You're talking about two different acts, two different crimes Tribesman. A closer analogy would be:

A charge for stealing the wallet
A charge for thinking about stealing the wallet
A charge for the reason for stealing the wallet
A charge for using the wallets credit cards
A charge for thinking about using the wallets credit cards
A charge for the reason for using the wallets credit cards
Then pile on a hate crime charge on top of all that because the thief and the victim happened to have humanistic differences.

7 charges for what should be two. I just don't see the benefit to anyone except lawyers.

Mookie, I see your point but in most cases true motivations are not easily deduced and I do fear that hate crime laws will be arbitrary and unfairly applied.

It's not going to be cured by criminalizing human emotions.

Like I said criminal motivations are not so easily quantified. What if your mugger mainly wants money and only kinda dislikes white people? You could look at it as a hate crime while he only sees it as not crapping in his own back yard. The prime motivation was money but a sharp lawyer could make this a racial issue as well. That's not justice.

As stated in my previous post, I tend to agree with August that there is a valid concern as to whether the justice system will use these laws in an appropriate manner.
Mookie (as always) makes some excellent points. However, I'm always skeptical of things that seem too good to be true, so to speak. Criminal intent is a good example. It seems like a great idea on the face of it, but it has a history of being abused by defense attorneys. Discrimination suits are also fraught with abuse by legal professionals and spurious charges.
Furthermore, this type of law makes unequal treatment under the law much more possible, because it relies upon the skills/morals of attorneys.

In general, I am against further complication of the Justice system. It has already built an empire that does tremendous economic damage while producing nothing. Usually, I am in favor of combatting that legacy.
I'm not totally decided one way or the other, but I think that August's position deserves significant consideration.

True story. William was a Skinhead. Although not the brightest of choices William had commited no crimes prior to this incedent in his 17 years of life. In fact william had a history of volunteerism and straight A grades before becoming politicaly involved in things that were politically incorrect.

Then one drunken night William and his neo-nazi buddies Decided to shoplift a case of beer from their local supermarket. William had just purchased his first firearm the night previously, a .22 caliber pistol.

William waited in the car as his neo buddies ran out of the store with a case of beer but before reaching the vehicle a group of young men 8 in total chased and tackled the small beer theiving group. A fight insued in the parking lot as the 8 young men attacked, kicked and punched the younger group of two Nazi kids. William jumped out of the vehicle and fired his pistol into the air, the group attacking fled and william and his group fled the scene. The next day William turned himself and his firearm over to the police.

It turns out the 8 men attacking his friends turned out to be plain clothed security. 7 of the 8 security forces were minoritys.

William had claimed that he could not see the people attacking his friends as it was dark and he was at some distance from the altercation. William also argued that he was not attemting to hurt anybody and was just trying to scare the guys attacking his friends.

Williams proceedings lasted for 7 months by which time he had turned 18 years old. His official charges were accesory to theft and discharging a firearm within city limits. Just after williams 18th birthday the new District Attourney reveiwed his case and decided to persue it as a hate crime do to the fact that William had a Swastika on his jacket and that the victoms were minoritys.

Although William could not see the race of the assailants he was found guilty for being politically incorrect. William was looking at 3 months in jail and 5 years probation before the hate crime charges piled on. Once the DA took the case he ended up getting 5 years the absolute maximum plus a mandatory 2 years on top of that for it being a hate crime. 7 years with no chance of parole because he was on the wrong side of politically correct thinking back in 1998.

The charges against the security for the assault of two minors were dropped.

Of course, there's always a chance that it will be misused. But just because it can be misused doesn't mean we shouldn't have it. There's a huge potential for guns to be misused, but our Constitution protects our right to own them.

I personally think that hatred and hate crimes are a major threat to the fabric of our society, so I'm glad that the law recognizes them as a major problem that needs to be dealt with.

Well, if you kill then because you hate them and the color of their skin, or you kill them because they resisted you when you tried to rob them, they are still dead. What's the difference?

In the former case, they're more likely to carry on killing. They're a greater threat to society.

But not as much of a threat as unequal law, which has done more than enough harm in many forms already.

Max - wouldn't it be easier to apply a standard to murder? If you kill someone - whether with "hate", mere intent for something like money, or by "accident" during the commission of another violent crime, like robbery, the same punishment should apply.

Simply put - murder demands a blood price. Yes - capital punishment. That way, there is no need to question the motivation, and they get the same punishment as they gave to their victim. Seems like common sense... And the bonus - we don't have to worry about if the murderer would be a future danger to society, now would we?

Somehow, we have lost that admirable quality of common sense. Has anyone seen it?

I think if any criminal is allowed a second chance to kill, regardless of motive, it is a failure of the society that gave him that second chance.

You're a bloodthirsty one, aren't you CH;)

I, for one, am against capital punishment. As long as you're talking about common sense, let's discuss the common sense behind capital punishment.
No matter what belief one subscribes to regarding spirituality or the afterlife, capital punishment only accelerates an inevitable (and usually eternal) fate, whatever that fate may be.
There is a more productive use for these people in the form of sufficiently miserable prison labor. They could pay their debts to the victims and society,(through a prison profit-sharing system) while the wrongly accused could be preserved and compensated if exonerated.

Undersea - bloodthirsty? Not at all - I value human life as high as possible. However, I value the human life of the good higher than I do the bad. I value it higher when its a civilized society than when its a backwards, repressive one that ignores the freedom and equality of its people and those of the rest of the world.

The problem with "lifetime incarceration" is that it is costs more to maintain the lifers than they "produce". I have yet to ever see a prison system that can show a "net profit" after housing, feeding and clothing its inmates over the course of their natural lives.

Hard labor? What's that? There isn't a single prison system in the US that still does this to my knowledge. That would be cruel and unusual punishment. Heck, taking away their cable tv is often claimed to be cruel and unusual punishment.

Then add in the judicial costs - the years and years of appeals, motions, etc. Your not going to see a profit.

However, if you have a standard for judgement, a specified fastrack system of appeals, followed by the execution of the sentence in the case of appeals failing, then you offer the accused every reasonable opportunity to defend himself, while keeping the taxpayers from paying for a murderer to live out his life with some personal freedoms restrictions.

Now - to get back to the question at hand - if a man shoots another man for being a different color, race, religion or sexual orientation - vs a man that shoots another because he was caught robbing the victim's home - why should one get a stiffer sentence than the other? Both have deprived another human being of their right to live. There can be no more serious crime than that.

Intent should only come into play when your dealing with accidental deaths. Accidental isn't "well I was robbing his house and he walked in and I shot him" - accidental is "My car slid out of control and ran into the other lane, killing the driver of the oncoming car". That isn't a crime - its an accident.

Oh - and just so we are clear - you make the decison to drink and drive and end up taking a life - it might have not been "intended" - but your decision to do something you knew was wrong still took the life of another human, and so I see very little difference between that wrong that took a life, and the wrong of a robbery that went wrong and did the same.

Call me harsh - but think of the symbol of justice. A set of scales, weighed by a blindfolded woman. Why? Justice is supposed to be blind - and equitable. Does the punishment fit the crime? Does it judge on what is shown as fact?

How is adding a hate crime charge make things "blind"? How does it insure the punishment is equitable to the crime itself? If anything - a "hate crime" charge does nothing more than play upon the emotions and fears of the humans who sit in juries and on the bench. Its DESIGNED as a charge based upon fear, and I would submit that no judge or jury can decide a case and provide "blind justice" while being tugged at using emotions or fear.

Now if you want to have a discussion on capital punishment, I am more than willing. *I do think I said there isn't any topic I won't touch - and if I haven't before - I just did!

But hate crime laws are a real travesty. I don't care WHY you killed your wife or neighbor *unless we are talking accidental or mercy killings - and I have a distinct thought on those*. The other person is dead - you deprived them of life. Why is a murderers life to be held more sacred than that of the victims? Equitable justice means you pay a price equal to your crime. In the case of murder - the only equal measure is your life forfeited.

The punishment should fit the crime ideally, however, I put no faith in eyewitness accounts to peg the right person. And that is the reason I can't support capital punishment.

Buddahaid

Yeah it all makes about as much sense as if someone kills a police dog and they convicted of killing a police officer. Tell you what if a police dog ever errantly came after me it is a dead dog. I can just imagine myself being a cell mate with Charlie Manson for killing a dog, but that is America. The land where the two party system has deliberatly played to special interest and not their constituants. One part shipwrecks the whole deal and the other party get voted and they toss this ball back and forth decade after decade. The people must like it because they keep allowing it, so you get what you pay for in life.

I agree. I support the idea of the Death Penalty, but a conviction has to be based on scientific data, not eye witnesses.

Witnesses are just too fallible... and sometimes it is unintentional :nope:

The way I see it even scientific data can be faked or misinterpreted. That's why I oppose the death penalty.

Nor do I think incarcerating prisoners should be a profitable venture for the state. I think prison should be a lot more spartan existence than it has been allowed to become but it's wrong to execute prisoners just to save the state some money.

Absolutely agree. This is also why I believe that the scientific data used for death penalty cases needs to be verified by an independent source.

Data can definitely be misinterpreted.. and like with witnesses, it may be unintentional.
:D