Go look up the FBI hate crime statistics. Every group has included both victims and perpetrators of hate crimes according to the police who report them and the percentage of people identified as having committed hate crimes is higher among blacks than whites: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm
What you appear to be complaining about is simply news coverage, as the police forces are, indeed, recording hate crimes by groups other than whites.
(In addition, given that Kansas has no hate crime laws on the books, establishing “hate” as a motive would more likely open the door to the defense to portray their clients as simply “striking back” at an oppressive system. Keeping “hate” out of the trial limits the defense options to simply claiming that they had bad childhoods.)
(And I have to say that the columnist to whom you linked in the OP demonstrated several odd perspectives in his editorializing that makes me wonder how “straight” is his story of the actions of the police and prosecutor. Regardless, without a hate crime statute, it would be a waste of time and effort for the police to run around digging up evidence for a crime that cannot be prosecuted.)
Really? You see a difference between assaulting a random Jew in front of a synagogue and following a random Jew from the synagogue and assaulting him in his own home? Or a homosexual in front of (vs followed from) a gay bar, or an abortion doctor and the clinic, or a black man and his predominantly black church, or any number of examples.
Isn’t it still, basically, just terrorism? Isn’t that enough of a separation of intent?
First of all, the police would have to turn up evidence that a crime was motivated by race before hate crime punishment would be imposed.
Second, the evidence in first degree arson and first degree murder cases need not by physical evidence, or even involve another person:
Police: Why’d you burn down the house?
Arsonist: I thought if I did it, I’d get $5.
Case closed. 1st degree arson.
And here is the difference between first and second degree arson.
Police: Why’d you burn down the house?
Arsonist: I thought the colors would be pretty?
Case closed. 2nd degree arson.
But in any event, I fail to understand your point. I was responding to this statement by you:
Sure, you need evidence of the thoughts in the 1st degree murder and 1st degree arson cases, but the key is that the thoughts of the perpetrator in murder and arson cases is what determines whether a more severe punishment is imposed.
Is your objection to the collection of evidence? Guess what - if there was no hate crimes legislation, but a guy assaulted someone else because the victim was white, the police would still collect evidence on that. The police always look for evidence of motive, regardless of whether the evidence collected will enhance the sentence or not.
B.F.D. Evidence is routinely “sealed” in a murder trial. Claiming that it “may” show racial motivation is about as accurate as claiming that it “may” show that UFO’s are being piloted by Sasquatch.
Considering that the article is from some sort of white supremacist newsletter, that assertion is hardly surprising. Every other news story I have read (try the CNN archives) simply says they have found no evidence of racial motivation. That’s rather different than saying they haven’t looked at all, which is pretty well inconceivable.
I believe tom~ has effectively dealt a death blow to this claim. In fact, as Table 3 of this PDF file shows, approximately one out of every six identifiable perpetrators of a hate crime is black.
As I said: The entire premise of the OP is without factual support.
Crime is not math. You have a shield of constitutional protection around your thoughts, provided that they do not violate the Patriot Act. This shield allows you to think whatever vile and disgusting things that you might like. It is a complete defense provided that you do not act on it. You may not use the shield as a sword: sorry, I ran the guy down in a cross walk and refused to brake simply because I was speeding, so it is manslaughter, you must give me minimum security prison just like any other speeder and you cannot consider that I saw him, saw he was of such and such ethnic group which I hate and decided that I wouldn’t hit the brake and rid the earth of one member of the group I hate and pay the manslaughter price. Motive matters. Here the gubmint has decided that if you refuse to hit the brakes that you will suffer an enhancement. Now they still must offer evidence beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty of your hatred for said ethnic group and that you were acting on it at the time, but it is completely legitimate as far as I can see.
Let’s take another example and make it a bit more abstract: May the government criminalize an activity that is not a “natural crime” (such as murder, arson, etc.), like drinking alcohol, smoking pot, possession or sale of the same? At times in history and in various cultures and countries these activities have been perfectly legal, or illegal, depending on the law at the time. Yes, government has that power. I don’t personally smoke pot, but I don’t care if others do, I think that driving under its influence is an appropriate subject for criminalization however.
Another example is securities trading. You may engage in buying and selling generally for any purpose. You may not buy and sell with the intent of defrauding or generally damaging others. A perfectly legal activity that may be completely illegal depending on your motivation. If as a rich idiot I make a bunch of trades that unwittingly ruin the value of a corporation, I remain a free man. But if my motive was to accomplish exactly what I did, I may be subject to prosecution. Tought to prove, but its still out there, and perfectly legal.
In fact, most degrees of natural crimes under the common law are aggrevated by “malice aforethought”: it can make an involuntary manslaughter into a second degree murder with a talented prosecutor. Hate crimes could be viewed as legal presumptions that the jury is allowed to infer such “malice aforethought.”
In any event, it still needs to be proven to the jury, which, I mention now to irritate some of my allies on this hate crime argument, can be completely nullified by the jury under the jury’s “right” to nullify. (Snicker, snicker, snort, snort.)
Hate crimes are a form of terrorism. Even ignoring the fact that proposed national hate crime laws do not actually invoke larger penalties, but rather reclassify the crime to involve federal law enforcement (note that state laws in some cases do correspond to larger penalties, but not on the federal level, IIRC), if you’re out to kill an entire group of people, you’re harming more than the one person you might actually attack - that’s terrorism, or at least intimidation, against that entire group.
Race is a significant factor in criminality – even after controlling for factors like economic status and education.
In any case, you’re still treating all people who commit hate crimes alike, and saying that they will all have the same rates of recidivism. That’s profiling, and that’s prejudice.
Well, grendel, we must respect everyone’s rights - even the criminal’s. But as they stand now, hate crime laws deal with a seperate, additional issue than the murder or act of lawlessness they commit - holding a group of people hostage with terrorism.
I like hate crime laws in theory. It’s a way for the government to emphasize that hate and bigotry are against our values.
However, in practice hate crime laws have several real-world problems IMHO.
For serious crimes, they may be irrelevant. E.g., the horrible murder of James Byrd.
For minor crimes, the punishment may be too great. I recall a case where an African American was attacking a man’s wife. In the course of defending her, her husband used a racial epithet. IIRC the husband was penalized more than the attacker.
As I it, the problem is that law-makers don’t know just where to set the penalty. Normally, it would be clear that assault and battery are more serious crimes than name-calling.
Another problem is the great discretion as to whether or not to categorize something as a hate crime. It’s often not clear what criteria would prove a hate crime. Of course, it is clear in some cases, like the Byrd example.
Yes, I have abundant doubts that this assertion is true.
The Carrs are up for an incredible 113 charges related to their crime spree, including capital murder. Why should the prosecuter be expected to go even further when the defendents already face the ultimate penalty, and with little or no mitigating evidence likely to prevent that penalty from being applied?
In any event, both your premise and your final point quoted above, as shown by other posters, are completely unsupported by the article cited in the OP.
From the cited article:
Show that the above statement is true, by specific example.
If you want to argue that hate crime laws are biased against white defendents, show with concrete examples that this is fact, because the example you cited simply doesn’t cut it. If your point is that media coverage tends to highlight hate crimes where the perpetrators are white, you may have more of a point, but again you haven’t really made a case unless you can present concrete examples. The fact that the Carr case may not have been nationally publicized (is this really true? Never once made, say, the AP wire?) has nothing at all to due with prosecution of the case, and says nothing relevant to the argument that US hate crimes laws might be biased against white defendants.
Though speech enjoys great liberty under the First Amendment, that liberty does not extend to harrassment or fighting words. Mr. Rae was not charged for using a racial epithet; he was charged for attempting to start a fight with another person whom he was not privileged to attack.
Rae got 7 days in jail for assault, by the way. He was acquitted of malicious harassment, the “hate crime” with which he was charged. That crime is defined as follows by Idaho Code section 18-7902:
Under the law, then, you don’t get to threaten harm to another individual because of that person’s race. Just calling someone a bad name doesn’t get you anywhere near malicious harassment.
Simply googling “Lonny Rae” Idaho reveals Lonnie Rae to be quite the celebrity among the white supremacist set. What’s that old thing about being judged by the company we keep, december?
OK, I confess. I read about this case on ABC News. Sometimes I even pay attention to NBC and CBS news :eek: If that makes me a bigot, so be it.
Seriously, I thought I did pretty well on remembering the details from a year ago. Especially when you consider how many of my brain cells have died, given my advanced age.
Thanks for finding out the determination of the case. Do you know what happened to the guy who (allegedly) started the brawl?
Nothing, apparently. Given the apparent white supremacist leanings of his accusers, it’s not terribly surprising that the prosecutors would decline to pursue charges. What actually happened, lord only knows.
May I assume you have no problem with the Idaho law or its application in this instance?
Whether I have a problem with the law or its application depends on what actually happened. If Rae was defending his wife from an unprovoked attack, then he was doing the right thing. Under that assumption, I am unhappy that Rae was convicted of a crime, that Rae was in jeopardy of a serious felony conviction, and that the real instigator was not even prosecuted.
However, I agree with you that lord only knows what actually happened.
I’d seen the link to the “Wichita Massacre” in several of the WN threads here, but had never clicked on it.
I did this morning, and then Googled to find more unbiased sources.
I am absolutely stunned right now. But even sitting here and feeling cold and numb, some things come to mind.
Even as small and uneventful as Kansas is, this case has been essentially blacked out by the media. I am pretty media-aware and Kansas-aware, and have never even heard of this case. It’s almost surreal coming across it, like walking outdoors in the morning, seeing an elephant in your yard, asking “Where the hell did that come from?”, and then being told that it’s been there for a while… For whatever the reason, this horrific crime has not received any coverage that I can recall or remember, and yet most all murders in Kansas make the news at least once or twice.
The depiction and events in the link in the OP seem to be accurate, regardless of the commentary and race-baiting that seems to be going on.
If any one of those who were attacked had had a firearm in their house, they would have been able to at least attempt to defend themselves. As it turned out, they had nothing to lose - they are dead now, after having been brutally raped and tortured. Score another one for gun control, I guess. :rolleyes:
The crimes which occurred, and what these black men did to torture these white men and women, regardless of the reasoning behind it, it horrific. It seems very unclear to me that there was any “hate crime” in evidence, however.
I don’t think I will be able to sleep again this morning, having read the account. I will not post on a message Board what I am feeling right now, but it’s bad. I’m actually shaking with a combination of rage and fear. No, I’m not going to post what I’m thinking. It’s not good.
It has only solidified my resolve as to what to do when a tall male figure appears in my house in the middle of the night. :mad:
These people are subhumans in every sense of the word, and it has nothing to do with the color of their skin or their “FUBU” shirts. It has purely to do with their actions. In my opinion, they have forfeited their humanity, willingly, and deserve no better treatment than a rabid skunk. They are non-human entities, and should be put down as an animal would be. It would be more kindness than they showed those poor people they utterly debased and destroyed. :mad:
Nope, not going to say any more. Those that live in their hippy-dippy fantasy world, where crimes don’t really happen, and all people are brothers and sisters in love under God, would start calling me “evil” again…
