I think the original intent behind hate crime legislation was to try and prevent a hate crime from inciting additional hate behavior. If Joe kills Jim because Jim wronged Joe, that’s one thing, if Joe kills Jim because Jim is a member of a group, then others that have a bias against that group may get the idea that it is okay to act on that bias.
It does make me wonder how they determine if it is a hate crime. As a white man, if I were to kill a black man, would it be automatically assumed that I hate black people?
No. There’s had to be some evidence of your intent. If you were robbing a convenience store and shot the clerk, who happened to be black, you probably wouldn’t be charged with a hate crime.
On the other hand suppose you’ve repeatedly told your buddies how unhappy you are with the number of black people who have recently moved into your neighborhood. You’ve said things like, “Somebody ought to teach them a lesson.” and “Those fellas in the KKK have the right idea.” Then one night, for no apparent reason, you purposely run down a random black man who’s walking down the sidewalk. Then you’d probably be charged with a hate crime.
As many of us keep pointing out, the justice system takes the state of mind of the accused into account ALL THE TIME. If a hate crime is an Orwellian “thought crime”, then premeditated murder is also an Orwellian “thought crime”.
No offense, but if you can’t see what an unbelievable can of worms that is, or how any lawyer could and absolutely would literally twist that to suit whatever means he needed, then you’re not living in the real world.
Wrong. Premeditation is not a motive for murder, its a method.
Something that I want to make very clear about all this:
Suggesting that murdering for hate is somehow much worse than murdering for money is fundamentally wrong!
Murder is the most heinous act one can commit. Even comparing it to the act of ‘hating’ inherently belittles the crime of taking another human life. It becomes about hating blacks or gays or Jews instead of about killing another human being. I actually know and am friends with people who do the former to some degree (and so are all of you). I don’t know anyone who’s done the latter.
You’re doing exactly what the people you want to punish do. You’re defining something based on race, religion or sex, not the immorality of murder itself.
Has nothing to do with the first amendment. Has to do with refusing people to form terriorist groups. To hate and terriorize other groups solely because of their nationality, etc. Why is that so hard to understand?
Ahem, this is the text of The First Amendment of The US Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Before terrorists do any actually terrorizing they do a lot of what could only be described as ‘peaceably assemble’-ing. It doesn’t matter if they’re talking about doing violent things, until they actually move forward into committing violent actions its still a peaceful assembly.
Look, we all know that hate groups and hate speech are bad things. But you cannot just make a law that contains such broad and ambiguous terms as ‘evil’ or ‘hate’ and expect it to be enforceable.
And you cannot simply put an asterisk next to the First Amendment and at the bottom write: *** except for hate speech and hate groups**
It is a mental state. The actions the murderer takes leading up to the murder may provide evidence as to his intent, but it is not the actions that are the aggravating factor. It’s the intent itself.
This makes perfect sense. A person who loses himself in a moment of high emotion and commits a violent act is not as morally culpable as a person who ruminates on the crime before committing it. Determining the internal mental state of the murderer is key to determining how severely he deserves to be punished.
If, as you claim, premeditation is merely a method then all we’re doing is punishing meticulous murderers more harshly than sloppy ones. Where’s the justice in that?
Hate crimes terrorize entire communities. That’s why it’s an aggravating factor. A lynching is a murder first, but it’s also an attempt to intimidate and terrorize others besides the primary victim.
It’s the same reasoning that leads us to punish criminals who kill police officers more harshly than criminals who kill ordinary civilians. It’s not that police officers’ lives are inherently more valuable. Rather it’s a recognition that an attack on a police officer is an attack on the general social order as well as an attack on an individual. Similarly, those who commit hate crimes are attacking the general social order and deserve a harsher punishment.
That a crime is committed is still the key point. The intent of the person committing the crime is merely an aggravating factor. Do you disagree that determining the intent of the murderer is an important part of arriving at a just sentence?
Not necessarily. If they actually are *planning * violent actions they may be involved in a criminal conspiracy, even if they never manage to carry out their plans.
I am NOT a proponent of hate crime legislation. However, leaving aside murder, (because that is an extreme case), I can see several real situations where the hate exacerbates the crime. If your typical jerk spray paints “fuck you” across the front of the house of the elderly lady down the street, she will suffer a certain amount of distress. However, if she is Jewish and you spray paint “fuck you kike” with a Hakenkreuz or is she is black and you spray paint “fuck you nigger,” I strongly suspect that her level of distress will be considerably higher.
As to intent: we already judge crimes based on intent. First degree/Aggravated Murder includes the intent to kill a person followed by the actual killing. Second Degree/Simple Murder requires that the killing be deliberate, but that the motive arise from an immediate emotional response rather than a deliberate and previously thought out choice to kill. Manslaughter requires only that the death result from one’s actions, even when there was no intent to kill, usually arising from an intent to inflict harm short of death. Negligent Homicide rerquires only that ones actions (or failure to act), resulted in a death, even when there was absolutely no intent to inflict harm.
I do not promote hate crime legislation because I suspect that it fails to accomplish any of the hazily expressed goals it is intended to addreess. However, there is clearly a hate component to hate crime analogous to other existing laws.