate crime” legislation may make a useful difference, and that’s fine with me. But such legislation wouldn’t have helped James Byrd or Matthew Shepard in the least. Guys who ignore laws against murder aren’t going to be deterred by “hate crime” laws.
So if a black person kills a white person, it’s probably not a hate crime because ‘most of the time’ black people who kill white people do so for revenge, robbery, or something else.
But if a white person kills a black person, it probably is a hate crime because most of the time, white people who kill black people do so because they are racist and just want to kill black people.
Hmm.
Is that actually accurate? Do we know for sure what was in the mind of the person who committed the murder in most cases? Can we be sure that the white killer wasn’t out for revenge and the black killer wasn’t a racist? Should it even matter? Is it justice to punish someone for what might have been in their mind?
I’m in the camp that doesn’t like hate crimes laws. I am all for punishing people for the actions they do and the harm they cause, but I cannot support altering that punishment because of their beliefs. If someone eggs my car, they’ve damaged my car. It doesn’t matter if they egged it because I’m $RACE, the damage to the car is exactly the same as it would be if their motive was that I’m too tall, too fat, whatever. What if I’m the first $RACE person in town, and they egg my car because I’m an inconsiderate neighbor, my dog craps all over their lawn, my kids destroy their garden… is it still a hate crime because I’m $RACE and they’re not?
Do hate crimes laws define ‘victim groups’, such that any crime against a member of that group by someone outside that group is a hate crime just because it’s more likely that someone of one race would attack someone of another race for racist reasons? IOW, do they make black people a ‘victim group’ because they assert that white people attack black people only because white people are racist and black people are their victims?
Why is a crime ‘worse’ when the victim is of a different race than the perpetrator? Does it apply equally across the boards? If i’m the first white person in town and my car gets egged by the black residents, is it a hate crime?
astorian has nailed it. Hate crimes laws serve little purpose when the crime is as serious as murder, at least if the punishment for murder is already severe. But at the lower levels of hate-motivated crime, such as assault and vandalism, it makes good sense to substantially increase penalties based on the criminal’s especially deplorable motive. Think of it as anti-terrorist legislation, if you like, since that’s essentially what such criminals are.
Some states, like Texas, do not allow the death penalty for a simple murder–in a nutshell, it has to be multiple murder, murder of a small child, or murder accompanied by another felony. In those states, I would support adding hate-crime status to the list of murders eligible for the death penalty.
Finally, in response to Tedster, my recollection is thatblack and white defendants are charged with hate crimes in basically equal numbers (not weighted). I don’t have a link to any statistics, but a few good google searches could probably clear that up.
Well this is an issue I’ve thought about regularly. First I think the emphasis on murder is distracting to this debate. As pointed out by many of you, the maximum penalty for such a crime wouldn’t change regardless if the murderers motive.
However what I think hate crime accomplishes is a community statement that basically says: We will not tolerate the targeting of persons based solely insert group here.
So as Astorian mentioned an arsonist is an arsonist, but burning a cross on a black families lawn should be treated differently. Why? The cross burner was trying to send a message, not only to the immediate victim but also to others of that victims group. The community is also sending a message with a disparate sentence not only to that individual but also to like-minded individuals.
I’m well aware that some would accuse this of being a “thought police action”. I would disagree. While the sentence would take into account the persons motive for the crime (hate). The sentence is not based on the thoughts but the action.
Tedster wrote:
What are you basing this claim on? I admit it feasible but most studies I’m familiar with note that most people are killed by a member of there own racial group.
So a murder where a straight white man kills a gay white man should be a DP case, but a murder where a straight white man kills a straight white man shouldn’t be?
If someone kills my sister because she’s a female and they hate women, that’d be a hate crime. A capital case.
If someone kills my sister because they know she has a lot of money in her apartment, that wouldn’t be a hate crime. Wouldn’t be a capital case.
Either way, my sister’s still dead - the victim of a premeditated murder. One killer deserves the DP, the other doesn’t? Why’s it worse to kill her because she’s female than it is to kill her because she has money? She’s no less dead if the motive wasn’t based on gender.
If you really meant unweighted, this is very wrong. From the Department of justice: (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/assist/nvaa2000/academy/V-22-1HT.htm)
If we weigh the numbers against the racial %'s of the total US population, it might even out more, but it is plain as day that more whites are charged with hate crimes than blacks. I’ll leave it to the rest of you to argue whether or not this is signifigant.
What I would really like is for someone to allay my fears that hate crime laws could violate the double jeopardy clause in the constitution.
MGibson,
I don’t think your example is the best example in California to disprove the wrongness of Esprix’s statement. The section you cited indicates only that a “hate crime” would only be used in aggravation. That doesn’t necessarily mean the defendant faces a higher penalty because it is a hate crime, it just means the court should consider it in sentencing the defendant. Of course, even with that reading, Esprix is wrong, but I’m trying to give him a way to weasel out of it. Since I am not familar with CA Penal law, I’d have to defer, but check out Section 422.7, because I believe it allows the State of California to upgrade a misdemeanor to a felony if it is a “hate crime.” That would be a much stronger cite to disprove Esprix’s mistake.
Here in Illinois, though, I can tell you Esprix is wrong. Hate Crime can be used in sentencing as a factor in aggravation too, but they also have a specific Hate Crime offense which lists misdemeanor offenses that can be charged as a felony if the crime is committed is a “hate crime.”
I also want to give a prosecutor’s point of view regarding hate crime statutes. Basically, I feel they are another tool for the State to use to do justice in a case. Granted that they may not always be necessary, but, I for one, think it is a good idea to make certain misdemeanors into felonies if they are “hate crimes.” In a specific case, certain young men, who I shall kindly refer to as hate-filled idiots, spray painted certain racial epithets on a new neighbor’s garage. Since the actual damage to the garage was less than $300, the offense would have been a misdemeanor (and eligible for supervision, meaning there would never be a conviction on the idiot’s record), which, in mine and the victim’s opinion, was way too lenient. Hence, a hate crime charge making it a felony. The same thing happened in a separate case with involving a cross burning. I believe crimes committed on the basis of a hatred for a certain population are more odious, more damaging to society, and more worthy of serious treatment than others.
Of course you can take the absolute extremes many have taken here, being those of racially motivated murders, as an example of the uselessness of the statutes, but I think they need to realize that in some situations, hate crime legislation is a great idea.
Look, I am not an expert on hate crimes. Frankly, I haven’t even decided where I stand on the issue yet (I’m sure this and every other thread we’ve had on the subject will again get me to thinking about it). But my understanding has always been that hate crimes legislation do not affect the punishment for the commission of a crime, but rather affect the classification of a crime as being federal (which in turn affects funding, support, etc.). I’m willing to entertain any statutes and cites, and to debate the topic. (I will also wait patiently for my more learned colleagues - mat_mcl, Polycarp, gobear - to chime in with their thoughts.)
One question - doesn’t the motivation for a crime already factor into prosecution and punishment? How would hate crimes be any different?
I will also see if I can find some relevant info when I get the chance.
Esprix
Zaphod (may I call you Zaphod? Beeblebrox is too formal).,
I regret I don’t have the time to completely allay you fears regarding hate crime legislation allowing a way around the double jeopardy clause, complete with cites and extended discussion. However, if the legislation is along the terms of sentencing enhancement, there wouldn’t be a double jeopardy issue. If you are concerned about the State being able to get “two bites of the apple.” using “hate crimes” my brief research and intuition is that it would violate the double jeopardy clause. It is possible to imagine a situation if the two crimes are completely separate (like a guy arrested for Delivery of Cocaine, and later charged with Hate Crime), but, as a general rule, you shouldn’t be worried about it.
Thank you for the link, Beeblebrox. I’ll weasel out of my prior recollection by pointing out that the information appears to be on the incidence of hate crimes rather than the numbers of persons charged. Barring further data, however, I’ll be happy to keep my darn fool mouth shut on the statistics. 
Thank you Hamlet for addressing the double jeopardy issue, and “Zaphod” is fine (“Mr President” would be even better :)) You are perfectly correct in that sentencing enhancement only laws wouldn’t violate it, but my concern is the possibility of “extra” laws. Vandalism being one offense and “hate based destruction of propert” being a seperate offense.
Besides the double jeopardy protection granted by Amendment V , I am also concerned with hate crime legislation on free speech grounds. This is why:
Now, I am not defending these kids, but it makes me wonder. Why is this crime different than if they spray painted his garage with insults specific to him being the principal of the school hating his dress code policy? Imagine that they protested the policy, it got out of hand, became personal, and the youths commited vandalism - a misdemeanor.
The Supremes have ruled that hate speech is protected under the constitution. These kids could march around in KKK uniforms all day if they wanted just as easily as they could march with placards protesting school uniforms, as long as they did so peacefully. With hate crime laws, minor offenses stemming from certain points are view would be worse than the same offenses stemming from other points of view. This may not be a straight violation of the first ammendment, but it seems awful close to legislating thoughtcrime.
doubleplus ungood.
I didn’t say that; please don’t put words in my mouth.
The mere fact that the perpetrator and victim are of different identifiable groups does not make a crime a hate crime. At most, it raises a question as to whether the crime is a hate crime. The state still has to prove that the crime was actually motivated by hate; the mere fact that the defendant is white and the victim is black is absolutely no proof of that.
You should feel lucky that you have never been subjected to persecution on the basis of your group identifications. Most people who make the argument that you have against hate crimes have never been the target of hate-motivated speech or hate-motivated crime. Those of us who have, or know people who have, take a decidedly different position.
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The issue here isn’t the ethnicity, sex, or sexuality of either the offender or the victim. It’s completely disingenuous to say that hate crimes legislation is about “political correctness”. It’s about the government’s interest in punishing a particular type of criminal conduct that is of a particularly great threat in a particularly harsh manner. Making bigotry an aggravating circumstance to a crime under the law doesn’t take away from the heinousness of heinous crimes. The message is still sent that the people are intolerant of a given criminal behavior, with the added message that the people are particularly intolerant of the criminal conduct in question when it’s performed in furtherance of a nefarious aim. What’s wrong with saying that if anyone, be they whatever, kills a gay or straight or black or white or purple man or woman in a bar fight, it’s one matter, but if that same person kills their victim for the sole reason that they’re gay / straight / black / white / purple / male / female, that it’s another animal entirely?
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If someone killed your sister in the process of breaking into her apartment to get said money, that would be felony murder, a capital case.
What if someone killed your sister to relieve her suffering because she was in end-stage cancer and in agonizing pain? I don’t want to hijack this thread into a euthanasia debate; I only bring it up to point out that not all homicides are the same under the law nor should they be treated as such.
No, absolutely not. If anybody bothered to read the definitions before jumping to conclusions, they would see two points:
> Hate crime laws are nearly if not always definitions of aggravating circumstances bearing on existing crimes.
> Hate crime laws are defined in terms of “suspect categorizations,” not in terms of minority populations.
As regards the first point, almost every crime takes intent or motive into account – the classic example of the unemployed broke guy who shoplifts a loaf of bread to feed his starving children vis-à-vis the well-paid comptroller who embezzles a couple hundred thousand from his company by creative bookkeeping (never mind the degrees of larceny applicable) would make this point. I think nearly everybody is familiar with the idea that a murder must be premeditated, or else with reckless disregard of life during the commission of another felony; there are manslaughter and other homicide laws to govern the guilty taking of another’s life that do not amount to your state’s legal definition of murder. Likewise, an assault that was unintended may not be a criminal assault though it may constitute tortious conduct. (Example: two young men sparring with mutual consent; a passerby misinterprets it as an actual fight and attempts to intervene; a punch thrown by one is ducked by the other and connects with the would-be good Samaritan, breaking his nose. No criminal intent obtains, but the puncher is probably liable for damages to the third party trying to intervene.)
Now, a murder, rape, forcible sodomy, robbery, assault, or whatever – constituting a crime in and of itself – may have mitigating or aggravating circumstances. Date rape may be an excellent example where mitigation is in place – consider a case in which the intoxicated male believes his equally intoxicated date is merely playing rather than making a seriously effort to terminate the lovemaking. Aggravating circumstances abound, and are generally rooted in the intent of the perpetrator when committing the crime.
A hate crime law would make the fact that the perpetrator committed the crime on the victim because of his or her race, color, national origin, religious persuasion, sex, sexual orientation, or whatever else might be included an aggravating circumstance.
In your example of the straight white man killing either a gay white man or another straight white man, the question would not be whether the victim was straight or gay, but whether the intent of the killer was to kill the man because he was gay, and likewise with an assault. X assaulting Y because Y is being an arrogant, offensive jerk and getting in X’s face in a bar is not a hate crime, regardless of whether either is straight or gay, white or black, member of a minority religion or a particular ethnic group, etc. But if X assaults Y because Y is gay, black, or Arab and hanging out in the bar X frequents where “we don’t want your kind” – then X is guilty of a hate crime. (And, of course, if I go into a predominantly black area and am assaulted because “he’s one of those honkies that are trying to keep us brothers down” – then my assaulters are guilty of a hate crime – because they assaulted me on the basis of my race.
This is what I mean by “suspect categorizations” rather than minorities. White, black, and oriental, straight and gay, man and woman, all ethnic groups, all faiths, are protected equally – the fact that gay people, blacks, Jews, and such tend to be more often the victims of prejudice than straights, whites, Methodists, and the like is irrelevant to the wording and operation of the law.
Finally, I’ll observe that Kelly did a masterly summary in the other thread of how constitutionally-valid hate crimes are worded to achieve these results in contradiction to the Esprix post quoted in the OP, and try to get that and quote it here.
I think hate crimes do much more psychological harm to the victim, as well as doing more harm to the community. Crimes committed with a more troubling motive should be punished more severly. Especially in a nation with as many racial problems as America has.
In a vast majority of the states, as well as federal courts, that have dealt with this issue have upheld the hate crime statutes. The reasoning is that the thoughts, the hatred, the motive is not what is being punished, it’s the actions. State legislators have enacted laws saying that doing a criminal offense with an improper motive, or against a particular victim, should be punished more severly than others for decades. For example, if I smack you in the face, misdemeanor. If I smack an on-duty police officer in the face, felony. If I commit an offense against a senior citizen, or a handicapped person, or a teacher at school, the sentence can be enhanced. If your motive for committing a crime is because of your membership in a gang, you can be punished much more severly. All these examples have been around for years. It wasn’t until race, gender, and sexual orientation came up that there was a backlash.