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| Thread: Hate Crimes |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Corribus
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posted December 03, 2009 04:50 PM |
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*BUMP*
Yeah, some thread Necromancy here, but a major law was passed here in the US about a month ago. I had meant to bring it up then, but I forgot.
The law that was passed by Congress on Oct 28, 2009 was the Matthew Shepard Act, and I was wondering what people thought about it.
You can read more about the act here.
Essentially, the Act:
(1) Allows federal law enforcement officials to prosecute local crimes as hate crimes when local (i.e., state, city) officials choose not to pursue them.
(2) Provides special additional funds to prosecution of hate crimes.
(3) Significantly broadens the number of scenarios where people can be charged with hate crimes.
Personally, I think this law violates the Constitution on several levels and was completely politically motivated, given the support from homosexuals that he enjoyed during the general election. What do you think?
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ihor
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posted December 03, 2009 06:05 PM |
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I don't see anything wrong in this Law.
Quote:
(1) Allows federal law enforcement officials to prosecute local crimes as hate crimes when local (i.e., state, city) officials choose not to pursue them.
(2) Provides special additional funds to prosecution of hate crimes.
(3) Significantly broadens the number of scenarios where people can be charged with hate crimes.
I haven't read the start of this thread, but IMO it is right to toughen punishment for crimes based on hatred. Broadens the number of scenarios? It's just adds crimes commited because of sexual orientation to hate crimes, no?
Quote:
Personally, I think this law violates the Constitution on several levels and was completely politically motivated, given the support from homosexuals that he enjoyed during the general election.
I don't know American Constitution, but I doubt it could violate it. Where? Maybe it was indeed politically motivated, but working on this Law started 11 years ago. Yes, it was finally passed only now, but a lot of laws go through a path of many overpatching.
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Doomforge
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posted December 03, 2009 07:07 PM |
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Regarding update: I don't like this.
IT basically tells us that killing someone because you hate him is worse than killing someone because you want to rob him of five dollars. I would actually disagree. The worst is killing for sheer amusement, you know, the type of crime committed when a group of spoiled youngsters beats a bum to death because they are bored. I think you'll agree. I don't see "amusement crime" though, even though it is much more barbaric and horrifying.
So I agree with Cor, it stinks of political motivation. There are definitely worse motifs, yet they don't have a "different category".
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Corribus
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posted December 03, 2009 08:01 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 20:03, 03 Dec 2009.
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@ihor
I lay out my complaints against hate crimes laws in my opening post. Aside from the fact that it just makes the law unnecessarily complicated, it also violates the 14th amendment of the US constitution, which ensures equal protection for all citizens under the law. The severity of a crime shouldn't depend on who the victim is. We certainly wouldn't agree with making crimes against homosexuals LESS severe than crimes against other people. So why is it ok to make crimes against homosexuals MORE severe?
DF summarized my feelings pretty well, also.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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TheDeath
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posted December 04, 2009 12:16 AM |
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Quote:
Personally, I think this law violates the Constitution on several levels and was completely politically motivated, given the support from homosexuals that he enjoyed during the general election. What do you think?
I agree. Not to mention how hard it makes to prove it properly.
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Binabik
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posted December 04, 2009 12:35 AM |
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I don't have time to address this in detail, but I want to comment on what I read in the first sentence of the Wikipedia article. I might have more comments after reading the rest of the article.
"as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010 (H.R. 2647)"
IMO riders are bull****! I don't know if they have anything similar in other countries (probably do though), but a rider is a piece of legislation "attached" to a larger and more important bill. (and usually a completely unrelated bill, as in this case)
I suppose there could be many reasons why this is done, some of them are probably legitimate, but most of the time it's a way to get a bill passed that otherwise would not get passed, or would run into a lot of opposition. By attaching it to a larger and more important bill, it is easily passed.
Further, it becomes a political public relations tool. If someone votes against the larger and more important bill because of the rider, then they are attacked by the opposing party for voting against a popular bill....and of course the REASON they voted against it is never given.
/off topic
I just wanted to comment on that, not take the whole thread off topic.
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Corribus
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posted December 04, 2009 01:04 AM |
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Part of the reason why we need line item vetos. Not that Obama would have vetoed it....
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Elodin
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posted December 04, 2009 05:40 AM |
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Yes, it violates the Constituion because it make the law more protective of certain groups of people. But federal government has not had respect for the Constition in many years.
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Binabik
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posted December 04, 2009 06:26 AM |
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Elodin, why do you think it's unconstitutional? Is it the same reason that Corribus mentioned, the 14th amendment?
I see the logic to that argument, but I don't think I agree with it. I think if you look at the intent of the 14th amendment, you would have to twist it around to say it invalidates the hate crime laws.
The obvious intent of the 14th amendment was to apply the Bill of Rights and other protections of the law to blacks after emancipation. It (re)defined them as citizens with all the rights given to other citizens.
I see how you could take "equal protection" of individuals of different races (etc) and interpret it as "equal prosecution" of criminals who commit a crime against different races. But I think that's a twist and is not the intent of the 14th amendment. For one thing, hate crime laws are about motivation for the crime, and not really about the race of the victim.
There are a lot of specifics in criminal law regarding motivation, intent, premeditation, use of weapon etc. None of these things specifically addresses WHO the victim of the crime is, they involve the specifics of how and why the crime was committed.
I think at best (with not much of a stretch) you could say the 14th amendment requires hate crime laws to apply to everyone equally rather than singling out certain groups. In other words if the motivation of a crime is hate or prejudice, it shouldn't matter if the victim is a gay black or a straight Anglo.
Aside from the constitutional aspect, I agree that this is politically motivated more than anything else. I also agree that murder is murder.
I was about to say that people don't murder for love, but that's FAR from the truth since "crimes of passion" are one of the most common motivations. Maybe there should be love crime legislation too.
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Binabik
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posted December 04, 2009 06:39 AM |
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Not to change the subject, but just to add something for thought and comparison....
My limited understanding of hate crime laws are that it adds to the sentence if a hate crime can be proven. So with murder for example, the prosecution would first have to prove murder which would carry some sentence. Then prove the motivation was a hate crime, which adds additional sentence.
Compare to vehicular homicide. (I'm writing with very limited knowledge here ) If you hit someone with your car and can be shown to be negligent (don't know the specifics), then you can be charged with vehicular homicide. Now if you committed the same crime while drunk, the results of killing someone with your car are the same, but there would be an additional sentence tacked on because you were drunk. Same results, different reason.
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ihor
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posted December 04, 2009 07:59 AM |
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@Doomforge and Corribus
First. I don't know if there is such a term as "Aggravating circumstances" in US criminal code. Each crime commited with aggravating circumstances should be punished tougher. The examples are: crimes under alcoholic or drug intoxication, crimes against pregnant women, recidivism, crimes with obvious cruelty... Hate crimes could be considered as crimes with aggravating circumstances, and therefore should be punished tougher. It's my opinion.
Second. The aim of punishment is to reclaim guilty persons. The hatred should be reclaimed so the punishment again also from this point of view also should be tougher.
Third. I don't see why this law broke equality. What if 3 homosexuals will gather, find and kill heterosexual just because he is hetersexual Funny? Yes it's unlikely now but logically possible.
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Doomforge
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posted December 04, 2009 09:54 AM |
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ihor, I breaks the equality not because it promotes one group over another, but because it puts hate over other (arguably worse) reasons of a crime, and with that, I just can't agree. As I said, it horrifies me much more to see an "amusement crime", because it's not even "justified" in hate - it's just pure snowing bestiality. Yet I don't see such a category. But "hate crime" exist. Why? Do you consider it a worse thing than killing, beating, raping, whatever someone out of pure JOY of doing so?
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JollyJoker
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posted December 04, 2009 10:08 AM |
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Not that I'm keen on takling part in this discussion, but simply as a comment, agreeing with ihor in principle:
Isn't it pretty normal that society is trying to differentiate? Wasn't there a time when all murders were treated equally? But then, at some point, for example, the concept of insanity was introduced. You might say, JOY crimes were treated differently, because people said that's due to a sickness, and sick people should be treated differently than people who know what they do, but still do it.
So motives DO play a role, but how society rates them against each other is of course open to dicussion. I don't see what the constitution has got do with it, except if there was a constitutional article that all crimes should be judged by their result ONLY.
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Doomforge
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posted December 04, 2009 10:42 AM |
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Quote:
(2) Provides special additional funds to prosecution of hate crimes.
JJ, but how do you explain this? is this okay in your opinion?
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JollyJoker
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posted December 04, 2009 11:26 AM |
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Why not? Society provides special funds for the prosecution of special crimes all the time, not to mention the special funds used for the safekeeping and treatment of perpetrators deemed insane, sick and so on. What is so special about it?
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ihor
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posted December 04, 2009 11:29 AM |
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Edited by ihor at 11:31, 04 Dec 2009.
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@Doomforge
About equally it was directed to Corribus. And as for equally you are talking about: We should compare a crime with hatred to a crime without hatred and a crime with JOY to a crime without JOY but not a crime with hatred to crime with JOY.
Eventually it is a question of state which actions should be considered as circumstances aggravating punishment.
Criminal code of Ukraine:
Quote:
Article 67. Circumstances aggravating punishment
1. For the purposes of imposing a punishment, the following circumstances shall be deemed to be aggravating:
(1) repetition of an offense or recidivism;
(2) the commission of an offense by a group of persons upon prior conspiracy (paragraph 2 or 3 of Article 28);
(3) the commission of an offense based on racial, national or religious enmity and hostility;
(4) the commission of an offense in connection with the discharge of official or public duty by the victim;
(5) grave consequences caused by the offense;
(6) the commission of an offense against a minor, an elderly or helpless person;
(7) the commission of an offense against a woman who, to the knowledge of the culprit, was pregnant;
(8) the commission of an offense against a person who was in a financial, official or other dependence on the culprit;
(9) the commission of an offense through the use of a minor, a person of unsound mind or mentally defective person;
(10) the commission of an especially violent offense;
(11) the commission of an offense by taking advantage of a martial law or a state of emergency or other extraordinary events;
(12) the commission of an offense by a generally dangerous method;
(13) the commission of an offense by a person in a state of intoxication resulting from the use of alcohol, narcotic, or any other intoxicating substances;
About funds: I don't know. It is written, special money injections will be only till 2012 (!). Maybe those money needed temporarily to teach revealing of hate crimes or something similar.
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Doomforge
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posted December 04, 2009 11:37 AM |
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Quote:
Why not? Society provides special funds for the prosecution of special crimes all the time, not to mention the special funds used for the safekeeping and treatment of perpetrators deemed insane, sick and so on. What is so special about it?
Well, SPECIAL funds suggest that the "hate crime" is a problem above other crimes, some kind of SPECIAL crime that needs such drastic movements as special funding...
do you agree that it requires such funding?
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JollyJoker
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posted December 04, 2009 11:54 AM |
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What do you mean? Doesn't the answer to that question depend on how you define "require" and what priority you give these things or what result you want to have. I'm definitely not in any position to judge that - I just don't think it's something special or unheard of.
In any case it would seem a good idea to invest some money into fighting the roots of these crimes, but that's something else entirely.
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Elodin
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posted December 04, 2009 12:22 PM |
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Quote:
Elodin, why do you think it's unconstitutional? Is it the same reason that Corribus mentioned, the 14th amendment?
Yes. It treats crimes against certain groups of people more severely than crimes against other groups. Therefore giving those groups greater protection under the law. The protection of the government is to apply equally to all poeple. This is invalideated by the concept of hate crimes.
If you commit a crime against a person of a "purple" person the prosecutor says, "Oh, you weren't you seen in an argument with a purple person four years ago? Clearly you are a racist." You are prosecuted and punished more severely because of the race of your victim.
Then that gives rise to speaking out against anything a purple person does or says. We see this in current American politics. Everyone who criticizes Obama is called a racist by the press directly or indirectly and by the opposing party.
Then comes forcable indoctrination by the thought police into political correctness.
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ihor
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posted December 04, 2009 12:49 PM |
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Quote:
It treats crimes against certain groups of people more severely than crimes against other groups.
That is not correct IMO. Which groups exactly? Blacks are more protected than whites? As white so as black could be a racist and if similar crime was commited on the basement of racism by black and by white then it is treated equally.
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