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Are "Enhanced" penalties for hate crimes unconstitutional?

Gaius46 said:
So it's not about motivation it's about place in society? An underprivileged person cannot be guilty of a hate crime even if he professes profound hatred of the privileged as a class? Or more concretely a white person can be guilty of a hate crime but a black person can never be guilty of a crime?
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Earlier in the thread it was stated that the intent of the person committing the crime was the impetus for the tagging of a "hate crime".

So a member of the Black Panthers with multiple Facebook posts about how he thinks whitey has it coming could be charged with a hate crime in the assault of a white person, yes.
 
We try to determine peoples motives in other circumstances when passing judgement, like when a person kills another we consider the why when doling out punishment, this is why we have degrees of murder. If someone attacks someone for their wallet, while we don't condone it, we understand the reason, but attacking someone for who they are, the color of their skin, they sexual preference, nationality, religion, seems less rational and even more dangerous to societal cohesiveness and most decent people shouldn't understand it.

So while in theory I understand the idea an concept behind hate crime, the problem as I see it is that it is abused. If a teenager schooler paints a swastika on the locker of a jewish kid, does he really "hate" his jewishness? Or is he doing something that he know will intimidate him without considering the consequences? Someone else in the thread mentioned that these laws ask juries to try to get into peoples heads, which in extreme cases may be obvious, the problem in my mind is, where do you draw the line between assault and hate-crime. If you can't clearly define that line, then some people that weren't motivated by hate will be accused and convicted of it, and that in my mind is the weakness in the law.
 
Critter7r said:
Why is it more important that a minority is assaulted or killed than anyone else that isn't of a minority persuasion?
I mean, it must be more important when a black man is killed by a white man than when a white man is killed by another white man, or a black man is killed by another black man because the penalties are worse, right?
As a straight white American male, I want the same protections under the law as blacks, gays and other minorities.
I'm totally playing tongue-in-cheek devil's advocate here, but I do feel that "enhanced" penalties seem to offer more protection under the law to those groups than to those that are not members of those groups.
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Hate crimes are not about the who.
They are about why someone harmed someone else.
A criminal and a victim with identical skin tones can be involved in a hate crime.
It's about why the crime occurred not about who did it to who.

I hope that clears up things for you.
 
Captain Adverse said:
I doubt it is unconstitutional, or that SCOTUS would rule it to be.
I do disagree with "enhanced" crime because no person should be held more special than any other in the eyes of the law.
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Do you find it acceptable for different crimes to have different punishments?
Is it acceptable to you that various definitions and distinctions among crimes are made based on the intent and motivation of the perpetrator--negligent homicide vs capital murder?

If you accept those two principles, whence your objections to there being crimes which are defined by the nature of the animus involved?
 
Critter7r said:
Earlier in the thread it was stated that the intent of the person committing the crime was the impetus for the tagging of a "hate crime".

So a member of the Black Panthers with multiple Facebook posts about how he thinks whitey has it coming could be charged with a hate crime in the assault of a white person, yes.
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If I agreed with the idea of hate crimes I'd agree with you. However the person I was responding to seems to think differently
 
OrphanSlug said:
I've never bought into the idea of "hate crime," with good reasons. Without it suggest murder without value or reason or motivation.
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It actually suggests murder with more banal motivations rather than no motivation.
ymmv.

OrphanSlug said:
Murder is murder...
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On its face this is not true. There are multiple types of murder in most jurisdictions.
The differences among the types already involves the criminal's state of mind.

OrphanSlug said:
Murder is murder, when we set additional guidelines to suggest murder is based on politically defined "hatred" we add inequality to the law and continue to remove reason from enforcement.
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I suspect that criteria established to determine the "hate" in the hate crime are not that "political"
But I am open to correction.
Which criteria do you feel were defined "politically"?

OrphanSlug said:
And it is all a complete farce anyway...
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You seem to have an novel idea of the the laws
 
SocialDemocrat said:
Hate crime legislation is a bad idea. Attempting to punish a criminal more or less harshly based on whether or not they were being hateful opens up a can of worms that crimes can be punished based on motive for said crime, which would be nearly impossible to enforce.
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We already have crimes which take into account the mind-set of the criminal.
We seem to have been doing quite fine with them for the past however many centuries common law has made these sorts of distinctions.

What about this particular set of crimes distinguishes it so much from the other various crimes which are defined in part by the mentality of the perpetrator?
 
CrabCake said:
I think these laws are a bad idea because they put juries in an incredibly difficult position. Rather than having to decide on facts about what occurred, juries are forced to become mind readers...trying to divine the intentions behind the crime.
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There are already crimes which require jurors to determine intent.
 
Hate crime laws are unconstitutional because they criminalize motive; a fundamental clash with the First Amendment. The First Amendment holds that any opinion can be expressed no matter how objectionable or bigoted it may be. Criminalizing motive entails criminalizing thought and not action.


If a man is a devout follower of Nazism, and kills a Jewish man because of his beliefs, he can not be prosecuted for those beliefs nor their role in precipitating the action without violation of the First Amendment; he can only be prosecuted for the actual crime he committed - to be consistent with the First Amendment: that of murder.

A country that protects speech and expression, and equality before the law, can criminalize intent, but never motive, if it wishes to remain loyal to its principles.
 
Captain Adverse said:
I doubt it is unconstitutional, or that SCOTUS would rule it to be.

I do disagree with "enhanced" crime because no person should be held more special than any other in the eyes of the law.
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I can easily see why you believe a person should be no more special, but it goes directly to the depravity of the crime itself. If a 200 pound man right hooks another 200 pound man, that's one thing. If he does the same to an 85-year-old, that's something else again. Or to an 8-year old. Or if someone sets someone else on fire white on black while wearing a white sheet and pointy hat, that's a much more depraved act than shooting your girlfriend caught in bed with another man.

As I understand it, a designated hate crime allows enhanced sentencing.
 
MaggieD said:
I can easily see why you believe a person should be no more special, but it goes directly to the depravity of the crime itself. If a 200 pound man right hooks another 200 pound man, that's one thing. If he does the same to an 85-year-old, that's something else again. Or to an 8-year old. Or if someone sets someone else on fire white on black while wearing a white sheet and pointy hat, that's a much more depraved act than shooting your girlfriend caught in bed with another man.

As I understand it, a designated hate crime allows enhanced sentencing.
Click to expand...

A distinction must be drawn between intent and [/i]motive[/i]. Motive is the reason an individual commits a crime; intent is the desired outcome the perpetrator wishes for when committing a crime. We can issue harsher sentences based on differing intent, in a free society, but never differing motive.

How can we prove motive? By violating the defendants constitutionally protected right to his mind and expression, of course.

If we differentiate crimes based on motive, we no longer support equality before the law, or perhaps more directly, the First Amendment, because we assert that the Bill of Rights is suspended for those whose views run antithetical to societal consensus.

The neo-Nazi who kills for Hitler and the poor man who kills for his family are, and should always be, equal before the law in a free society which protects expression. They are brought forth to court because of the crimes they committed, murder, not the views they hold.
 
Cavendish said:
A distinction must be drawn between intent and [/i]motive[/i]. Motive is the reason an individual commits a crime; intent is the desired outcome the perpetrator wishes for when committing a crime. We can issue harsher sentences based on differing intent, in a free society, but never differing motive.

How can we prove motive? By violating the defendants constitutionally protected right to his mind and expression, of course.

If we differentiate crimes based on motive, we no longer support equality before the law, or perhaps more directly, the First Amendment, because we assert that the Bill of Rights is suspended for those whose views run antithetical to societal consensus.

The neo-Nazi who kills for Hitler and the poor man who kills for his family are, and should always be, equal before the law in a free society which protects expression. They are brought forth to court because of the crimes they committed, murder, not the views they hold.
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I understand what you're saying,but I'm all for, as an example, a distinction being drawn between killing in the heat of passion and murder for hire.
 
Gaius46 said:
So it's not about motivation it's about place in society? An underprivileged person cannot be guilty of a hate crime even if he professes profound hatred of the privileged as a class? Or more concretely a white person can be guilty of a hate crime but a black person can never be guilty of a crime?
Click to expand...

Yes, essentially. The reason that a hate crime is worse than a regular crime is because of how it attacks victims even beyond those actually attacked. Let's use some examples. Those two escaped killers recently made some people nervous about where they might show up and if they might hurt someone when they did. That's just a general kind of fear. It wasn't aimed at anyone specific. Now let's compare that to a lynching. Not only is a lynching meant to destroy its victim, but also to scare a whole race of people into silence. When a crime comes with a message to an entire class of people "you could be next if you don't stay in your (lesser) place", then it's a hate crime.

Perhaps it's unfortunate that it's called a "hate" crime, rather than an "oppression" crime. I think that would be more accurate.

Critter7r said:
Earlier in the thread it was stated that the intent of the person committing the crime was the impetus for the tagging of a "hate crime".
Click to expand...

That statement was incorrect.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
We already have crimes which take into account the mind-set of the criminal.
We seem to have been doing quite fine with them for the past however many centuries common law has made these sorts of distinctions.

What about this particular set of crimes distinguishes it so much from the other various crimes which are defined in part by the mentality of the perpetrator?
Click to expand...

It's far easier to determine whether or not the person on trial intended to commit the crime, or even whether or not the person on trial was of sound mind, then it is to determine whether or not someone's personal feelings on race motivated them to commit a crime.
 
SocialDemocrat said:
Hate crime legislation is a bad idea. Attempting to punish a criminal more or less harshly based on whether or not they were being hateful opens up a can of worms that crimes can be punished based on motive for said crime, which would be nearly impossible to enforce.
Click to expand...

Motive has always been an element of a crime and juries have considered motive for centuries

Critter7r said:
Why is it more important that a minority is assaulted or killed than anyone else that isn't of a minority persuasion?

I mean, it must be more important when a black man is killed by a white man than when a white man is killed by another white man, or a black man is killed by another black man because the penalties are worse, right?

As a straight white American male, I want the same protections under the law as blacks, gays and other minorities.

I'm totally playing tongue-in-cheek devil's advocate here, but I do feel that "enhanced" penalties seem to offer more protection under the law to those groups than to those that are not members of those groups.
Click to expand...
As a straight white American male, you have the same protections everyone else gets from hate crime laws.
 
SocialDemocrat said:
It's far easier to determine whether or not the person on trial intended to commit the crime, or even whether or not the person on trial was of sound mind, then it is to determine whether or not someone's personal feelings on race motivated them to commit a crime.
Click to expand...

Which is why it's easier to convict someone of a non-hate crime. However, it is beyond silly to dismiss a law because it's hard to prove someone broke it.

Like every other crime, it requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If the prosection can prove motive, the enhanced sentencing applies. If not, it doesn't
 
SocialDemocrat said:
It's far easier to determine whether or not the person on trial intended to commit the crime, or even whether or not the person on trial was of sound mind, then it is to determine whether or not someone's personal feelings on race motivated them to commit a crime.
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If there is insufficient to make the determination [e.g. because it is "harder"] then the determination is made that there is insufficient evidence to support the charge.
What's wrong with a jury deciding that there is insufficient evidence to support a charge?
It happens all the time.

Jurors can handle it.
 
sangha said:
Like every other crime, it requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
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So, it makes sense, in your mind, that when a black man is killed by a white man, the legal process must entail a systematic investigation into the private opinions of the white man, a full analysis of his convictions and views, displayed before the court? Orwellian.

Furthermore, if the white man is declared a bigot and racist by the court, supposedly evidenced by his writing, or the testimony of those who knew him, or the account of the perpetrator himself, the court must then attempt to link this conviction to the crime? If a link is demonstrated beyond doubt, he should receive a tougher sentence, then?
 
Paschendale said:
Yes, essentially. The reason that a hate crime is worse than a regular crime is because of how it attacks victims even beyond those actually attacked. Let's use some examples. Those two escaped killers recently made some people nervous about where they might show up and if they might hurt someone when they did. That's just a general kind of fear. It wasn't aimed at anyone specific. Now let's compare that to a lynching. Not only is a lynching meant to destroy its victim, but also to scare a whole race of people into silence. When a crime comes with a message to an entire class of people "you could be next if you don't stay in your (lesser) place", then it's a hate crime.

Perhaps it's unfortunate that it's called a "hate" crime, rather than an "oppression" crime. I think that would be more accurate.



That statement was incorrect.
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Thanks for the explanation. I understand the point though I don't necessarily agree completely with it. One of my issues with hate crime is that it seems to be indiscriminately applied - the mere utterance of a racial slur is enough to get a crime prosecuted as a hate crime when there may have no intent to scare anyone other than the person it was aimed at.

And I agree the 'hate crime" label is a misnomer.
 
Cavendish said:
So, it makes sense, in your mind, that when a black man is killed by a white man, the legal process must entail a systematic investigation into the private opinions of the white man, a full analysis of his convictions and views, displayed before the court? Orwellian.
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Motive is already an essential element of a murder investigation.
Why would the color of skin of the folks involved change how a murder is investigated?

Cavendish said:
Furthermore, if the white man is declared a bigot and racist by the court, supposedly evidenced by his writing, or the testimony of those who knew him, or the account of the perpetrator himself, the court must then attempt to link this conviction to the crime? If a link is demonstrated beyond doubt, he should receive a tougher sentence, then?
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If someone is convicted of any crime by a jury who found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, then that person should face the consequences for that crime.
That's how our legal system works.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
Do you find it acceptable for different crimes to have different punishments?
Is it acceptable to you that various definitions and distinctions among crimes are made based on the intent and motivation of the perpetrator--negligent homicide vs capital murder?

If you accept those two principles, whence your objections to there being crimes which are defined by the nature of the animus involved?
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The objection comes from the fact that we don't need "enhancements" because basic law already provides for the differences between crimes of intent and crimes of negligence. For example, negligent homicide is covered by manslaughter; what you term capital murder is already covered by First Degree (intentional) and Second Degree (hot-blooded) Murder.

Every single incident of a "hate crime" killing rightly falls under First or Second Degree Murder. Why should it matter if the intent was race/religion/sexual orientation, or if the victim was a police officer, minority, or child? The details can be presented to a jury and they can decide as with any other murder if the perpetrator should be executed, imprisoned for life, or imprisoned for a period of years.

Enhancements are an outgrowth of mandatory sentencing, something I strongly disagree with. Mandatory sentencing eliminates the ability to judge each case individually and provide a sentence tailored to the individual on a case by case basis. The purpose of "hate crime" and other enhancements is to add moral outrage and shock value to a particular victim so as to compel harsher sentencing.

MaggieD said:
I can easily see why you believe a person should be no more special, but it goes directly to the depravity of the crime itself. If a 200 pound man right hooks another 200 pound man, that's one thing. If he does the same to an 85-year-old, that's something else again. Or to an 8-year old. Or if someone sets someone else on fire white on black while wearing a white sheet and pointy hat, that's a much more depraved act than shooting your girlfriend caught in bed with another man.

As I understand it, a designated hate crime allows enhanced sentencing.
Click to expand...

And thus you see my reasoning above. (I provided that response before I saw your subsequent post.)
 
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Cavendish said:
A distinction must be drawn between intent and [/i]motive[/i]. Motive is the reason an individual commits a crime; intent is the desired outcome the perpetrator wishes for when committing a crime. We can issue harsher sentences based on differing intent, in a free society, but never differing motive.

How can we prove motive? By violating the defendants constitutionally protected right to his mind and expression, of course.

If we differentiate crimes based on motive, we no longer support equality before the law, or perhaps more directly, the First Amendment, because we assert that the Bill of Rights is suspended for those whose views run antithetical to societal consensus.

The neo-Nazi who kills for Hitler and the poor man who kills for his family are, and should always be, equal before the law in a free society which protects expression. They are brought forth to court because of the crimes they committed, murder, not the views they hold.
Click to expand...

The problem with this argument is that freedom to express oneself aren't unlimited and exempt from punishment. You can't yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater because of the harm to the public that would result. While I agree that determining someones motives can be difficult and can lead to people innocent of hate as to the motive of their crime, certainly there are those who espouse hate and act on it themselves or inspire others to act. Just like yelling fire in a crowded theater there are limits to an individual's rights to express themselves come with limits under the law.

Motive is considered when determining the sentence of a murderer, that is, did he murder in an act of rage and something outside of the person's character, or was the motive something more sinister, something like watching people die slowly for personal enjoyment. In this case, clearly it matters why a person kills, even if the results are the same.

Having said that, I've already said that I believe that "hate crime" is applied much to liberally and people whose motive was nothing more than simple intimidation are charged with a hate crime simply because the person being intimidated was of a different color sex, creed, sexual preference, etc.
 
sangha said:
Motive has always been an element of a crime and juries have considered motive for centuries
Click to expand...

sangha said:
Which is why it's easier to convict someone of a non-hate crime. However, it is beyond silly to dismiss a law because it's hard to prove someone broke it.

Like every other crime, it requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If the prosection can prove motive, the enhanced sentencing applies. If not, it doesn't
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? If a law is practically unenforceable, than it's silly to pass it in the first place.

Simon W. Moon said:
If there is insufficient to make the determination [e.g. because it is "harder"] then the determination is made that there is insufficient evidence to support the charge.
What's wrong with a jury deciding that there is insufficient evidence to support a charge?
It happens all the time.

Jurors can handle it.
Click to expand...

It's not practical or even a productive use of time to pass an unenforceable law.
 
Cavendish said:
So, it makes sense, in your mind, that when a black man is killed by a white man, the legal process must entail a systematic investigation into the private opinions of the white man, a full analysis of his convictions and views, displayed before the court? Orwellian.
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What you describe is not "Orwellian"; it's fiction.
Furthermore, if the white man is declared a bigot and racist by the court, supposedly evidenced by his writing, or the testimony of those who knew him, or the account of the perpetrator himself, the court must then attempt to link this conviction to the crime? If a link is demonstrated beyond doubt, he should receive a tougher sentence, then?
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More fiction.

Maybe someday, you'll abandon the lie that hate crime laws only allow white people to be charged

https://www.google.com/search?newwi....0..0.0....0...1c..64.serp..0.0.0.9JvGWWWp82g
 
SocialDemocrat said:
What are you talking about? If a law is practically unenforceable, than it's silly to pass it in the first place.



It's not practical or even a productive use of time to pass an unenforceable law.
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It's not unenforceable. I don't know where or how you came up with that notion
 
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