We simply disagree as to the thought oriented penaly determination. As I said before, it is vastly different to determine whether the offender took even one second to deliberate whether to commit the act (1st degree murder) or not...versus the specific motive for the crime. Intent is a state of mind...hate is a thought (a belief system). You punish the intent to commit a crime...the first Amendment says we don't punish a belief system regardless of how messed up it is.
Intent is a state of mind...hate is a thought (a belief system). You punish the intent to commit a crime... Yes, but we also punish differently for other things besides just premeditation. If someone shoots someone vs. someone else torturing someone and cutting them up into pieces often will result in different penalties. The "severity" or "style" of the crime - even if both are equally premeditated - also can have an effect on the penalty that we often give. The former might be pleaded down at times - the latter would never, barring crazy circumstances, be pleaded down. Again, I think this could be handled in the penalty phase, but I don't see a reason why it would be wrong to make it a statutory thing.
What utter crap! I won't even comment further, because we will never influence eachother's opinion in ANY way if you truly believe this garbage.
RM95 and Major, There are already many different degrees of murder, as was pointed out, and there is a range of punishments available to the judge for legitimate mitigating circumstances. It just seems to me that hate crime legislations seeks to add in a stupid caveat that is unnecessary. Does it make a difference if someone is killed because they are mexican or because they are wearing a blue hat? In both cases the charge would be first degree murder, there is no mitigating factor that would explain the killer's actions. Is one worse than the other? It is a sensless crime that was commited because someone doesn't like something about that person. Why does it matter if the thing that they didn't like was from the hate-crime approved list (race, sexual orientation, etc.) or from the non-hate-crime list (too fat, wearing white after labor day, or going over to Iraq to be Saddam's WMD propoganda tool (that's one ))? My point is that there is enough leeway in the system as is, and the standards that were adopted were arbitrary anyway.
Shouldn't you be commenting on basketball about now? For gosh sakes man, the game is about to start. Anyway, you are once again WAY off base, because the black community was calling in the Feds in this case. There is no doubt in my mind that if white students were the culprits, then Federal Hate Crimes charges would have been brought, and students would have gone to jail. If you will recall, we had an ugly incident in Houston a couple of years ago in which some high school and college age boys burned a cross in a black family's lawn in Katy. The boys claimed that it was a prank, and that they didn't mean anything malicious. I believe one young man was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Of course, in your warped world, a black youth would just be charged with vandalism and trespassing because of the color of his skin? We are not BYSTANDERS to the society in which we live. We are active participants, who vote and voice our opinions. I, as a white American, refuse to be held responsible for the sins of past generations, and demand equal protection under the law. Societal injustices that occur in this country should have ZERO effect on my ability to be treated equally by the legal system. I am neither guilty nor racist. What is so hard to understand about this?
Refman, Did they have Hate Crimes legislation in 1992? If so, and they weren't prosecuted under that, then I believe it was a mistake. Hydra, I'm so on the fence when it comes to hate crimes. You make valid arguments.
Originally posted by t4651965 Ridiculous??? Really??? Read the article, examine the response of the black community to the crime, and state your case. Are you being genuine here? Yes, ridiculous. Really. The black community there looks pretty dumb right now but maybe this will bring everyone there closer together and have a better understanding of each other. I am not talking about the intent of the Klan, I am talking about the intent of the cross burner. Pay attention! You said the intent of a black cross burner is the same as the intent of a Klansman who burns a cross. Klansman are part of the Klan but I could be wrong on that or something. We are using metaphors here Timing, but how do you know that some unsolved cross burning cases weren't hoaxes perpetrated by blacks to foment racial discord? A young black man burned down a black church in the 90s, and now this incident at Ole Miss occurred. Formenting racial discord isn't a crime and much less a hate crime. Of course there will be fraudelent cases, just like with every other crime under the sun. Why is it so hard for you to see that a burning cross carries its own symbolism in the eyes of the victim? A burning cross carries symbolism, but the victims aren't white and to prove a hate crime you have to prove bias against the victim. When a black group of extremists uses cross burning to promote an agenda similar to the Klan then the acts will have similar meaning.
I did not 'equate', I 'related'. A murder during a terrorist act > A murder during a mugging related: A murder during a hate crime > A murder during a mugging but that does not imply that I said: A murder during a terrorist act = A murder during a hate crime. You say: A murder during a terrorist act > A murder during a mugging and: A murder during a hate crime = A murder during a mugging. I normally like your posts, but your conclusion here was based on bad math.
Yes, there is. The difference is the not due to any additional impact on the individual victim, but on society as a victim.
It is not the only crime they committed. Their actions intentionally attempted to make it look like whites were threatening blacks on campus. This led to a number of actions by a number of different parties on campus such as the president getting in trouble for not apologizing quickly enough, a "say no to racism" march, etc. Blacks at Ole Miss would stand to gain from the sentiment that whites are "opressing" blacks at the school. White guilt would increase and concessions would be made to blacks. These students acted with malicious intent to harm the perception of whites on campus.
I really meant to address this earlier but got distracted. How about...disturbing the peace, criminal mischief, inciting a riot and destruction of state property (it was on campus at a public school - a felony in most states). This would net them 5 to 10 in the pen and get them a felony record (which they would have to explain every time they rented an apartment, registered to vote or applied for a job). If I were the DA I'd charge them with every charge I could think of. This isn't child's play we are talking about...this is a serious situation that ensued...they KNEW what they were doing...and this is the perfect time to send out the message that such behavior shall not be tolerated.
Totally agree with you. The fact that they're not being charged with a crime and only with violations of some student honor code is what's really outrageous. They should be immediately expelled and charged with whatever the DA thinks he can make stick on these morons.
What about the impact on fat people, goths, people who think blue brings out their eyes, or any of the other things that might get you killed but are not covered by hate-crime legislation? For some reason, only race, religion, and sexual orientation are things people can hate about a person?
Uh...'People who think blue brings out their eyes' get killed for it? I don't know how the law itself reads, but IMO, if a group of people is targeted by another group the hate legislation shouldn't be limited to race, religion, sexual-orientation. For instance, the Germans went after the handicapped; I would call that hate. If that were a regular occurrence in the US, I imagine hanidcapped would receive special protections also.
That's fine...but how about serial killers who have gone after ONLY women with blonde hair? How about the guys who hate the Irish? Neither of these would be covered under hate crime legislation. The scope of those laws are VERY limited.
In certain areas, it is very dangerous to walk around dressed in blue. You could be mistaken for a crip and that could be the end of your life. The point is the laws cover a narrow range of arbitrary things, and once you generalize them enough to cover everything, then just a lot of crimes would get hate-crimes stacked on top of them. Instead of all of this junk, why not just increase the penalties for all crimes?
Originally posted by Refman That's fine...but how about serial killers who have gone after ONLY women with blonde hair? Really? There's a hoard of serial killers persecuting and assaulting blondes? How about the guys who hate the Irish? Are we talking about punishment or reward? (J/K! ) I don't think the Irish feel persecuted, do they? Maybe around the turn-of-the-century...oops, how funny....around the turn-of -the-LAST-century, it could have been defined as hate crimes. Neither of these would be covered under hate crime legislation. The scope of those laws are VERY limited. Ok. But what's yur point?
