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| Thread: Hate Crimes |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Doomforge
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posted December 04, 2009 02:05 PM |
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It's not unfair because of that.
It's unfair because if I beat you because I'm bored, I will get a lesser punishment (according to what Cor said, I'm not that familiar with US law) then if I beat you because I hate you.
Which is stupid imho. Should be the other way around.
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ihor
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posted December 04, 2009 02:38 PM |
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Why stupid? I kinda agree with next point.
Quote:
Justifications for harsher punishments for hate crimes focus on the notion that hate crimes cause greater individual and societal harm. It is said that, when the core of a person’s identity is attacked, the degradation and dehumanization is especially severe, and additional emotional and physiological problems are likely to result. Society then, in turn, can suffer from the disempowerment of a group of people. Furthermore, it is asserted that the chances for retaliatory crimes are greater when a hate crime has been committed.
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Doomforge
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posted December 04, 2009 03:22 PM |
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Oh really. And when I humiliate you out for the hell of it, that's not dehumanization? No hate at all, but it amuses you to beat you to a pulpy mush. What, is that actually better than beating you up because you're Black/gay/muslim/whatever?
Yet I don't see the amusement crime category. Why the hate crime, then?
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ihor
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posted December 04, 2009 03:40 PM |
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Edited by ihor at 15:44, 04 Dec 2009.
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OK I agree about dehumanization. What about societal harm? It is obvious that amusement crime will not give mass riot as a result. Amusement crime is a crime against indvidual while hate crime is both against individual and whole group, victim is belong to and society as a corollary. Don't you think so?
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Corribus
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posted December 04, 2009 05:19 PM |
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@ihor
Yes, there are aggravating circumstances in US law, but (if my memory serves) in most cases this is not written explicitly into the law. Rather, it is a subjective thing that judges and juries can use to determine sentences once a guilty verdict is reached. I do not necessarily disagree that hate crimes should be punished more severely than "regular" crimes. I would not necessarily be against, for example, a judge sentencing Joe Schmoe to more jail time because he (the judge) determines that the nature of the crime ("hate") is an aggravating circumstance. What I'm against is classifying the crime as inherently different because the crime was targetted at a certain (implied: minority) group.
I guess one way that I look at it is that hate crime laws (1) put different values on the life or property of certain individuals and (2) are a dangerous step toward the direction of thought crimes. Moreover, there's also a huge practical difficulty in prosecuting hate crimes, as well as an enormous potential for abuse, that is overlooked, but which I tried to summarize in my opening post.
@bin
On a theoretical level, I don't think you can just look at the original, literal intent of the Constitution when determining Constitutionality of laws. I think you also have to consider the spirit of what was written, and understand that circumstances change over time.
I outlined why I think hate crime laws violate the spirit of the equal protection clause in my opening paragraph.
Consider this:
Joe kills Mary because she is black.
John kills Sue, who is white, because she has money.
Because Joe violated a hate crime law, he gets 50 years in prison.
John only gets 10 years in prison.
Is it wrong to conclude that the law, as it is written, implies that Mary's life has more value than Sue's?
That's a subjective question with no correct answer, of course, and probes the purpose of laws, but just think about it.
Perhaps another question to ask is: what purpose are hate crime laws supposed to serve? You might answer, well, they discourage crimes targetted against, for example, black people. Ok, but what laws discourage crimes targetted against people who have money? Rich people are, I would suggest, more likely to be targetted for theft than poor people - thieves target rich people especially because they are rich. Perhaps we should have special laws that increase the severity of theft crimes against people with certain incomes. well, you might answer that the laws that already exist discourage crimes that aren't hate crimes - but, don't those same laws also discourage ALL crimes, including hate crimes? So we're back to the question of: what additional purpose do hate crime laws serve?
I submit that they serve no additional purpose. They have an emotional (and political) genesis. And emotion alone is not a reason to enact legislation for ANYTHING.
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Doomforge
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posted December 04, 2009 05:40 PM |
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Great post Cor, nothing to add 
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ihor
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posted December 04, 2009 07:00 PM |
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Edited by ihor at 19:07, 04 Dec 2009.
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I mostly agree with all addressed to me but as for written below I remain on my position. IMO there is a ground under hate crime laws. They do discourage all occurances of racism, sexism, etc... kinds of hate and intolerance, which ofcourse couldn't have place in modern society. Everything, which is against those bad effects is good.
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JollyJoker
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posted December 04, 2009 07:02 PM |
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Corribus, you are overlooking a couple of things here.
First a basic error. What's wrong with this one?:
Quote:
Joe kills Mary because she is black.
John kills Sue, who is white, because she has money.
For the point you want to make the example is wrong, because in this case BOTH crimes are hate crimes. You may scratch your head now, but think about it.
Joe kills Mary because she is black.
This means someone kills Mary because this someone thinks she should die because she is black.
John kills Sue because she has money.
That's the same thing; Sue is killed because someone thinks she should die because she is rich.
If, however, kills a person because that person WANTS THE MONEY, that person does kill because he doesn't see another way, was disturbed, was seen, and so on. The death of the said person wasn't the main purpose of the actual crime - it was a consequence.
A hate crime is different because the whole purpose is to KILL or HURT a person because said person has a certain characterictic.
Do you see the general difference? The nature of the crime is completely different.
Another thing is of course the EFFECT it has. Usually criminals want to make a profit or have a personal grudge. Police and law can't protect you against hate crimes. People may just become random of victims of irrational violence.
This will turn the violence screw, because unmotivated crimes againt people because they are members of a group will lead to a reaction with all members of the group. It's basically destabilizing the whole system, since people.
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Binabik
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posted December 04, 2009 10:25 PM |
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First let me say that I'm somewhat playing devil's advocate here. Bottom line is that I don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other. But I find it more of an interesting legal philosophy type of discussion.
Also, I already stated that I agree with hate crime laws being politically motivated. This also makes it interesting in the sense that political motivation reflects some aspect of society outside of the legal realm. In this case the political pressure (social reactions to events) comes from specific minority groups. However in other cases the political pressure comes from a majority of the populous.
With hate crime legislation, the political pressure mostly comes from a minority population, but I think there is also fairly broad support, or at least understanding, from the larger population, with little opposition.
Anyway....
In general the laws regarding crimes consider the circumstances and motivation behind crimes. This is seen when the term "aggravation" is applied to a crime. (@ihor, yes that's the term in the US also) We hear about aggravated assault, aggravated robbery, etc. Essentially, the law recognizes that the motivation, intent and other "mitigating circumstances" do indeed affect the severity of a crime.
The opposite of aggravation would be extenuating circumstances. Extenuating circumstances are conditions that lessen the severity of a crime rather than increase the severity. What this does is allow the courts to consider more than just dry facts. It allows the court to consider the human factor.
If Sally kills Joe and we know this for a fact, do we need to consider anything else? Does it matter why she killed him or her motivation?
What if Joe attacked Sally, and she killed him in self-defense? That's the most common extenuating circumstance, and it would lessen the general category of homicide from murder to justifiable homicide. (i.e. not a crime)
That one is obvious. Let's say Sally comes home from work. She enters the house and there is a man (Joe) having sex with her 6-year-old son. She grabs the nearest weapon she can find (a bat) and cracks Joe over the head, killing him. She didn't try to warn him or tell him to stop, she just grabbed the bat and cracked him over the head. A homicide was committed, but is there extenuating circumstance?
Let's refine it a little more. Sally comes home. Her son is lying on the floor naked and bleeding from the rectum. Joe is asleep in a chair across the room, also naked and with smeared blood around his genitals. There is no immediate threat, but Sally sees the situation and grabs the bat and cracks Joe over the head, killing him. Extenuating circumstance? This one is a little trickier, but is it proper to look at the human factor here?
Now we have Tom. He's a member of the KKK and is well known for his hatred of blacks. He has publicly called them snows, harassed them, gotten in fights with them, burned crosses in their yard, etc. One day he kidnaps a black at gunpoint, drives off into the woods and starts beating the hell out of him until he dies. Is this REALLY the same severity of crime as when Sally killed Joe who was not an immediate threat to her or her son?
I don't think Sally's mood was all nicey nicey at the time she killed Joe, I suspect she was in a rage and full of extreme hatred at the time. If not justifiable, are her actions at least understandable?
There is a full spectrum of motivation and human factors involved. Should the law consider these or not? Should hatred against a particular group constitute a more severe crime? Laws serve the purpose of both punishing criminals and the prevention of those crimes in the first place.
If someone is motivated by extreme hatred for a group of people, is it ok to target them and specifically say, "No this is just not acceptable, you're crimes are of the most horrid nature, and they will be treated as such."? Does targeting these individuals serve some purpose in our society?
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Corribus
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posted December 04, 2009 10:28 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 22:31, 04 Dec 2009.
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JJ,
Quote:
A hate crime is different because the whole purpose is to KILL or HURT a person because said person has a certain characterictic.
I don't see any difference. I mean, I see a difference in motivation, but I don't see why one is worse than the other.
Besides which, consider these scenarios:
Yesterday, John killed Mary, who is a lesbian. Is John guilty of a hate crime?
What if John said two days ago that he was going to go out and kill some lesbians, because he hates them? And then the next day, he kills Mary, a lesbian. Hate crime?
What if John said two weeks ago that he hates lesbians and thinks they deserve to burn in hell for their sins. Yesterday, he killed Mary, a lesbian. Hate crime?
What if John said two years ago that he thinks homosexuality is wrong. Yesterday, he killed Mary, a lesbian. Hate crime?
What if John called some kid a queer thirty years ago on a school bus. Yesterday, he killed Mary, a lesbian. Hate crime?
What if today, John says he hates lesbians and wished they'd all die. Hate crime?
Is it not plausible, that, with the passage of hate crime laws, every time a member of a minority group is killed, prosecuters will set out to show that the defendent has a history of prejudice against said minority group, in the attempt to get him convicted of a much worse hate crime?
I mean, let's consider the following:
John needs money badly. So, he waits at the street corner until he sees a man (Walter) leaving the local convenience store. John follows Walter into an alley, takes out a gun, beats the crap out of the man, steals his wallet, and then blows a four cm hole in Walter's skull. John is captured and tried and convicted for robbery and murder. He gets thirty years in jail.
This could be just a standard run of the mill murder, right?
What about the following modification?
John needs money badly. So, he waits at the street corner until he sees a man (Walter) leaving the local convenience store. John follows Walter into an alley, takes out a gun, beats the crap out of the man, steals his wallet, and then blows a four cm hole in Walter's skull. Walter is Jewish. John is captured. At the police station, police officers discover that John has swastika tatoos all over his body, and a search of his apartment turns up neo-Nazi literature. John is tried and convicted for hate-robbery and hate-murder. He gets the chair.
Sorry, but that just doesn't pass the smell test to me.
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TheDeath
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posted December 04, 2009 10:31 PM |
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@JollyJoker & Binabik: That is all fine and dandy but we're living in the real world where proof is required, unless they confess that is.
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Binabik
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posted December 04, 2009 10:32 PM |
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Cross post
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Corribus
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posted December 04, 2009 10:43 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 22:48, 04 Dec 2009.
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@bin
I, too, am primarily interested in the matter from a legal philosophy standpoint.
But more on the subject of motive and aggravation:
Quote:
We hear about aggravated assault, aggravated robbery, etc. Essentially, the law recognizes that the motivation, intent and other "mitigating circumstances" do indeed affect the severity of a crime.
Well, that's true, but in these cases the law applies to everyone equally. That is, the aggravated nature of the crime has nothing to do with specific nature of the person involved in the crime. The law is applied equally to everyone.
For instance:
Quote:
If Sally kills Joe and we know this for a fact, do we need to consider anything else? Does it matter why she killed him or her motivation?
Of course it does. Premeditation, for instance, is a major factor in determining the severity of the offense. Motivation is, as well, a key factor required to garner a conviction. And it should be. However, as it currently stands, the law doesn't - to my knowledge - rank different types of motivation in determining the severity of an offense.
For instance, consider the following five murder scenarios. Assume that all were planned out exactly 1 week ahead of time.
(1) John kills Mary (his wife) because she was sleeping with another man. Motivation: Jealousy/Anger
(2) John kills Mary (his mother) because she has a nice life insurance policy. Motivation: Money
(3) John kills Mary because she beat him in a game of cards a month ago. Motivation: Revenge
(4) John kills Mary because he likes to see people bleed. Motivation: Sick ****
(5) John kills Mary because he thinks she is an iguana. Motivation: Insanity
(6) John kills Mary because she is black. Motivation: Hate
With the possible exception of #5, even though each murder has a different motivation, the law treats them, for the most part, identically. They'd all be First Degree Murder. There's not a separate charge involved in any case. Sure, the judge or jury can take the motive into account when it comes to determining a sentence, and the motive will play a large role in the conviction (as a type of evidence), but the actual violation of the law is, in each case, the same.
I have yet to see a compelling reason why #6 should be, therefore, treated as a wholly different crime. And if you can pull #6 out and put it at some other level of "badness", then you should be able to rank ALL of those motivations using the same criteria you used to make that determination.
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Binabik
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posted December 04, 2009 11:02 PM |
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Quote:
I have yet to see a compelling reason why #6 should be, therefore, treated as a wholly different crime.
I think it's a matter of perception of society. I think our natural human reaction to certain type of crime is different. You asked about ranking the severity of your scenarios. I could do that, but I'm sure I'd manage to get myself into trouble of I did.
I think that the PERCEPTION of society is that #6 and #4 are the worst. Who has never felt jealousy or anger? How has never lusted for money? Who has never wanted revenge? None of those things justify murder, but at least we understand the emotion involved. Some sick bassturd who kills for fun or to see blood is abhorrent to us as individuals and as a society. And with hate crimes are very similar. It's the extreme hate involved that sickens us. It's an emotional response, but we as humans are emotional beings and our society and laws are based on our humanity. The law simply reflects that.
@TD, proof of what? I said a lot of things, what are you referring to?
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TheDeath
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posted December 04, 2009 11:11 PM |
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I was talking about having to prove that a hate crime was committed, and not an "arbitrary" crime.
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Binabik
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posted December 04, 2009 11:23 PM |
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Yea, that's the hard part. But keep in mind that in law there is rarely "proof", not in the sense of a mathematical proof. It's more along the lines of believability with strong evidence.
In the US, at the end of a trial, before the jury starts deciding guilt or innocence, the instructions to the jury were something along the lines of "to convict you must find the defendant guilty beyond a doubt". That was later changed to "beyond a REASONABLE doubt". (at least on TV, which means I'm probably going to get in trouble if a lawyer sees that)
The point is that in our legal system, we can almost never know "for sure" what is right or wrong. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws just because we can never "prove" they have been broken.
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TheDeath
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posted December 04, 2009 11:27 PM |
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Yes of course, but the big deal is that it's impossible to "prove" (not mathematically) unless he confesses. Corribus made a fine point with this one, for instance:Quote:
John needs money badly. So, he waits at the street corner until he sees a man (Walter) leaving the local convenience store. John follows Walter into an alley, takes out a gun, beats the crap out of the man, steals his wallet, and then blows a four cm hole in Walter's skull. Walter is Jewish. John is captured. At the police station, police officers discover that John has swastika tatoos all over his body, and a search of his apartment turns up neo-Nazi literature. John is tried and convicted for hate-robbery and hate-murder. He gets the chair.
in the above I don't see any reasonable proof at all, all I see are unsustained conclusions -- and that's all it CAN be unless he confesses.
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JollyJoker
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posted December 04, 2009 11:28 PM |
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Quote:
JJ,
Quote:
A hate crime is different because the whole purpose is to KILL or HURT a person because said person has a certain characterictic.
I don't see any difference. I mean, I see a difference in motivation, but I don't see why one is worse than the other.
But we ha´ve this already. Chair or clinic, right?
I mean, "worse"? What does that mean?
I don't think there's an objective standard.
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Corribus
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posted December 04, 2009 11:35 PM |
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@Bin
I hate to check my old notes to be sure, but: the burden of proof in criminal and civil trials in the US is different. In criminal trials, the burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt; in civil trials it is a preponderance of evidence (meaning, a simple majority).
But:
Quote:
It's an emotional response, but we as humans are emotional beings and our society and laws are based on our humanity. The law simply reflects that.
Actually, for the most part I don't think it does. Laws should NOT be emotional. Good laws should be and are based on logical rules, not emotions, feelings or beliefs.
@JJ
Quote:
I don't think there's an objective standard.
And despite there being no objective standard, you'd still advocate a harsher punishment for one crime over the other? :confused:
@Death
Yes, the point with that example is that it's hard (if not impossible) to prove a motive, especially one as loosely defined as hate. And, given that hate crime legislation has an emotional genesis, lawyers will be applying to the emotions of juries to garner convictions. In the example I gave, is it not possible that some jurors - especially those who might be Jewish - might be swayed by their emotions and convict solely on this very circumstantial evidence? It's just an example of how hate crime legislation has an enormous capacity for abuse.
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bort
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posted December 04, 2009 11:37 PM |
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Quote:
However, as it currently stands, the law doesn't - to my knowledge - rank different types of motivation in determining the severity of an offense.
For instance, consider the following five murder scenarios. Assume that all were planned out exactly 1 week ahead of time.
(1) John kills Mary (his wife) because she was sleeping with another man. Motivation: Jealousy/Anger
(2) John kills Mary (his mother) because she has a nice life insurance policy. Motivation: Money
(3) John kills Mary because she beat him in a game of cards a month ago. Motivation: Revenge
(4) John kills Mary because he likes to see people bleed. Motivation: Sick ****
(5) John kills Mary because he thinks she is an iguana. Motivation: Insanity
(6) John kills Mary because she is black. Motivation: Hate
With the possible exception of #5, even though each murder has a different motivation, the law treats them, for the most part, identically. They'd all be First Degree Murder. There's not a separate charge involved in any case. Sure, the judge or jury can take the motive into account when it comes to determining a sentence, and the motive will play a large role in the conviction (as a type of evidence), but the actual violation of the law is, in each case, the same.
Well, this actually depends on the exact scenario. (1) may be considered a lesser offense, perhaps even manslaughter depending on how well his lawyer can argue state of mind. (4) may also be considered a lesser offense, if his intent was to harm but not KILL.
I'm not sure that hate crime laws are necessarily effective in preventing hate crimes (I'm also not sure that they aren't. I haven't seen the data and probably couldn't reasonably interpret it even if I did). I don't have any objection to them, though. Basically, I feel the criminal justice system exists to carry out three roles : 1. punishment 2. protecting society at large and ideally 3. rehabilitation.
Sentencing is based on how severe the crime is (ie, how much punishment is warranted) and how long someone needs to be locked up so as not to pose a threat to others anymore either because they get old and just don't care as much anymore or because they learn a trade or become a born again worshipper of the lovechild of Jesus and Buddha. (For the sake of argument, please don't let this get sidetracked into whether prisons have a brutalizing effect or not because that inevitably leads to a death penalty debate which has little to no bearing on hate crime legislation per se).
Anyway, back to the 6 scenarios listed above, if you consider the criminal justice system and sentencing to play a role in protecting society at large, then the reason (6), the hate crime scenario deserves a longer sentence than, say (1) is because in the case of (6) John still poses a salient and immediate threat to others. He hates black people and has demonstrated that he will kill people because they are black. Assuming that Mary didn't happen to be the last black person on Earth, he is more likely to kill again.
And because the idea that hate crime legislation is something that's used to put down poor, oppressed white people seems to be implicit in this discussion, it may interest people to know that in 1996 (the only year I could find the data on) 20% of hate crime "perpetrators" were black while 66% were white (http://www.justice.gov/crs/pubs/htecrm.htm). The US population is 13.4% black and 74% white. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity)
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