finethen wrote:

I think that man should be charged with a hate crime if they find out the accusation is true.

A crime is a crime, is it not? I never have liked the term "hate crime." If someone murders another person, it is murder, regardless of the reason why they didn't like them. No one murders another person if they like them anyway.

If it turns out he did violate the law, then he violated the law, regardless of the reason. I don't feel that another class of crime should be created with different levels of punishment based on the race, sex, or sexual disposition of the victim. Wouldn't that be discrimination in and of itself?

Crime is crime.

Hijexx wrote:
finethen wrote:

I think that man should be charged with a hate crime if they find out the accusation is true.

A crime is a crime, is it not? I never have liked the term "hate crime." If someone murders another person, it is murder, regardless of the reason why they didn't like them. No one murders another person if they like them anyway.

If it turns out he did violate the law, then he violated the law, regardless of the reason. I don't feel that another class of crime should be created with different levels of punishment based on the race, sex, or sexual disposition of the victim. Wouldn't that be discrimination in and of itself?

Crime is crime.

I believe in hate crimes now as I always have because they move beyond crimes into the realm of symbols. A burning cross on a lawn is not just property destruction. It is a symbol to that family, and the rest of the community. Comparing that with, say, smashing a mailbox, shows the distinction.

When a man is killed for his money, or a woman is raped while she jogs in the morning, it is no doubt awful and deserves to be punished to the full extent to the law. However, when a black man is killed and hung from a tree, or a jewish woman is raped by nazi thugs, the message is not just to those individuals. It is a symbolic threat to the whole community- especially communities that have been plagued by discrimination and hatred. For this reason, it needs to be treated as more than just the facially obvious crime.

In this scenario, where an individual was allegedly denied life-saving assistance because of his sexual orientation, this action sends a message to other gays in the community: the police may not help you like they would help straight people. They may choose to conceal their sexual identity to officers, or simply not call the police and rely on their own resources when accidents occur. Either way, the fact that the whole community has to fear for equal treatment because of this one cop's actions, I believe it should be considered a hate crime.

finethen wrote:

I believe in hate crimes now as I always have because they move beyond crimes into the realm of symbols. A burning cross on a lawn is not just property destruction. It is a symbol to that family, and the rest of the community. Comparing that with, say, smashing a mailbox, shows the distinction.

When a man is killed for his money, or a woman is raped while she jogs in the morning, it is no doubt awful and deserves to be punished to the full extent to the law. However, when a black man is killed and hung from a tree, or a jewish woman is raped by nazi thugs, the message is not just to those individuals. It is a symbolic threat to the whole community- especially communities that have been plagued by discrimination and hatred. For this reason, it needs to be treated as more than just the facially obvious crime.

In this scenario, where an individual was allegedly denied life-saving assistance because of his sexual orientation, this action sends a message to other gays in the community: the police may not help you like they would help straight people. They may choose to conceal their sexual identity to officers, or simply not call the police and rely on their own resources when accidents occur. Either way, the fact that the whole community has to fear for equal treatment because of this one cop's actions, I believe it should be considered a hate crime.

I would mention that the act of one does not necessarily represent the consensus of many, but your supposition seems to be that hatred of homosexuals is endemic in one or more police precicnts in West Virginia, so I will follow that line of thought for the sake of the discussion. It's the worst case scenario and needs to be explored.

To the best of my knowledge (I remember "hate crime" first popping up in the 90's) it did not take the existence of "hate crime" sentences for women's suffrage to become a reality, nor for the civil rights movement to be successful. Those social groups exerted pressure themselves and fought to gain rights for themselves, along with other sympathetic supporters outside those groups. To use more severe punishment for crimes proven to be motivated by hate seems like a cop out, a false sense of security inducing protection scheme, rather than actually achieving anything progress in the eyes of society. A hollow victory if you will.

Knowing that a harsher penalty exists for crime motivated by "hate" is not going to prevent hate crime. It will simply train the perpetrators to keep a tighter lid on their motives and operate below the radar. Just because you can't hear them say it though, don't think they aren't still thinking it. If hate crime law is only meant to muzzle threatening messages to a community, but the net result at the end of the day is still a bullet in the forehead, or in this case, laying dying on the sidewalk, what has really been achieved?

Basing sentencing on motive ... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

Hijexx wrote:
Basing sentencing on motive alone seems like a slippery slope to thought crime.

I've been thinking about this. I agree that sentence modifiers aren't a deterrent with respect to crimes of passion rather then profit. However, FineThen did a good job of convincing me that a hate crime, such as a cross burning in someone's yard, is a substantially different thing from an act of vandalism. It has a greater emotional impact on the victims and a greater impact on the community at large. Can these things be reconciled?

Its not illegal to burn a cross according to the Supreme Court. You have a First Amendment right to hate that cannot be infringed by any legislature in the country. But you cannot intimidate the community. Your cross burning cannot be posed as a threat. This case is a good presentation of how to draw the line between these two cases.

In a state of nature, all ideology which disagrees with the establishment is inherently violent, because violence is the only means through which the establishment can be changed. In a democracy, ideology is inherently nonviolent, because the establishment can be replaced through nonviolent means through the process of persuasion on the merits. So in a democracy, you can have an inalienable right to your ideology... it can be legal to hate, because hatred is not inherently violent. You can, in fact, be a neo-nazi without hurting anyone.

However, once you commit a crime with the intent of furthering your ideology, you have peirced the democratic veil, and moved back to a state of nature, in which ideas are imposed by force rather then persuasion. This is a serious crime in a democracy, and it is not the same as random vandalism, or another non-ideological crime. If your ideology opposes a minority, we call this a hate crime. If you ideology opposes the majority, we call this terrorism. They are two sides of the same coin. Either way, they should not be considered simple acts of expression, or compared with other crimes merely on the basis of the physical damage done.

As far as this case is concerned, the article is really too vauge to be useful. There seems to be a basic dispute of fact in the case. If the officer did prevent the man from providing medical aid, was this a crime? Would it have been a crime if there really was a risk to the man? Assuming it is a crime, was it based in ignorance or avarice? Lets assume the officer pulled the guy off and said something like "He's a gay, those people often have AIDS, you shouldn't touch him." Could this be considered an attempt to further an ideology of hatred, or was it an honest attempt to protect that man rooted in extreme ignorance. Thats what I think is more challenging here. Can you accidentally commit a hate crime simply because you acted on a prejudiced assumption about someone and you didn't know that prejudice was unreasonable? I don't think so. Hate crime laws are not a prohibition on being an idiot or an asshole. Now, if he instead said "He's a gay, those people are wrong before god and you shouldn't save them," it might be a different story. Figuring out which situation you're dealing with could be really difficult in a court room.

Decius wrote:
[excellent arguement snipped]

Tom. Seriously. Quit your job and become a lawyer. Enough of this "I'm really a security professional" nonsense.

The honorable Judge Cross is the new Tom Cross.

Hijexx wrote:
Basing sentencing on motive alone seems like a slippery slope to thought crime.

I've been thinking about this. I agree that sentence modifiers aren't a deterrent with respect to crimes of passion rather then profit. However, FineThen did a good job of convincing me that a hate crime, such as a cross burning in someone's yard, is a substantially different thing from an act of vandalism. It has a greater emotional impact on the victims and a greater impact on the community at large. Can these things be reconciled?

Tom makes quite a cogent argument... well said.

Tom makes quite a cogent argument... well said.