For all you youngsters, NYC’s Stonerwall Inn is the bar where the Gay Liberation movement began.
Last night, Stonrwall was the site of a homophobic attack. News story here.
You’ve come a long way, baby, but you’ve still got miles to go before you sleep.
I see a robbery of a victim who happened to be gay, but where is the evidence that it happened because of the orientation of the victim? Even the victim said “Guys wanted money. Cops got them.”
They were quoted as saying the following leading up to the attack (another local paper said they asked him if he was gay before they attacked him; I’m trying to corroborate that):
Besides the fact that I’m wondering how a 17-year-old got into a bar, they had to know that the Stonewall was a gay bar, it being famous and internationally known and all, and on a block in the West Village with several gay bars.
But is that language alone strong enough to make it a hate crime?
I’m not talking about simply the language, but what was said during the exchange and the violence that followed it. If they had simply attempted to rob Carver that would be one thing but to just happen to wander into The Stonewall, have that exchange and then have it end up in violence is a cumulation of evidence that I think even you can see.
It’s interesting that they’re both claiming to have been breaking up a fight the other was involved in, and also interesting that the existence of Francis’ gay sister is being held up as a vouchsafe for him.
(I’m thinking now the “Are you gay” angle was extrapolated from the fact that they confirmed it was a gay bar before beginning their assault.)
Yes.
Don’t pee…
Don’t pee…
Don’t pee so close to me…
This. Unless they were completely and utterly blitzed out of their minds, there is no way in Hell they did not know that they just walked into a gay bar. Even if they hadn’t ever heard of Stonewall, that area is littered with (obvious) gay bars, and anybody possessing both eyesight and the ability to hear would realize it’s a gay bar before walking in. I know this because I’ve been to Stonewall and bars in the surrounding area dozens of times. I’m appalled by this. I hope the perpetrators are punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Could you provide a bit more detail on why you’re so sure?
Just in case you hadn’t noticed, this is an Internet message board, not a court of law. Around here, we form opinions about events in the news on the preponderance of the evidence available, not as sworn jurors with a duty not to convict unless guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt. There is a significant difference. Were we to wait for proof of the sort a jury has the right to demand, nobody would ever be entitled to form an opinion about anything. There’s some value in your knee-jerk reaction to any assertion regarding a potential crime, to make us think whether we actually have all the facts – but it does get old. Yes, Francis and Orlando may possibly have been sufficiently clueless and incompetent in their alleged shakedown attempt that it does not rise to the level of a hate crime – but would you bet your investment income on it? I find that I can form an opinion on the basis of known facts, then alter it if necessary as more facts become available – as I did in the Lower Merion laptop spycam case of a few months ago. Do you seriously believe nobody should comment on the news until all the evidence is made public? Or do you just enjoy the “Gotcha!” moments when someone expresses an opinion not completely substantiated to your lawyer’s eagle eye to the level expected in a court of law, and you can jump them on it?
What, are you new around here? That’s Bricker’s raison d’etre. He takes legal nit-picking to a sublime art form.
“Yes” isn’t an opinion, and juries don’t decide which charges to bring against a criminal suspect. That is a matter of law and sometimes prosecutorial discretion.
You don’t get to yell “HATE CRIME!!!111” if you don’t know what a hate crime actually entails.
All true.
But when someone asks a question like, “But is that language alone strong enough to make it a hate crime?” then it seems to me we move beyond the general realm of bullshitting on an Internet message board, and begin to trigger this particular board’s supposed motto: “Fighting ignorance.”
I took Morgenstern’s question to be both a reasonable one and a factual one: assuming that what was reported in the article is the evidence the jury hears, is that legally sufficient to sustain the hate crime enhancement codified in New York Penal Law § 485.05.
I enjoy accuracy. I have no problem with commenting on the news. But when someone asks a factually based question, and there’s a confident reply, it seems to me that there’s some value in exploring what that confidence is based on.
If tdn’s response is, “Hey, beats me; I wuz just bullshitting, like Polycarp said,” that’s fine. And if he said, “Yes, I am confident, because of factual reasons (A), (B), and (C),” then those reasons can be discussed at length.
But you cannot credibly argue that I’m in the wrong here, Polycarp. There was a specific factual question asked. The questioner is entitled to get a factual answer, and to know on what basis that factual answer rests.
Also, Polycarp, you’re a coward. I say that because like a herd animal, you seek to cloak your own love of ignorant chatter in the mantle of the majority:
Oh, “we” do, do we?
Undoubtedly many of “us,” do, Polycarp. I am sure that many of “us” love the echo chamber reinforcement of “our” views without the confusion of any dissenting voices, especially when, as here, the dissenting voice is pointing out an inconvenient fact that might disturb “our” comfortable superiority of the herd alignment of thought.
But I like to think that many more of “us” are interested in actual fact, in reason and truth, regardless of where that reason might lead, and many of “us” welcome hearing about contrary fact as an opportunity to either defend “our” positions or abandon them as insufficiently supported by fact.
What do “you” think?
Afterwards is a gigantic list of possible offices such as assault, rape, etc.
http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/legalservices/ch107_hate_crimes_2000.htm
From my armchair position, it seems like crimes are rarely prosecuted as hate crimes, even when the the statutes seem to clearly apply. So I have little hope of this actually being prosecuted as such, even supposing it WAS a hate crime.
“I” think, that, as a “lawyer”, you probably have “better means” to satisfy your “interest” in actual “fact” than pouncing on random statements on an internet message board, but, since this seems to be your “preferred” method, then it’s “probably” because “the “Gotcha!” moments when someone expresses an opinion not completely substantiated to your lawyer’s eagle eye to the level expected in a court of law, and you can jump them on it” is your “actual” goal. Since you asked, and all.
Anyway, for more information on NYC hate crimes, here’s a list of the operative laws:
http://www.partnersagainsthate.org/laws/list-of-hate-crime-laws.html?state=ny
That lists four items:
I can’t figure out how to work the more info links. Maybe someone here can sort it out. However, Googling laws at the NY State Assembly webpage turned up this:
Oh! hang, on I found the actual hate crime law:
link to text of the following law
So the specified offense is assault & robbery, and it was committed immediately following the use of commonly known profane slurs, which NY law says is presumptive evidence of a hate crime.
Merneith, the section you quoted when you said; So the specified offense is assault & robbery, and it was committed immediately following the use of commonly known profane slurs, which NY law says is presumptive evidence of a hate crime. appears to be a pending legislative bill - A08590 Summary: BILL NO A08590. You’re not quoting that as NY law are you?
Does this mean that Judy Garland will rise from where she’s been sleeping for 41 years and come back?
Hmm. On rereading I think you’re correct. This looks like it’s set to amend the part of the law 485.05 that I quoted afterwards.
In which case I guess that it’s a question for a jury to decide if the act (assault & burglary … or larceny, maybe, not burglar?) was committed and/or the victim selected because of the defendant’s beliefs about homosexuality and/or homosexuality. I would think that the defendant’s using the slurs indicated something about the defendant’s beliefs. But what do I know?
I know what I mean by “hate crime” – an act that, in addition to being a crime when committed for any (or any non-permissible) motive (e.g., murder, assault, harassment), can also be demonstrated to have been motivated by reason of the victim’s membership in a protected non-chosen or chosen-as-morally-imperative class, such as being of a particular race, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, etc.
In point of fact, however, a hate crime resembles a baseball pitch – it ain’t anything until it’s called that by the person having the right to judge. While the law, as Merneith demonstrates, defines what constitutes a hate crime, whether act X is in fact a hate crime is up to the jury or to the judge in a bench trial, or to prosecutorial discretion as to whether to charge a hate crime, etc.
I believe that “we” – meaning Dopers – have a right to form an opinion as to whether something constitutes a hate crime, hopefully with reference to the law in a given jurisdiction – but remember that in some states, gay-bashing is not a hate crime because sexual orientation is not there a protected class. IMO it still “is” a hate crime on the basis that even though the prevailing statute does not include it, the prevailing attitude among this Internet community is that it should be so included.
I would also like, having answered you fairly and I think substantively, to see your response to this comment of Merneith’s, with which I tend to agree:
Remember, if you will, that I did say there was some value in your challenging A rush to judgment on the basis of only the facts available – I just find it tiresome, whenever there is a topic involving allegation of criminal misbehavior, your instant move to play Gotcha! on the basis of whether we as yet have all the facts. Done a bit less snarkily, with a concession that it seems that way now but may not prove out when all the facts are in, it could be a valuable part of a discussion. At present, it means that anyone expressing an opinion about a news story involving alleged criminal behavior can expect to be held by you to the criminal-trial standard immediately on the story breaking. (It is also fascinating that when the alleged miscreancy is political chicanery, you are Johnny-on-the-spot with the Gotcha! comment when the alleged perpetrator is a Republican, and nowhere near as willing to do the same when it is a Democrat.
Since you asked, and all that.