However, you could legitmately argue that the subtext of all violent crimes against a member of a group for reason of group membership is implicitly example-setting. Thus, it would be tit for tat for the justice system to respond in kind.

Now that is just absurd. Let’s take that example and make it equal.

A) Dragging gay guy behind truck
B) Dragging guy behind truck

Either A or B is a crime. So Perpetrator A gets 25 to life and Perpetrator B gets 20 to life.

They are the SAME crime and should have same penalty. If I am following, you think because the gay guy was dragged, his whole subculture/minority is being affected by fear so it is ok to classify the crime as “worse”? Even if they said “die fag” as they dragged him, do you really think that you are sending a message to others who think about killing gays that they should be quiet so they don’t get as long a sentence?! Yes, that sounds stupid as it definitely is.

You are directly trying to extra punish the perpetrator for something they thought in committing the crime and in a larger sense sending a social agenda message (right or wrong) that certain thoughts are considered criminal. It is not justice and it is purely based on emotional need for revenge to “get back” at the fear generated from the crime.

What if I write “I hate Muslims” on web pages for months. Then I get in an accident and hit a imam from the local Mosque. He knows me from my writings and suddenly claims victim of “hate” crime and it was intentional. Prosecutor says I wrote all these “hateful” things and suddenly this accident is now putting me behind bars. You may not like my writings or agree with me but you want elevated punishment to send a message using this example?

“And do remember that at the end of the day, even with current “hate crime” legislation, it’s not “the government” that determines your intent. It’s a jury of your peers. – tgirsch”

Funny, Nifong is part of the Government and even though he had almost no evidence except a liar’s testimony, he pounded those families continuously. Somehow, that got through a jury of their peers to get to trial. They got off but at what cost? How many thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours did they have to put in based on a lie? Your statement is less than reassuring.

Intent is how you classify the murder but we already have classifications that work just fine. In both cases above, the perpetrator didn’t accidentally drag someone behind their truck, they did it for a reason. It was on purpose so is one reason better or worse than another? Doesn’t the current murder classification cover it well enough? If they don’t, reform them, don’t add to the mess.

Can you just imagine a judge talking to a murder victim’s family: “Well, your sons murders didn’t yell any hateful thing so you don’t get the extra punishment.” Nice Justice system you are proposing.

“And for what it’s worth, if a group of African-Americans (or any other minority) started specifically targeting whites for intimidation and/or violence, a la Zimbabwe, I’d absolutely support prosecuting these as hate crimes. – tgirsch”

Well yippee skippee. We get to prosecute at 110% thanks to the hate crime provision! yay. /snark

What good does that do? Either they are breaking the law or they aren’t? If it is violence or threats, prosecute them as they should be.

Hate crime designations have a great intent and would be great in a perfect information world but we rarely have full information and these Hate Crime designations are so ripe for abuse that it is scary.

That’s all we’re doing, really. Well, we’re not treating it any differently than we treat, say, theft or homicide. Intent matters in those charges, too, as Xrlq so eloquently pointed out. But to apply the standards you would have us apply, it would be impossible to prosecute any sort of criminal intimidation.

chris:
I just don’t concur that passing hate crime laws is the way to remedy that injustice.

Who said that it was? AFAIK, nobody has claimed that hate crime legislation serves to correct racial disparities within the judicial system. Their purpose, instead, is to recognize the relative severity of some crimes versus others. Again, if you think dragging a gay guy behind a truck is no different than any other sort of assault on any other kind of person for any other reasons, we’re just never going to agree on any of this.

providing examples of all of those prosecutions of blacks for hate crimes against whites

Err, didn’t Kynn do that up here?

Like I said, you may have the last word – but at this point, I am not going to see it.

I thought it was the “cowardly” liberals like me who are supposed to “cut-and-run…”

Digglahhh:
you ain’t really seen me rant

I can vouch for this.

“If a drunk 21 year old stumbles down the street and spray paints “Tom loves Diane” on his neighbor’s garage, and a sober 21 year old drives an hour and a half to spray paint “Jews must die!” on a synagogue — have they committed the same crime? Should they receive the same punishment?”

No, because the former is vandalism, and the latter is a threat.

But that’s not what we’re talking about, here. It doesn’t matter whether the individual was inspired by “hate”. The relevant laws wouldn’t even take motivation into question.

A more relevant question would be to ask whether we should punish someone who scrawls “This idiot must die” on private property more than we punish someone who scrawls “This (insert racial, religious, et all group) must die”. It may well be a good enough policy decision to make. So might punishing someone who scrawls “This idiot must die” on a (insert racial, religious, et all group)’s house an extra year because a jury can be convinced that he or she did so because of that person’s (insert racial, religious, et all group)ness. While any amount of jail time probably won’t change someone’s biases, from the viewpoint of either revenge or keeping likely recidivists off the street, it isn’t entirely a bad idea.

But anything that could sway a jury toward seeing actions as being motivated, even partially, by (insert racial, religious, et all group)ness is going to run into some non-trivial chilling effects.

I spent my “rant” (oh, you ain’t really seen me rant) disavowing your posts because sharing one’s conclusion does not obligate me to share or endorse one’s reasoning. I think there are both good and bad reason to either support or disagree with the idea of classifying certain crimes as hate-motivated. I’m actually more concerned with the reasoning than the conclusion.

Also, your link doesn’t refute my statement. I’m talking about crime in general (as it seemed you were in your original post)

If a family member or I wind up being a victim of a crime, I don’t want a lesser measure of justice meted out on the perpetrator because I am white.

Your link states that of crimes determined to be hate crimes, race is the most common bias.

“Theoretically, the race of the victim and perp is supposed to be irrelevant, unless race was the motive for the crime. ” Except that it is usually relevant. To the contrary, race is usually the motive for the crime – http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2005/table1.htm

You find framing the hate crime issue in its usual context (i.e. racial, with a white perp and a black victim) to be nefarious, as opposed to logical.

If you truly “don’t particularly support classifying incidents as hate crimes”, why do you spend all of your rant (except the parts which are designed to insult me) defending them?

I concur that blacks frequently don’t get a fair shake in the criminal justice system in this country, particularly in the context of drug law sentencing.

I just don’t concur that passing hate crime laws is the way to remedy that injustice.

And instead of responding to the points I have made (e.g. providing examples of all of those prosecutions of blacks for hate crimes against whites), you choose to say or imply I am a racist for disagreeing with you as to whether we should have special laws for hate crimes or let the existing laws.

So much for reasoned discourse with liberals.

Like I said, you may have the last word – but at this point, I am not going to see it.

Yet blacks, on average, are given, and serve, more time for crimes against whites that any other perp/victim race permutation.

That hate crime designations adds time to a sentence is a point unto itself, but in effect, you’re crying wolf because blacks still get and serve more time.

Hate crimes are not about right and wrong, they are about imposing criminal liability or greater criminal liability based on the race (or other distinguishing aspect) of the perpetrator and the victim.

If a family member or I wind up being a victim of a crime, I don’t want a lesser measure of justice meted out on the perpetrator because I am white.

This is not true, and your minority “friends” notwithstanding, you seem to really harp on this race issue above all else (and it’s not the only time in this stream of comments).

“Hate crimes” are not about imposing (greater) liability on a perpetrator because of race or any other demographic designation – they are about imposing (greater) liability on a perpetrator because of motive, of intent.

Not surprisingly, you find a way to position both a white victim and a white criminal as victim here. Poor white lynch mob, always getting the book thrown at ‘em extra hard. Poor white victim can’t get sufficient redress from the criminal justice system because of his race.

Theoretically, the race of the victim and perp is supposed to be irrelevant, unless race was the motive for the crime. So, your suffering won’t be ignored by the simple virtue of being a member of the serially justice-deprived white race.

FWIW, I don’t particularly support classifying incidents as hate crimes. Though, I guess if there was a list of offenses that are basically racist by nature (cross burning, spraypainting swastikas , etc.) I could support harsher penalties in those instances. My real resistance comes from the difficulty of defining an action as hate-motivated, and the arbitrary classification of what groups are established as victims (gays, yes – the overweight, seemingly no).

Punish the acts. In the one case torture was involved and so is more heinous, it matters not why. The perpetrators have earned increased punishment for that, unless of course both instances result in the death penalty, in which case it would be hard to increase the penalty. Maybe 30 days in the electric chair or something might work. It is the disregard for life and others’ rights, regardless of reason, that must be accounted for.

Anything other than that destroys the very concept of equality under the law.

Hate crime legislation adds time to sentences, plain and simple.

I never (as in never, ever) read about blacks being charged with hate crimes, do you (without doing a rather lengthy Google search)?

But if some inbred redneck hangs a noose on a tree, CNN and the other alphabet news media (along with Greta van Susteren) dispatch a bevy of reporters to talk about hate crimes.

To answer Greg’s question, “yes”.

Same as if the drunk high school kid had painted Smith County HS girls are Sluts.

They are ill-motivated property crimes.

Under civil law, people are supposed to be able to withstand verbal insults.

Also under civil law, one can defame a group (e.g. lawyers, Jews, Catholics, etc) without it constituting slander or libel.

Even in the non-violent crimes context, hate crime legislation creates criminal liability where there isn’t even any civil liability.

FWIW, I have friends in virtually every group that has been referenced in the foregoing 40 or so posts and I have no use for bigots.

Hate crimes are not about right and wrong, they are about imposing criminal liability or greater criminal liability based on the race (or other distinguishing aspect) of the perpetrator and the victim.

If a family member or I wind up being a victim of a crime, I don’t want a lesser measure of justice meted out on the perpetrator because I am white.

And I will give all of you the last word on this matter.

I’ve never seen any statistics stating such. Every time I see specifics regarding these numbers it shows that black criminals who attack white victims get, on average, longer sentences than white criminals who attack whites or blacks who attack blacks. Same is true for the death penalty.

You may be able to argue that the underlying bias is really economic, and more of a reflection of the overall quality of legal representation involved, but that’s not what the comment stated.

I say no.

Well, I guess that settles it then.

I say no.

not to diminish your complaint — you surely have a good point about the actual implementation and enforcement of these laws not living up to the intent, and that’s all too common a thing in this country — but one could equally well say that to not punish hate crimes more harshly is to admit the intimidation and terrorizing of minority groups is not criminal or doesn’t deserve any legal recourse. which usually is exactly the implicit message a hate criminal wishes to send them.

I respectfully disagree on the pervasiveness of violent crime in Memphis.

If my memory is correct, you live quite near where I grew up and where my parents live, and they have had 2 murders on their street and within a mile of their home.

I know how hate crimes are supposed to work in theory, but theory and reality diverge greatly.

I also respect the opposing point of view on this topic (i.e. your POV), but, when you get out of the harassment arena and into violent crime, particularly murder, it says that one’s person’s life is of greater value than another’s.

And I don’t think that hate crimes are prosecuted even remotely on an even-handed basis.

When I see what is in practice one set of laws for one race and another set for a different race, it bothers me, whether it is in the hate crime arena, college and school admission context or hiring or Federal contracting area.

I don’t practice before the SCOTUS, but I believe the court building has, above the entrance, “Equal Justice Under Law”.

I would like to see some equal justice.

Now cut that out. You should know it always frightens me (and probably also you) when we’re in agreement about something.

[Cue Xrlq or some other lawyer type pointing out how far off the mark I am on that, technically speaking.]

No, that’s basically right, at least when it comes to hate crimes in America. Hate crimes in Canada and other more “enlightened” countries often consist merely of expressing so-called “hate speech,” which can be something as trivial as a Mark Steyn article.

I’m not sure where I come down on the (American) hate crimes issue. On the one hand, it seems a bit odd to impose one sentence on a guy who slugs his neighbor and says “take that, you son of a bitch,” and another on the guy who slugs his neighbor and says “take that, you Lutheran son of a bitch.” On the other, your point about the intended (and actual) victims extending beyond the original one is a decent one, if the rule is applied with any consistency. I’m not sure it is applied evenhandedly – cops do seem far more likely to find a hate crime when a white guy kills a black than vice-versa – but that’s more of an argument against the current enforcement mechanisms than against the hate crime laws themselves. I also think some criminal groups – gangs, for instance – often set out to terrorize entire neighborhoods without regard to race or ethnicity, and I’m not sure they should get off any more lightly just because they seek to terrorize everyone rather than only some.

One point is clear, though: all the crap about “thought crimes” and Big Brother determining intent is just that, crap. Intent is the sine qua non of criminal law. We don’t throw people in prison for inadvertently walking off with other people’s stuff, only for doing so intentionally. Nor do we charge someone for murder simply because their negligence caused someone else’s death; we have tort law for that. Should football abolish penalties for intentional grounding? Hell, as the cliché goes, even a dog can tell the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked. So of course the government must look at intent; the question is which intents to single out for worse punishment, and why.

Likewise, the federal statutes only care about why the crime was committed, not whether it involved intimidation and/or harassment.

California’s legal code is, as you’d expect, even more entertaining. Court cases have demonstrated that it doesn’t matter what the *primary* intent and purpose of the crime was, only that some portion of the crime’s intent involved race, sexuality, gender, and a few dozen other protected classes.

One concern is that, in your Exhibit A, what happens if the thug didn’t like gay people? That’s not exactly an unlikely proposition: a good portion of the American populace ranges from being squicked out by male homosexual activity to actual homophobia, and that value is not underrepresented in perspective criminals. The thug said the “f**s over north were gross as sin” a couple months ago; can the jury be sure he was after the man’s wallet and not the rainbow bracelet? Can they be sure it wasn’t?

What if the Exhibit B people were simply idiotic rednecks, and neither knew nor assumed the gay man was gay; they were ‘just’ after a wallet and some sadism?

This is a matter of intent, not simple glances any crime scene but the strangest. As you can tell from this church shooting, it wasn’t until a couple interviews far away from the crime scene that we found out could even be called an alleged “hate crime”. It’ll be months before we can strip the “alleged” off.

There’s a lot of space for matters of opinion, and matters of public policy. Perhaps the risk of an improper extra year or two in club fed isn’t an issue. These are criminals, after all, and I can’t see much harm in a gay-murdering mugger spending a few hundred extra days playing “don’t drop the soap”. Maybe a few extra years for people motivated by race/gender/sex/disability is a good public policy, and helps provide a protective deterrent for the most vulnerable members of society.

But there’s opinion on one side, and fact on the other. The fact is simple; hate crime law’s not interested in what physically happened. It’s interested in what motivated the criminal.

And do remember that at the end of the day, even with current “hate crime” legislation, it’s not “the government” that determines your intent. It’s a jury of your peers.

I, too, live in Memphis, but have found that most of the crime (at least the violent sort) occurs in localized areas, and you can avoid most the crime by avoiding these areas. Which, to be fair, is something I’ve found to be true in most of the cities I’ve lived in.

But what troubles me is that you seem to be of the opinion that any time a white kills or attacks a non-white, or any time a heterosexual attacks or kills a homosexual, it automatically qualifies as a “hate crime.” It’s quite a bit more complicated than that. I’ll illustrate this by way of example:

Exhibit A: (Hetero) Thug robs guy who happens to be gay at gunpoint, maybe even shoots him. Crime? Sure. Hate crime? Almost certainly not.

Exhibit B: Group of rednecks attack gay guy and drag him through town tied to back of pickup truck. Clearly, hate crime.

But to you, exhibit B is no more serious, and no more deserving of punishment, than exhibit A. I think most people would agree that exhibit B is considerably more severe than exhibit A.

And for what it’s worth, if a group of African-Americans (or any other minority) started specifically targeting whites for intimidation and/or violence, a la Zimbabwe, I’d absolutely support prosecuting these as hate crimes.

Finally, unless you’ve got access to statistics I haven’t seen, black-on-white and white-on-black crime are mainly a drop in the bucket. Most crime, especially violent crime, is black-on-black or white-on-white.

Am I close or did I miss?

Practically speaking, a hate crime is a crime perpetrated by a white person against someone who is a minority group member.

Actually, that’s not true. Take a look at the hate crime statistics. Here is a link to 2006’s figures, the most recently released compilation.

About half of the hate crimes were committed based on race (52.1%). The other categories were religion (18.1%), sexual orientation (15.3%), and ethnicity (13.5%), with 1% against people targeted because of their disabilities.

Of the half based on race, one fifth of those (21.0%) were based on racism against white people — that’s 10.9% hate crimes, or one in eleven bias-motivated crimes were based on hatred of white people.

2/3 of the race-based hate crimes were against black people, which means only about 1/3 (34.6%) of the bias-motivated crimes in America were anti-black racism. About two-thirds were not based on racism against African Americans.

Only about 8.5% of the hate crimes — less than the number of crimes against whites — were against Latina/o victims.

There are about as many hate crimes against Jews as there are against whites. There were at least 150 hate crimes against Christians in 2006. There were about 29 hate crime victims who were singled out for being straight.

Seriously, look over the stats before you start making statements such as “Practically speaking, a hate crime is a crime perpetrated by a white person against someone who is a minority group member.” — it’s not true.

Heck, 58.5% of hate crimes were committed by people known to be white. But the U.S. is 76% white. Even if we apportion out the “unknown” and “multiple groups” proportionally, that still comes out with an estimate of 72% of hate crimes committed by whites — meaning that white people commit hate crimes statistically less often than you’d suspect! (Or maybe they’re getting away with it better.)

Go look yourself and crunch the numbers. What’s my point? Hate crimes aren’t about white people attacking people of color; they’re about everyone — including white people, Christians, and straight people — who gets attacked based on their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

If you want to argue against hate crime legislation, you certainly can, but I do suggest you equip yourselves with the facts rather than false assumptions.

I believe that there are statutes for criminal harassment and intimidation that would cover cross-burning, although I prefer Tam’s solution than resorting to legal recourse.

But seeing a black murderer serve less time for killing a white person than a white murderer serves for killing a black person is indefensible, particularly when society imposes one set of minimum behavioral requirements on whites and another on blacks.

“Hate crimes are, in a very real sense, a form of terrorism, because the target is much wider than just the people you directly attack/harm. You’re attempting to intimidate or otherwise “send a message” to an entire group. In a certain sense, the people you kill are the collateral damage, while the survivors are the intended victims.”

For whatever it’s worth, I am fairly fearful of crime in Memphis, and it isn’t because I have a wild imagination or I am worried some white junkie may try to mug me.

It is because of black gangs and the crime that they commit. They have sent me a very clear message (bring a very large gun when I leave the house).

All crime has a wider impact than the immediate victim, because it causes complete strangers to be fearful.

Since you brought up cross-burning, do you not also find it odd that the handful of cross-burnings which happen in this country garner infinitely more air time in the media than the remarkable difference between black-on-white vs. white-on-black violent crime?

An inbred white person’s burning a cross in a black family’s yard gets more airtime (exponentially and then some) that another ho-hum murder of a white person by a black person.

I am more worried about my wife being assulted by a gang member than her getting her fealings hurt by a hateful remark or action.

I am, by no means, picking on Memphis. I spend a good bit of time there and I like it. It is just illustrative of the vast racial imbalance in the commission of violent crimes and the complete unfairness of treating crimes differently based on the race of the perpetrator and the victim.

My concern is more that they’ll end up prosecuting unrelated speech and other expression. The federal government does not have the ability to distinguish between a crime motivated by hatred of homosexuals and a crime motivated by stupidity, when the evidence is an asshole who uses the word “gay” as an insult.

A certain part of me doesn’t really care about a sentence addition for convicted criminals, but I understand the mere idea of a false or improper conviction to be considered unpleasant. The inevitable attempts by overzealous prosecutors to run with just a hate crime statute without an underlying crime, while no doubt destined to be unsuccessful, is more actively worrying.

That said, my viewpoint on justice is more a matter of deterrence and revenge, so there’s something inherently attractive about smacking someone an extra time or two because he thought women or gay men didn’t count as people.

My concern is more that.

That said, my viewpoint on justice is more from a matter of deteren

So if you burn a cross in a black family’s front yard, it’s just vandalism and trespassing, and nothing else? Seems silly to me to think that.

Y’know, in Texas there is a specific list of crimes that, should you catch someone in the act of perpetrating them after dark, you may bust a cap in their ass. Arson is one of them. I’m just sayin’.

(I know this doesn’t advance or even pertain to the discussion, but I hate to waste a good bid of snark when it bubbles up. Carry on. )

So if you burn a cross in a black family’s front yard, it’s just vandalism and trespassing, and nothing else? Seems silly to me to think that.

An accidental killing during, say, a drunken brawl, will get you less years than, say, a contract murder.

You can set a different penalty for terrorism-motivated killing. It would, of course, be a requirement to prosecution that they provide real evidence of intent.

Intent can be evidence … you prove it by looking at statements and writings of the accused and others involved, and not via ESP.

Wow, I have to admit to being a bit taken aback at that.

Seriously, though, I understand and appreciate your objection, but I don’t think the line from “hate crime” to “thought crime” is quite as direct as some seem to argue. In no way, shape, or form is anyone being prosecuted for what they thought; they’re being prosecuted for the actions they take, which is an entirely different matter.

And as previously noted, the government is already empowered to determine intent. We might not be comfortable with that, but I don’t see how it can be avoided. Without determining intent, there’s no way to differentiate between, say, a first-degree murder and a justifiable homicide. So it’s all a question of where you draw the line, and I don’t claim to have that answer.