There are precious few crimes, especially murders, that are “love criimes.”
In my opinion, the psychological intent or the mind state of the person committing the murder is already summed up in degrees (first degree, second degree, manslaughter, etc).
The reasons for premeditation are immaterial. If the person intended with forethought to visit bodily harm resulting in the death of an innocent person for reasons not related to self defense, that perpetrator committed murder. Period. It is immaterial whether the perp is a racist or whether the perp is Mother Teresa.
To assign an instance of the wanton deprivation of another’s life as more or less severe simply because the perp was a racist or did it out of racial spite is superfluous. Premeditated murder is premeditated murder.
When society assigns the gravity of premeditated murder as dependent on the mind state of the perpetrator, you are now jumping into the realm of THOUGHT CRIMES.
Do we really want to go there?
Unfortunately, there are many on the left who do.
As the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case clearly illustrated, those on the left are more than happy to fall all over themselves in immediately assigning motives of racism and “hate crime” (read: THOUGHT CRIME) status when a fellow-traveller is on the receiving end and a white person (even a ginned-up “White Hispanic” person) is on the giving end.
When one or more of their own is on the giving end, however, not so much. Rare indeed is the case when black on white violence ends up being prosecuted as a “hate crime.”
Which leads me to believe that to a critical mass of our population (not at all exclusively black, mind you, but exclusively “progressive” at any rate), the whole concept of “hate crime” is not borne out of a thirst for blind justice; rather, the concept of “hate crime” seems to serve as a tool to exact revenge on those progressives identify as enemies of their ideology at worst, or as tools to advance their sense of ideology and/or personal political agendae at best.
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crimes are punished usually on what the prosecution thinks they can get them on. If they believe they can get murder 2 and murder 1 is a stretch they will go with murder 2. I cannot find the link right now but most hate crimes are not charged if they already have them for murder 1. Martin case the people were upset with stand your ground laws. It was absolutely not debated on trial but i was a huge reason people had a problem with the case at first. Like i said if you read the newspaper they are trying the black kids for murder one and life in prison. What does qualifying it as a hate crime do for the case instead of muddying it?
Jake,
You have been influenced by TV crime stories, charging on crimes is actually based on the elements of the crime. Prosecutors are not “supposed” to not charge a crime if the elements are met. It is the same as a police officer looking the other way when a crime is being committed, why do you think there was such outrage at AG Holder and Obama when they suggested that States not charge “drug related crimes”?
The reality is that the courts are backed up to the point that decisions are made based on what can be proven, and what can be prosecuted expeditiously or realistically given the constraints of the legal system. That’s how plea bargains work.
If you read the opinion from the case you cited you’d discover that the elements of a Hate Crime can help determine predisposition or intent (not motive) of the underlying crime so it behooves the prosecution to include the Hate Crime with the murder charge for the sake of clarification to the jury.
So, neo is correct.
Stand Your Ground was not part of the Zimmerman trial, it wasn’t used by the defense because they determined it did not apply to Zimmerman’s claim of self defense. The State cannot prosecute a defendant for a defense not presented.
However, the prosecution can present elements of intent without the Thought Police element of prosecuting for “wrong thinking”.
Very true Amazona. There are already a number of duplications in the Justice system which the prosecution can use to demonstrate intent, hate crime legislation only offers another possibility to demonstrate intent.
A Black Panther is on trial fro the killing of a skin-head; intent. A skin-head is on trial for the killing of a Black Panther; intent. The murder is evident, the intent shows the defendant was predisposed. The defendant’s state of mind regarding a group or class helps the jury understand the intent of the crime. By making it a separate crime from the underlying crime the prosecution can pursue this line without meeting the relevance threshold.
The problem we have today is that we must define legally what constitutes a hate crime, who hates whom and was the hateful intent material to the crime. The Courts should have a problem with charging someone with a hate crime without an underlying crime attached.
It’s still Thought Police. It’s still dependent on the opinion of a third party and it’s still wide open to abuses of various kinds, including inflammation of the public by inserting emotional issues into what should be objective analysis of what happened.
By “third party” can I assume you mean a jury?
Forgive me but, murder, mayhem, battery and torture are already “emotional”.
“By “third party” can I assume you mean a jury? ”
Of course not. Juries do not determine what charges will be filed.
And the “emotional issues” are not the acts themselves, nor the emotions that may have prompted them, but the emotional reaction to them.
My contention is that there are two aspects of a crime—the one that leads to the crime and the one that deals with it afterward. Conflating the two seems to be the core issue here.
Yes, the acts are quite emotional. But my point is that once the act has occurred, it is the responsibility of law enforcement and the judicial system to act without emotion. Once we allow emotion to govern the official response to a crime, we lose the integrity of the system. Any legal system, any judicial system, HAS to be even-handed and objective, and once we let the Thought Police in to interject “hate” into a situation, particularly into one that is by definition hostile even without the qualifier, we lose the moral power of that guarantee of objectivity. Once we have a system that says to one murderer “You are sentenced to this penalty for your crime” and to another “We treat you differently because although your crime is the same as that other guy’s, this one really pissed us off”, we are on a slippery slope of degeneration of the whole process.
Amazona,
We’re speaking of two separate issues; charging and prosecuting.
A dispassionate decision to charge is made based on the elements of the crime and provability of such, no emotion here.
Prosecuting a crime is an emotional endeavor. Juries are asked to put aside emotions in deliberation. We all know that that is a goal not easily attained, so prosecution and defense will use the emotional nature of the crime and the victim to achieve justice for the defendant and for society (we’re speaking of the Criminal Justice system, not civil).
There is historical precedence for concluding that certain groups are set as victims based on characteristics they cannot control or change. Society has an obligation to prevent that harm to an individual based on prejudice toward that person’s group. The only way to insure that these groups can feel a modicum of safety and equal protection under the law is to codify that the intent created by this prejudice that results in violence is a separate crime prosecuted in accordance with law.
On this Justice Scalia and I are in agreement.
Because of the historical precedence any group singled out for violent crime is included in hate crime legislation, therefore it does meet the equal protection clause. A Jew should not live in fear of violent attack based on his yarmulke any more than a redneck should live in fear because of his Stars and Bars bumper sticker.
Hate crime legislation requires a demonstrable prejudice that logically leads to violence should that violence occur. In the absence of that violence the hate crime cannot stand alone as a prosecutable offense. Hate all you want, you cannot act on it or incite others to act on your behalf.
In the prosecution the publics’ advocate can demonstrate a larcenous heart or bad intention if said advocate can rely on laws that make such bad intention when connected to a violent crime a crime in itself. Intent is an element of the underlying crime so it is a logical extension of the prosecution. Absent hate crime legislation the prosecutor’s attempts to bring in the defendant’s membership in the Klan or Black Panthers is met with the relevance threshold.
Assuming of course that the membership demonstrates a propensity to hate the victim’s group.
The “third party” can only be assumed to be the jury since the defendant is the first person and the People are the second. The People are represented by two groups (Law and Order announcer voice here, followed by the “ding-ding”).
have you ever heard of the EQUAL PROTECTION clause of the US constitution????
Generally, a hate crime is motivated by the defendant’s belief regarding a protected status of the victim, such as the victim’s religion, sex, disability, customs, or national origin.
EXTREMELY SUBJECTIVE……..and protected status????? WHERE is THAT in the Constitution?? or bill of rights?
some pigs have more rights than other pigs?? Orwell 1985
test
Leo
A conservative educator, military father, and student of life.
branch?
A little Freudian neo, Orwell wrote Animal Farm in 1944. Her wrote 1984 in 1948. Has dead long before 1985.
And, don’t forget, Orwell was a Socialist.
jake, you make many unfounded and inaccurate comments, and also play the Lib game of, when you can’t rebut what was said, play Junior Shrink and start in on psych diagnoses, such as your claim that “…but amazona your only argument is to have a superiority complex that you are better than everyone else. ”
Hey, I’m sorry if getting accurate information makes you feel inadequate, but don’t blame ME for that.
And you say: “…You really dont answer questions nor make a really sound argument..”
Except, of course, for the fact that I DO answer questions, and I DO make really sound arguments. You might work on doing a little research before you spout off like this.
You also claim: “Martin case the people were upset with stand your ground laws. It was absolutely not debated on trial but i was a huge reason people had a problem with the case at first.”
Oh so very very wrong. The case had nothing to do with the “Stand Your Ground” law. It was not “debated” in the trial because it was clearly dismissed by the defense as irrelevant to the defense, which was not, and never was, “Stand Your Ground” but was simple self defense. Again, even a little research would have cleared this up.
Once this is explained and proved, the rest of your comment, “… i(t) was a huge reason people had a problem with the case at first….” simply proves that a lot of people got all upset over something that was not even part of the issue.
Some race pimps saw this as a chance for some camera time, maybe a payout, and an opportunity to throw gasoline on the race fire they set and had been feeding with increased success once “the first black president” came out in their support. The original hysteria was race-based. Later, some dragged in the SYG law, but that was old news, long past and not relevant.
And all the law says is that if you are threatened, in a way that indicates a serious physical threat, you do not have to retreat. In Colorado, you do, if retreat is possible, though “retreat” is not spelled out. A strong young person could run away, an older person could step back and try to create distance between her and the threat, and if there is no reasonable retreat possible then deadly force is allowed. In Florida they legislated that retreat is too vague a term and could pose an unreasonable demand on a potential victim, so they said it is not a requirement. However, the threat IS. You stand 500 feet from me and throw a rock at me, I can’t shoot you. You stand 500 feet from me and aim a cocked crossbow at me, I can. You stand 500 feet from me and tell me you are going to come over and hit me with your baseball bat, and I am a healthy young person, in Colorado, I have to retreat and not just stand there and pull my gun. If I am elderly, or incapacitated, or backed up to a wall or fence, I can pull my gun and shoot you if you try to carry out your threat.
It’s not rocket science. It’s logic, and it was legislated to remove some of the threat of lawsuits in cases of genuine threat, where some shyster could sue claiming that the original intended victim had a legal requirement to run away.
“Hate Crime” statutes create different classes of people, different classes of victims, and furthermore, in addition to providing different applications of the law, allow for—-no, DEMAND—the application of personal opinion and possibly bias to what should be objective standards applied equally to all. Sure, it’s a warm-fuzzy-feel-good concept, but it is inherently not only flawed but so susceptible to corruption it is foolish.
As for your quote “The Court further stated that, Wisconsin was within its rights to offer sentence enhancement in bias-motivated crime because it had a compelling interest in preventing the negative secondary effects of such crimes. Among these secondary effects mentioned were the increased likelihood of a bias-motivated crime to provoke retaliation, to inflict greater emotional distress on the victim, and to incite community unrest. The Court explained that, these secondary effects were more than adequate reason for such a sentencing enhancement, especially if, as stated above, the law was not explicitly targeting beliefs or statements.” this is double-speak on steroids.
If Among these secondary effects mentioned were the increased likelihood of a bias-motivated crime to provoke retaliation, to inflict greater emotional distress on the victim, and to incite community unrest. means anything, it means that an avenue has been created which not only allows but encourages race, ethnicity, etc to be introduced into a situation, thereby adding to the likelihood of retaliation, greater emotional distress on the victim, and community unrest.
The statement, carried out by action, that “we are all equal under the law, with the same protections and the same penalties” is far less provocative than saying “crimes against some people are more important than crimes against others so crimes will be treated differently depending on characteristics of both criminal and victim”. And if it is sincere and backed up by action, it cuts off the ability of opportunists, race pimps and ambulance chasers to profit from the tragedy of a crime.
There you go—calm, cogent arguments for my position. And what did you have to offer? Amateur psychology, falsehoods and inaccuracies heavily laced with emotion, and a cut-and-paste.
Amazona: Hey, I’m sorry if getting accurate information makes you feel inadequate, but don’t blame ME for that.
You have apparently mistaken this blog for the hate blog you post on, which is based on vile attacks like this one. Those standards are not ours and this kind of thing will not be tolerated. Opposing opinions are if they are expressed as ideas and arguments which is why you have had your posts remain. If you can’t restrain yourself and feel the need to drag the attack mentality of the other blog into this one you will be one of those who is just not allowed to post here. You seem to have found a place which welcomes you and maybe this is where you need to stay. // Moderator