Quote:
Originally Posted by August
(Post 1093850)
If you kill someone you hate them by definition. Attempting to make motive a crime will result in uneven and unfair application of the law.
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That's not technically true. After all, look at the difference between second and first degree murder. The penalty is usually less for 2nd degree.
The justice system now focuses upon criminal intent, not just criminal acts.
That being said, it would be hard to build a case for the murder of a white male as a "hate crime" in most circumstances. I was joking (not much of a joke) when Max responded with this
Quote:
Originally Posted by Max2147
Where does the law say that crimes against WASPs can't be hate crimes? If somebody kills me for no reason other than the fact that I'm white, then it's a hate crime under this law.
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Even though he has a valid point, there are certain nuances of criminal intent that are not taken into consideration.
If, for instance, a white male is killed and robbed, but he was chosen as a target because he was white (possibly percieved as being wealthy, or perhaps as an oppressor, or both), how would a jury treat that case?
It's pretty easy to construct a defense where this would be treated as 2nd-degree murder. After all, armed robberies occur all the time, and sometimes go wrong.
However, if a white male kills a minority, the defense first has to overcome the jury's prediliction towards considering it as a hate crime. In such a case, there is a societal mentality that considers the white person as the oppressor. The defendant would, for all intents and purposes, have to prove that he does not have a hate-based motive. Examples are difficult to find in criminal law, but easy to find in civil law. Just look at the number of civil lawsuits involving race as a proportion of the whole. (anyone can call me on that "fact" because I'm not going to delve back into tort law texts to find that damn graph and my first 3 google searches yielded the wrong stuff. If you disagree with that assesment, I'll probably yield the point, depending on the source)
The main concern, imo, amongst opponents of this kind of legislation is that the justice system will be twisted into providing more justice for minorities. One only has to look at the extreme measures that private and public interests go to to avoid percieved racial offences to see that that this could indeed be a valid concern. I doubt anyone would disagree with that.
Personally, I'm concerned for two reasons. Firstly, I don't particularly like the system of using criminal intent to effect variances in judgement. While such a system has its' merits, the fact of the matter is that it leaves too much up to the legal representation. Everyone hates lawyers because they are percieved as being dishonest, almost more than any other profession (except politician, in some cases:nope:). Basically, you can commit a capital offense, and if you leave enough wiggle room in the evidence department, you can get off with a lighter sentence. Perhaps criminal intent should not be a factor? I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the issue, because my legal education is not extensive enough to decide one way or the other.
Secondly, I think this is a political move to court minority favor. Much like favoring amnesty for illegal immigrants, I think it is aimed solely at garnering votes. While I don't think that most politicians who favor this type of legislation have some evil agenda, I do believe that they are catering to their constituencies at the expense of equality under the law.
Such a phenomenon is certainly not without precedent.
As Max points out, hate crime laws are already in place, but I do not think that this makes their exsistence or expansion any more valid.
Personally, I would favor an infraction-based system of punishment for crimes rather than one that so heavily factors criminal intent, at least at the local and state levels. This whole country is based upon the idea of taking responsibility for one's own actions, and reaping the harvest of the same. Intent-based justice like this has a lot of potential to upset and imbalance that system, and it has before. Imo, the justice system, and the legal professionals that drive it, need to be as limited and strictly defined in scope as possible. Otherwise, they use it for personal gain at the expense of others.
