Hate Crime or Not?

[Chun Liroy]

Why does no one understand that the intent is to kill and the motivation is race. Guess what, motivation is only useful is getting a conviction (and even then it's flimsy at best imo), and should have no bearing on the punishment for the crime.

[*Shinzon*]

Legal definition of hate crime:

A hate crime is usually defined by state law as one that involves threats, harassment, or physical harm and is motivated by prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability. Laws vary by state and if hate crimes are provided for by statute, the defintions of hate crimes and penalties imposed vary. States that have hate crime statutes provide harsher penalites for such offenses.

The underlying criminal offenses that are designated in hate crime laws include, but are not limited to, crimes against persons like harassment, terroristic threats, assault and crimes against property like criminal trespass, criminal mischief and arson. It may also include vandalism causing damage to a church, synagogue, cemetery, mortuary, memorial to the dead, school, educational facility, community center, municipal building, courthouse, juvenile detention center, grounds surrounding such places or personal property located within such places.

The current federal law regarding hate crimes deals with crimes where the offender is motivated by bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin and only applies if the crime happens when a person is attending a public school or is at work or participating in one of four other "federally protected activities."

What you guys are arguing, once again, is that the hate crime should trump a murder charge in terms of severity which is madness because having a bias isn't a crime. The only reason a hate crime should matter is when a person is accused of something like vandalism, a relatively minor crime and the prosecutor is looking to add more time to a light sentence because it was a crime committed because of bias. In a murder case like this it does nothing except allow further proof the crime and it does not change the crime committed, just why it was committed.

[archibaldcrane]

the point is that you couldn't, day. I have too many advantages that you wouldn't possibly be able to top. you would require some outside help or advantages to beat me, so that we could proceed from an equal footing. same goes for minorities. this is why their "advantages" aren't "unfair"

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...714214,00.html

Point is, in 2011, the gay condition really doesn't have a much harder time in school than other non-protected groups (fat kids for example) so I'm not sure what the massive hurdles are they're facing that need balancing.

I get that shit was rough 10, 20, 50 years ago, but times they are a changin' (compared to the general population's rates of being bullied, assaulted, etc)

We're talking, what, a couple gay hate-crime murders perpetrated by non-gays a year, maybe? In a population of 330 million?

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[Uzor]

Something is a hate crime if their actions were motivated by hate of another demographic. It's the same crime, but it's sort of an extra tag on the end to note intent. I think it definitely has a place.

For instance, lets say that some guy walks into a bar and shoots another customer. Two cases:
A) The guy he shot hit his kid with a car and drove off earlier that day, not calling an ambulance.
B) The guy he shot was black and had no contact with the perp pre-shooting.

I don't know about you guys, but for me A would be minimum sentence and B would be maximum possible. Understanding motivation for a crime is critical in understanding the probability of future criminal behavior, which should be the major motivating factor when deciding how long to lock people up for.

Jesus. Why do people keep bringing up separate examples? Of course the second one should get a more severe punishment. Not because he's black, but because it's a random person killing someone out of cold blood. Here:

A) The guy he shot was white and had no contact with the perp pre-shooting.
B) The guy he shot was black and had no contact with the perp pre-shooting.
C) The guy he shot was mexican and had no contact with the perp pre-shooting.
D) The guy he shot was gay and had no contact with the perp pre-shooting.

Should B, C and D get a more harsh sentence than A simply because it involves minorities? No. They should all get the same punishment.

The underlying criminal offenses that are designated in hate crime laws include, but are not limited to, crimes against persons like harassment, terroristic threats, assault and crimes against property like criminal trespass, criminal mischief and arson. It may also include vandalism causing damage to a church, synagogue, cemetery, mortuary, memorial to the dead, school, educational facility, community center, municipal building, courthouse, juvenile detention center, grounds surrounding such places or personal property located within such places.

Unrelated; but this is one of the reasons why hate crime laws are stupid. Shouldn't the bolded allow you to sentence Westboro Baptist Church on hate crime charges when they protest on the grounds surrounding a funeral?

[Guyverarmor]

Common sense says at age 14 you have bee around long enough to know shooting someone in the fucking head will kill them, I do not care if you come from a "abusive" family or not. Lock his ass up, I honestly believe put him in front of a firing squad and let the chips fall where they may.

[hey]

May i ask what you think would be accomplished by murdering a 14 year old kid?

[Dimmauk]

May i ask what you think would be accomplished by murdering a 14 year old kid?

Huh? What are you talking about?

[ronin sparthos]

May i ask what you think would be accomplished by murdering a 14 year old kid?

I believe he's going for a scenario where you scare people straight. Publicly execute a kid for killing a gay and perhaps you scare some other kids on the fence outta doing it?

[Day]

I believe he's going for a scenario where you scare people straight. Publicly execute a kid for killing a gay and perhaps you scare some other kids on the fence outta doing it?

killing a gay or being one?

[ronin sparthos]

killing a gay or being one?

I see what you did there. lol

[Restrat]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/06/...tml?hpt=hp_bn1

Here's another one!