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.

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