Bush Expected to Veto 'Hate Crimes' Bill
 

Imagine that.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics....20070503d.html

Well duh, if you call it a hate crime there has to be some stupid thing to hate. I wonder what the other 15% is that they classify as hate crimes.

So I guess I'm allowed to attack you if you're the same sex, religion and sexual orientation as I am. No? Then what in hell is this law for? And who decides if I hit you over the head with a 2x4 because you're the wrong color or I wanted your wallet? That's the real danger of this law.

From what I have heard, the counter argument against the bill by the Bushies (and I disagree with them), is that they say it squashes the anti-gay groups First Amendment Rights to argue against gaydom... I think they are basically idiots and should pass the law as writen.

An excellent summary.

They killed him. They fucking beat him to death. I don't care what color he was, or whether he was queer or not, there is no excuse for their actions. They are murders.... period.

I can see broadening laws against discrimination to make sure every one is covered, but laws that are already making something a crime for everyone covers that act/crime.

I don't have strong convictions on this but I just don't see the point of making laws more complicated than they already are. It doesn't make sense. What am I missing here?

Some crimes are done with the intention of intimidating other members of a target group. A burning cross on the lawn is more than arson and littering.

OK, good point. I'll buy that one.

Also, some jurisdictions won't prosecute, fully or not at all, certain crimes because of the sexual orientation/race/religion/etc. of the victim. Federalizing these crimes acts as a backup.

If the DA refuses to prosecute a crime, (as in written down, yeah, it's against the law), can you sue in civil court like OJ or the "Girls Gone Wild" producer?

I guess...as long as you have the resources to do it.

Your right there, you shouldn't have to... I was just wondering if you could.

I'm curious how the "Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007" is going to "Prevent" anything?
Like the death penalty "Prevents" murder?
All violent crime is hate crime... this is in no way a federal or Constitutional matter. It was/is a waste of our tax money.
The more the government focuses on race the more it encourages others to do so.

It's not focusing per se, so much as it's addressing certain crimes that aren't given their full due in too many cases. If all violent crimes were treated equally, without regard to the status of the victim, there'd be no need for these laws. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Also note the contentious subject of this bill is not race, it's sexual orientation.

aaannnnnd?
Race (which is color, there is only one race), sex, disabled, orientation, the deal is that as long as the courts treat them differently they can't blame anyone else for doing the same.
It is saying to a family who has a murdered father (perhaps just a white man) who's murderer did not get "special" consideration, that their father was not worthy of the court's full attention.
How nice for them.

"aaannnnnd?" the prevention part? Hell, I don't know.

Huh, I just now noticed you edited your post, rk.

Not that it matters, though...I think you're still missing the point.

Happy Monkey gave one example, "burning cross on the lawn", where the crime is more than the sum of it's actual actions. Anybody got any more?

There was a thread recently about someone who's dog was killed, its head cut off and placed on the owner's porch in a gift wrapped box. That was more than just cruelty to animals and littering. It was intimidation/terrorizing the owner.

Race wasn't involved, as far as I know, so it wouldn't fall under this hate crime umbrella, but it's the same idea. The actual damage was more than the sum of its parts. I wouldn't have a problem with the criminal being charged with more than littering/animal cruelty.

What is the point then, be specific please. How are some people's suffering worse than other's?
My "not getting it" means nothing. You did not address the post.

@ glatt. Now this is a good example of where it can go astray.
If I cut the heads off the dogs of two neighbors and one is white/straight/male and the other is not, one gets me prosecuted as a hate crime and the other probably not prosecuted at all, considering it's a minor offense. So my white/straight/male neighbor gets no justice at all.
This was my main objection.... that everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others and that's neither fair nor constitutional.

Wouldn't increasing the penalty for animal cruelty be more effective?

Anything can go astray.

But, as intended, if you do both crimes, you probably can get any "hate crime" charge dismissed. Unless the white guy is a prominent civil-rights advocate, perhaps, and you intended to discourage him.

I posted that thread, and stated clearly that I don't believe in hate crime and would fight against it if attacked and they tried to use it because I was disabled. (the girl was disabled)
Hate crime legislation is prejudice.

@ HM Did you mean can't? Oh wait, you mean I can't be charged with a hate crime because I did both. I got it now.
Why should I be charged with a hate crime for either? Don't you have to make an assumption of motive unless I actually said I did it for a specific reason? That assumption could be considered a hate crime on the part of the DA in some cases.
See, this is what bothers me about this legislation, to much assuming and that's not justice.

In the dog example, Bruce, would you agree that the actual "crime" here is greater than just the sum of the parts? The owner of the dog is a real victim here, but the littering/animal cruelty charges wouldn't address that.

If I trap a mouse in my basement, and it doesn't die right away, so I smash its skull with a hammer, and then I throw it into the gutter, I'm technically committing the same crimes as the dog killer. But in my opinion, they are vastly different. One is done with the goal of intimidating/terrorizing a human, and the other is not.

Courts have had methods to determine motive long before hate crime legislation appeared. It's part of the distiction between various degrees of murder and manslaughter. It's part of the definition of libel. And now it can determine whether something is a hate crime or not.

There's nothing legally novel here.

Hell yes, I agree completely, except I think the dog is a pretty important victim, too.
But how do you know for sure the intent? How do you know he just didn't get tired of videotaping the dog?

In my lifetime I've seen enough good intentions go awry, to pave a 12 lane superhighway to hell. Pardon my paranoia, but I'm cautious of changing shit without looking at it in every way possible.
I've also learned the legal system will not always do the right thing where there's wiggle room. Usually political pressure and expediency win out over justice.

Novel or not, it gives the DA to much discretion. See my last post. Unless the guilty party clearly states it was a hate crime, I don't trust anybody guessing. You know damn well they will use the threat of escalation to hate crime to force plea bargains. Plead guilty to something you didn't do and get 4 years or we'll go for the death penalty which automatically prejudices the jury. Wow, they are going for the death penalty he really must be a bad guy.

You could say the same about 1st degree murder/2nd degree murder/manslaughter or libel. Also conspiracy charges when the actual crime never happened or when the defendant didn't do anything illegal themselves. Confession isn't the only thing that can be evidence of intent, and the determination of intent is more than "guessing" or "assuming".

Yes it's more than "guessing" or "assuming", it's also politics, power plays, connections and money. It's never a good idea to make the rules(laws) more nebulous.

Is the bill worded so that there must be evidence proving the crime was motivated by the intent to cause terror, or is that intention assumed by the nature of the victim? If it's the latter then this whole thing is nothing more then a huge power grab by the courts and lawers. It would be no different from the courts that sentenced blacks unfairly who commited crimes against whites before and during the southern civil rights movement.

Hate crime legislation as I have said many times before is unequal protection under the law and is therefore unconstitutional.

If a crime is committed with intent to intimidate and terrorize then add that too should be made illegal. But not just against minorities but against any person. Why should a minority enjoy a legal protection that I, as a non-minority, do not benefit from?

it still strikes me as a piece of legislation that is going to slowly erode our basic freedoms.. assumption of innocence and all that silliness. in the case of intent to commit a crime.. you better damn well have caught them in the car outside the bank.. there are a bazillion times i've tried to figure out how to do some grand illegal scheme.. just to figure out how it could be done.. not that I ever intended to do it. anywhoo! it depends too much on the circumstance as to whether or not it was a hate crime as such, and frankly I am of the opinion that the people who are elected as judges in our society really have very little contact or understanding of the society from which the persons accused of crimes come from(mostly). there is a whole different level of society and different rules to play by. and the imposition of polite' society upon that structure won't work. and yes, I know that there can't be a different set of rules for different segments of society.. although the idea of a jury of your peers? peers? I would be willing to bet, that if I were accused of a crime and a jury of ex-musician/chef/proto-artists/alcoholics would see my point, and why I did something... jimmy sunday school who is supposedly my peer.. yeah... notso much.. anyway.. enough babbling.. I don't think he's going to veto anything.. I mean he's got almost a perfect streak of not doing so.. why mess it up so close to the end of his run?

oh.. and someone who is covered tit to taint with aryan brotherhood tattoos more than likely did kill the black guy. to display ones beliefs/hate so strongly.. yeah... throw the hate crime law at him..i bet it'd stick.

But will they do the same for a black militant Muslim gang member who is out of the prison system who mugs a white person? Same scenario, so it is a hate crime.

Nope. Just white folk.

Hahaha. Not quite.

Ah, I do love it when people fall for the fake news (video included).

No more nebulous than any other crime with motive as a factor.

What? You're telling me that sometimes authorities have to make judgment calls, so it's OK to add more cases where they have to make judgment calls, instead of trying to keep it as straight forward and defined as possible?
You can't be serious, would you want Bush's justice department making judgment calls on your behavior?

When you don't let authorities make judgement calls, you get abominations like mandatory minimums and three strikes.

Judgement calls are what the court system is about.

But shouldn't the jury be making the calls, not elected DAs?

The problem is that its not about hate. If person A kills person B and person A hated person B and killed them because they hated them then it still isn't a hate crime unless person B is in a -sh-sh-sh-sh-sh - we aren't supposed to say this out loud - a PROTECTED CLASS consisting mostly of gays and blacks.

Again, I ask, why are they safer from person A than I am if A, for example, hates me too. Maybe A hates everybody. Now that I think about it, it puts me at risk. If mean if A wants to kill me, Mr. Black and Mr. Gay but he's only got one bullet who's gonna get the cap? Me, that's who. Why? Because killing me gets him 7-10 but killing either Mr. Black or Mr. Gay gets him 30-40 or whatever the insane difference between the sentencing is.

Another stupid, feel-good law. Just like the abominations HM pointed out earlier.

Yes, this law is stupid.

No, it is not without merit.

Like someoneorother said, a burning cross is more than arson and littering. A crime done with the express purpose of terrorizing an entire group of citizens - a hate crime - should be persecuted more harshly than something else.

A group of hoodlums going around beating up totally random people is dangerous, but only a small risk to all individuals. They should be charged for assault, battery, etc.
A group of hoodlums going around beating up every [gay/black/white/straight/funny-lookin'] person they run into is a lot more than just that. It's a direct message of terror to ALL people of the aforementioned catagory. It's a 'get out or get the shit beat out of you'message. It's a hate crime.

Maybe a better idea would be to scrap bullshit like 'hate crime'- all violent crimes are motivated by hate in some way - and instead make it a terror crime, or something.

From the U.S. Department of Justice · Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics
White women are raped 44.5% of the time by white men and 55.5% by non-whites.
Black women are raped 0.0% of the time by white men, and 100% by non-whites.
Does that mean 55.5% of the white women get justice under hate crime laws and none of the black women?

That statistic can't be true. To suggest that non-white women are never raped by white men is simply incorrect.

It'd be interesting to know how they conducted the survey that it could provide such a bias.

It's not a survey. It's reported crimes compiled by the department of justice. That's as close as you can get to the truth, which is impossible.
Them's the facts ma'am.

Well it'd be doubly interesting to do a study on why non-white women don't report crimes committed against them by white men then.

Can't help you there, I'm not a black women nor do I rape them.

Well I wouldn't have thought you were either, although this is the internet, so you just never know I guess. ;)

They do. People are often charged with multiple versions of the same crime, and the jury has to decide which, if any, to convict on.

I don't have strong convictions on this but I just don't see the point of making laws more complicated than they already are. It doesn't make sense. What am I missing here?.......xoxoxoBruce

Entropy, xo, entropy......the tendency towards a state of disorder. Attempts to simplify are futile. The introduction of logic to an argument is also unacceptable.

One crime, one charge... pick one and stick with it.

That's not how it works, or how it ought to work.

In a fatal car accident, was it manslaughter, negligent homicide, or murder? How can you tell without hearing from the witnesses? Was the defendant drunk? Speeding? Did they know the victim? Was there bad blood between them? Was the car in good repair? Did the victim leap out in front of the car?

Or someone that just needed killin'.

Exactly- there's another motive-based crime: Justifiable Homicide.

The whole hate crimes idea is crazy. Give equal punishment for assault, murder etc. no matter the victim\'s minority status.

So duck2, if someone put a burning cross on your lawn, and you were the only black family in your entire neighborhood... that should be punished as only littering, arson, whatever?

Again, this whole hate crimes thing is fucked up but definitely not without merit.

It should be arson like any other.

That's a crock of stinking, rotting bullshit.

Some things are more than the sum of their parts.

No, its without merit. The victim of a cross-burning, since that seems to be the poster child for the hate crime folk, has a civil remedy as well.

I mean, if a lawyer can sue a hard-working American family-owned small business for sixty-five farking million freaking dollars then I think the cross burnee should be able to get a little something. This whole hate-crime business is pure, unadulterated legislative bullcrap that will crumple like a wet dishrag when evaluated against the equal protection under the law provisions of the Constitution.

But Constitutional muster has little to do with quite a bit of the legislation being written for and by self-interested, short-sighted vote-whoring politicians who just can't kiss enough minority backside.