How is this NOT a hate crime?

I’m running short on time, so apologies if this post is redundant to another person’s. Regardless of the legitimacy of hate crime legislation (something I’m not sure I support myself), this to me definitely describes one.

According to the article, this guy is taking a shower. The victim thinks its his roomate, so decides to play a joke by entering (or at least peeking into) the shower. The perpetrator then leaves the bathroom, walks down to his room, gets a baseball bat, returns, and begins assaulting the victim with it. All because he supposedly felt sexually harassed? Ok I could buy that argument if he had attacked the victim before exiting the bathroom. It would’ve been irrational assault based on perceived danger. But… the guy left the bathroom, exiting the perceived danger zone. He then, rationally if not logically, got his baseball bat with the intent to go back and beat the living shit out of the “fag”.

Its not like he was going to play baseball, ran into the poor fellow again by sheer coincidence, and freaked out once more.

Priam, read the bloody thread first. Gads, I hate that.

No, I would not, and I loathe the day when I see “hate crime” bandied about unwarrantedly just because the victim was gay, black, a woman, Jewish, what have you - another version of “pulling the race card” (however, I do not think that was the case in this particular incident, which I still maintain is a hate crime - obviously you, and the law, disagree).

Esprix

Hi, Shodan. The definition of “hate crime” most often quoted on this board – and I presume from that that it’s the common one in hate crime laws as well, though of course turned into lawyerese – is when a criminal action is precipitated on the basis of a real or perceived characteristic of the victim that falls in a given protected category. That awkward sentence is to say that if the law indicates that it is a hate crime to assault someone on the basis of his race, evidence indicating that a given assault was precipitated by the person’s racial identity, or what the perpetrators thought was the person’s racial identity, will serve to prove that it was not merely an unprovoked assault, but a hate crime assault. That the perpetrator(s) was/were in error in their identification is immaterial; there was a case cited where a Sikh man was assaulted by a group of yahoos shortly after 9/11 on the basis that anyone wearing a turban must be a Moslem. And, of course, it does not merely protect blacks, or gays, or whatever – a white man beaten up by a black street gang for being a white man in a black area (and hence presumbly up to no good) would be equally the victim of a hate crime, since he was assaulted on the basis of his race.

There are some grey areas. Take the infamous incident in which Jerry Falwell claimed to have been attacked by a group of gays when he spoke in California. If it had happened, would that have been a hate crime under this definition?

The justification behind them is that it puts the force of the law behind a proposition that I think we can all agree to: no person should be victimized on the basis of his race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identification, etc.

Does that help in any way to clarify the question? Or am I merely rehashing stuff that does not assist in examining the question for you?

Quite possibly. While legally, it should make no difference, I can certainly see a jury being swayed by their perception of the law. The common perception is that hate crimes only protect minorities, and I can see a jury denying hate crimes charges because the victim wasn’t actually that minority.

ok, I’m a straight white male. If a black man beats me with a baseball bat for whatever reason, no chance of hate crime charges. If I beat him, I’m screwed.

Here’s my question.

Why are blacks sold softer bats than whites?

I’m outraged!

Well, this is a good example of how many people mis-understand hate crime laws:

Completely false. You would only get a hate crime if you beat him because of his race. Similarly, if he beat you because of your race, he would get charged with a hate crime. As I said before, it’s happened.

Feh. Reminds me of the police officers at the trial I testified at, who grabbed the Bible, rolled their eyes towards heaven, and loudly swore by God and the saints that the defendents did things they didn’t do, and that they themselves didn’t do things they did.

The defendents were found not guilty.

Damn. That is repulsive.

Lying under oath, hiding behind false piety, benefitting the ones who committed the crime.

It’s defendant.

From this [url"http://216.93.187.130/2003/5-30/news/localnews/hatecrime.cfm"]site

Related /hijack to help out here:

I had my first opportunity to serve on a jury earlier this year. It was a worker’s comp case. This guy, about 50 years old, had worked in the water well business his entire adult life. He’d had back problems for the past several years, well documented by his chiro. One day, he fell off the back of a truck, while moving pipes alone. (His partner had called in sick) He was trying to get the state to pay for his surgeries and other medical expenses based on this injury. He saw his chiro that day, but for whatever reason, she didn’t write down the notes about his accident. He didn’t file charges until a few months later, when his boss suggested it. His boss later claimed that he didn’t remember the circumstances.

(Sorry, that was long I know, but I had to give background.)

The judge told the jury we had to answer a question:
Was Mr. HardworkingGuy’s back injury caused on ___ day because he fell off a truck?

We ended up answering no. He’d been injured before, he’d been injured that day, but had nothing to back it up. We were all quite disheartened.

You don’t know what the jury had to answer. If they have a specific question, and these questions are worded by the judge, they have to answer that question. They have to decide that a “preponderence of the evidence” leads them to answer the judge’s question in the affirmative. If it doesn’t, they HAVE to say NO, even if they don’t like it.
From a quick Google search, it appears this is NOT the first time this law has been invoked, but the first time it’s been invoked in a felony.
Price deserves to go to jail. He used a baseball bat against another human being as a weapon. But none of us were in that bathroom, and none of us were in that courtroom. There are extenuating circumstances that we don’t know about.

There are always three sides to a story. Mine, yours and the truth.

~J

Gah, sorry about the coding.

Outraged, and wrong.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/03/02/wilkinsburg.shooting.03/

[quote]
gobear
Well, I know this puts me out of step with my gay brethren, but it seems to me that reason for the assault is irrelevant. Price assaulted Love because Price thought that Love was gay, so what? The point is the assault, not the reasoning behind it.

I have a philosophical problem with the concept that some crimes are more heinous than others because of the sexual orientation or race of the victims. That veers into the “special rights” that homophobes claim we want.

IMO, an assault on a gay victim should be prosecuted every bit as thoroughly as an assault on a hetero victim, but not more so. Ofd course, assaults on gay people tend to be treated as misdemeanors more often than not., but I want parity in the legal system for gay people, not a mirror image of the superiority hetero people presently enjoy.*

It pains me to agree.

I mean this is a guy using a bat to take on a guy who is a foot taller. This is a fight, of which I’ve seen so many in my youth that if they all got ten years would indicate that the prison system would have to expand tenfold. Isn’t ten years enough? Ive read recent reports of a young person getting 2 years for stomping on a guys head to death or a guy who slit a cabbie’s throat getting 3 years.

And one last thought. If the tall guy made a pass or sexually harrassed the small guy would that not be a mitigating factor?

This from a guy who was constantly being confronted and attacked for being different, in his earlier school years.

grienspace, at least one reason I am in favor of hate crime laws is that when you specifically single out a person because of the group they belong to, your intimidate everyone in that group. Those actions affect far more than just that person, but the entirety of the community to which that person belongs. This is why I’ve used the term “terrorism” in the past. Yes, everyone will feel unsafe with a murderer running around town, but if that murderer is only targeting Jews, it’s the Jewish community (and anyone who might be perceived to be part of that community) that are terrorized.

Esprix

That is a good point Esprix, which I hadn’t previously considered. I concede. Now please answer my followup question. What if the smaller guy was sexually harrassed? Isn’t it a guy thing (an immature guy thing) to respond to offense with violence? Most women obviously need the courts etc. to deal with sexual harrassment, but young guys are expected to take matters in their own hands.

No. But I would say that any criminal whose primary motivation in assaulting a victim was due to bigotry is guilty of a hate crime.

Greetings to all -

I don’t want to post and run, but FWIW, I think I have presented all of what I have to add to this thread.

I am not ignoring you, but if I start repeating myself, I am afraid this will turn into a train wreck like the Arajuo murder thread.

Thanks to all for your thoughts.

Regards,
Shodan

I have to agree with Shodan on this issue. The guy went crazy because he was taking a shower and a much bigger guy looked in on him. That makes him a psycho, but not guilty of a hate crime.

It is perfectly plausible that Price didn’t even think the guy looking at him was gay, especially since Love denied being gay. Calling him gay could just as well have been his attempt at an insult. Obviously he felt threatened, but that does not mean he thought the person threatening him was gay.

If this type of thing happened in a prison, would you assume that he thought the person looking at him was gay? Of course, an all boys school is far from a prison… but then, Price is far from sane.

Since it is very likely that Price attacked Love because Love looked in on him in the shower, and because Love was so much bigger and seemed threatening to Price, Price should not be convicted of a hate crime. Is it possible that Price thought “this guy is looking at me in the shower… he must be gay… I hate gays and I’m going to bash his head in!”? Yes. But from the evidence that is not proven nor is it even the most likely scenario.

I dont understand how “I thought he was hitting on me” is ever an acceptable defence. I am pretty sure any woman that tried it would spend forever in jail, yet it seems men get to use it to get away with all sorts of abuse. I have no sites, but I would almost be willing to bet the police would not prosecute a rape case of any woman who said she felt threatened by some man, was able to leave the area, then went back with a weapon. The only suprising thing here is that he actually is being punished, so often it seems, that this type of bull gets bought by jurys.

Did you read the linked articles? Did you hear about the slew of anti-gay epithets he was spewing while he was hitting him?

Esprix

That’s insane. Vigilante justice just because a guy hit on him? The “gay panic” defense is an abomination of justice.

Esprix