Equal justice for all is out the window...

[August]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Not at all what I said. A murder motivated by hatred towards a humanistic trait is worse than a murder at random.

I still disagree. It is the murder itself that is significant, not the reason(S) for committing it. I might be willing to consider mitigating circumstances like in the assisted suicide example you posted as meriting a lesser punishment but guilty of murder is guilty of murder and nothing should be allowed to cloud that.

[Sailor Steve]

I agree - murder is murder. But it doesn't sound like they're talking about murder. The word I saw was "attack". Murder committed during a robbery is still murder, as is murdering someone because they are a fill-in-the-blank. But there is a difference in holding up someone on the street and beating a person half to death because you don't like his fill-in-the-blank.

I'm not sure what I think of this at the moment, but attacks on people done simply because they are your "wrong" kind of people may well be worth special punishment.

[August]

Another thing about this that bugs me is the shear subjectivity of it. Any crime can be cast as a hate crime if the perpetrators and victims happen to be from different races, religions, cultures, creeds, genders or any other, as mookie puts it, "humanistic" difference.

I just hate this piling on of charges. A crime like assault or murder for some reason is no longer worthy of prosecution on it's own, it must be buttressed by an entire host of secondary charges.

There's the crime itself, the conspiracy to commit the crime, the conspiracy to commit conspiracy, the location of the crime, who the victim was, where the perp came from and now the motive itself becomes a crime as well?

It's just fodder for lawyers. It does nothing to deter crime or provide justice for its victims.

I just hate this piling on of charges.

Why?
If someone breaks into your house should he only be charged with burglary even if he broke other laws too .
How about if someone steals a wallet and also uses the cards in it fraudulently , should he just be charged with the theft or the fraud or should he be charged with both?
The thing I hate with "piling on of charges" is when they make the sentences concurrent instead of consecutive .

[Max2147]

If somebody mugs me because they hate white people, I think that's worse than them mugging me because they want my money. That doesn't mean that mugging me to steal my money isn't bad. Somebody who does that deserves to be prosecuted and punished. But I'm less scared of them than the person who mugs me because they hate me for who I am.

Hatred is a lot more damaging to our society and difficult to cure than the other things that motivate crimes.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

that is not strictly true. Several murders lack any kind of emotional motivation. Killing soneone for money is the first things that comes to mind.

Wait till the nexus gets ahold of that post !

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by August

I just hate this piling on of charges. A crime like assault or murder for some reason is no longer worthy of prosecution on it's own, it must be buttressed by an entire host of secondary charges.

.

It's the way all things get done now. Get a traffic ticket and you pay the fine plus a whole list of other fees for the honor of being processed.

Buddahaid

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Wait till the nexus gets ahold of that post !

Could use a job

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

Could use a job

Buddahaid

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Max2147

If somebody mugs me because they hate white people, I think that's worse than them mugging me because they want my money. That doesn't mean that mugging me to steal my money isn't bad. Somebody who does that deserves to be prosecuted and punished. But I'm less scared of them than the person who mugs me because they hate me for who I am.

Hatred is a lot more damaging to our society and difficult to cure than the other things that motivate crimes.

This is the point exactly. The punishment needs to proportionally fit the damage that the crime does to the community as a whole.

Originally Posted by August

It's just fodder for lawyers. It does nothing to deter crime or provide justice for its victims.

Deterrence is not really the main thrust of a law. If you wanted to go down that road you could say that statutes against murder of theft don't do anything to deter murderers of thieves, so why have them?

A law expresses something that we as a people see as unacceptable due to the harm it does to our society. And when you look at the motivation for someone committing a hate crime, I bet they'd say something along the lines of they were defending their community or their identity or taking a stand against some kind of foreign unwelcome invading force. That's why we as a people need to take that away from people who would do these things and say "no, you don't speak for us and we don't condone that." And the way to do that in a legal sense is through hate crime legislation.

[August]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

How about if someone steals a wallet and also uses the cards in it fraudulently , should he just be charged with the theft or the fraud or should he be charged with both?

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.

[August]

Originally Posted by Max2147

If somebody mugs me because they hate white people, I think that's worse than them mugging me because they want my money. That doesn't mean that mugging me to steal my money isn't bad. Somebody who does that deserves to be prosecuted and punished. But I'm less scared of them than the person who mugs me because they hate me for who I am.

Hatred is a lot more damaging to our society and difficult to cure than the other things that motivate crimes.

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.

[UnderseaLcpl]

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.

[Freiwillige]

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.

[Max2147]

Originally Posted by August

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.

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.