I absolutely agree that the law does (and should) treat crimes of passion differently than crimes of intent. But do you think that the woman who killed the cheating man should be treated differently if the man were of a different race? Even for this family, should be they treated differently if they had kidnapped and tortured a white woman? This is clearly one of the more heinous stories that I've ever heard, I just don't see the point in treating this as a hate crime. The entire family is clearly so sick and removed from reality that I don't want them in society no matter what race the victim is. I guess I just don't understand what hate crime legislation does for this case, especially when a couple of posters have used this as an example of why hate crime legislation is so needed.