Hate crimes against "the homeless"

[del]

There are no legal foundations whatsoever for conservatives to object to enhanced sentencing on Constitutional grounds.

Then why is it, I wonder, that so many conservatives DO object to hate crime legislation? Anyone care to hazard a guess? I'll take a shot ...

Because they FAVOR picking on the weak and helpless, humiliating the less fortunate and generally conducting themselves along the lines of the true, authoritarian personalities that so many of them have. The last thing they want is for the government to cut through to one of their favorite pasttimes and punish them more for engaging in it because it is so much more reprehensible tha similar conduct that is not directed against the less fortunate merely because they are less fortunate or weaker.

How can anyone argue AGAINST hate crime legislation and not be FOR the committing of hate crimes?

All right, cons . . . . bring it on . . . .

don't be stupid, george.

assault, murder et al are already crimes

hate crime legislation, especially the one referred to in the OP are just sops to various interest groups.

do you think making it a hate crime to beat up a homeless guy is going to make the police try any harder to catch the responsible person(s), and if so, would you like to buy some waterfront property in kansas?

 

[Noomi]

Without going too much into the logical failure of your last sentence, as someone has already posted: Of course some crimes are more heinous than others. That is decided on a case-by-case basis, as it ALWAYS has been in common law societies.

Thus, there is zero need to codify it, ESPECIALLY when the code offers special consideration for only certain persons with the rest getting none of that.

I do tend to think that some crimes, against people of a certain race, or homosexuals, are worse than similar crimes against white people or heterosexuals. I can understand why people don't want one crime to be treated more seriously than others, though.

As do I. As do most judges, too.

I would also imagine that murder of whites simply because they were white by blacks is pretty heinous. Recently there was a real nasty one in KY, I believe.

But, there is no code for THAT situation. How is that fair?

Nothing is ever fair. That's just the way the world works.

 

[gallantwarrior]

When I read it in this context I agree with it, "criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation." Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties".

Hate crimes are no pedestrian crimes there is actually a scheme or plan to break the law in order punish someone or something based upon an actual hate for what that person, place or thing represents.

Again, that case could be made for just about any type or class of crime.

 

[Si modo]

I do tend to think that some crimes, against people of a certain race, or homosexuals, are worse than similar crimes against white people or heterosexuals. I can understand why people don't want one crime to be treated more seriously than others, though.

As do I. As do most judges, too.

I would also imagine that murder of whites simply because they were white by blacks is pretty heinous. Recently there was a real nasty one in KY, I believe.

But, there is no code for THAT situation. How is that fair?

Nothing is ever fair. That's just the way the world works.

Well, then thank gawd for our Constitution that clearly states there must be due process and equal protection for ALL, regardless of race, creed, etc.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Certainly it is but there have to be statutory allowances made to cover what constitutes aggravating circumstances. If you were attacked in some place there is a lot of laws on the books that allow prosecutors to make the penalty more severe based on the severity of the crime, it does not mean you are any less valuable under the law but your attacker may be subject to a harsher sentence due to what actually happened. It's the difference between some kids possibly getting into a sudden unexpected altercation with a homeless man and planning a crime by loading up the baseball bats and going hunting.

I have no problem with the use of mitigating circumstances and the variances the existing laws allow depending on the events surrounding the crime. I do however oppose anything that is special law as in "hate crime" legislation for subsets of society.

Are those B&E home invasion criminals who single out people with homes in a premeditated manner also committing a hate crime?

It all has to do with proof, if they can prove someone invaded your home because you were gay or whatever they can be charged with such. As it is even in states that have such laws on the books it is not charged except in some pretty clear cut cases. Turns out there have not been that many people charged with hate crimes, most of them have been cases of vandalism or arson where some jackass painted swastikas on synagogues or burned black churches and such.

Ah, therein lies the rub. Just how do you prove that someone is motivated by "hate" when they commit a crime? I am not fond of liberals, does that mean if I happen to hit someone with an obama sticker on their car at a red light I have committed a "hate" crime?

 

[gallantwarrior]

Crime is crime and by its very nature is fueled by hate. Trying to rationalize it by giving it unique names and special penalties is dumb. The end result of crime is the same regardless of motive. If you're dead you're dead regardless of motive.....

It’s enhanced sentencing, which is perfectly appropriate.

Judges have been using, and are authorized to use, enhanced sentencing for decades – it’s really nothing new. See: Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993).

The states and local jurisdictions are well within their rights to deter hate crimes, or other such crimes motivated by a victim’s condition beyond his control, and exact upon those found guilty of such crimes a harsher penalty.

That this somehow offends your ‘anti-PC’ sensibilities is fortunately irrelevant, as this is settled and accepted case law.

I'm thinking dousing anyone passed out in a park, homeless or otherwise, and setting them on fire, would draw the strictest sentence available under the law.
Does this designation mean that a drunk and homeless woman who is raped by another homeless drunk will see her abuser receive a longer, more punishing sentence?

 

[Connery]

I just love the circular logic of the left. Crime is by definition an action, or exhibition as you put it, that is what is punished, motive should have nothing to do with the punishment, only the act itself. A crime against a person is by definition a hateful act, so I guess all crimes against people should carry enhanced sentences. Right?

The elements of a crime are actus reas(the act) and mens rea(guilty mind/intent). It is neither right or left it is a system the US adopted based on English Common law.

No some crimes are motivated by greed, lust....etc.

So greed or lust are less depraved than hate I guess, and lawyers wonder whay everyone hates lawyers, they have such a wonderful way of screwing up justice.

Lust and greed while motivators, do not speak to the essence of a "hate" crime. Further, it is the legislature that makes law. Lawyers simply use what the elected representatives have enacted.

Moreover, I cannot imagine that anyone who opposes "hate" crime legislature would not take advantage of it if they were victims of a "hate" crime.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Bill adds homeless to list of hate crimes

"Albuquerque, will introduce a bill next month to add homeless people to the state Hate Crimes Act. The proposed law means those who attack homeless people would be subject to harsher sentences if caught and convicted. "This sends a message to the general public - people need to have dignity," O'Neill said in an interview. "If we're going to talk about hate crimes, let's talk about the homeless."


....

Many homeless people are drug addicts or alcoholics. I would be concerned that the homeless person would be more likely to attack a person that someone to attack them.

They appear to prefer attacking each other.

 

[Dreamy]

If that's what it takes to get a bunch of young psychopaths charged as adults who would set a man on fire for fun I am all for it. Google "kids set homeless man on fire", it's a damned epidemic. Anyone who would do something like that needs to be locked up for years and years, not just until they turn 18.

Finally, something we agree on.

As do I.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Fat people?

Actually, in Britain at least, there is a hate crime law for obese people.

So I can't yell at these bums who stand at the exits of Interstates at a traffic light holding "Homeless and Hungry" signs to get a job? That's not a hate crime in my book; that's a suggestion, which they refuse if you offer them a job, btw.

The problem is, how do we differentiate between the homeless that are... I guess honest? The ones who are there not of their own fault, but because something terrible happened to them and forced them on the streets.

Furthermore, I remember hearing on my local talk radio that one problem homeless people have is that they can't get a job because they're homeless, and to stop being homeless they need a job.

Anyway, the problem with the hate crime law is twofold:
First of all, how is killing, say, a gay person so much worse than killing a straight person? Why do there have to be special provisions in place for that?

Secondly, how do you prove a hate crime? If a psychopath walks up and shoots a black man, is it because he hates blacks or because he's crazy? And ultimately, what does it matter, because the crazy in question up and shot somebody!

We'd be lying if we said that there weren't people out there who did specifically target gays or women or blacks or prostitutes. These people are evil, and there's no justification for targeting a specific group of people to terrorize or kill. If you're killing gay people in alleys at night, that makes you a murderer; how does it being labeled a hate crime make that any different?

I do have a guess about it, though, and I'd like opinions on the matter:
It's my guess that "Hate Crimes" were put into place because there was, say, a large uprising of crimes targeting specific groups of people. Not just murder, of course - assault, B&E, harassment, etc. Because of this, laws were put into place to emphasize to people "Hey, if you mess with gays/latinos/women, you'll be punished harder than if you did it to anyone else." It was meant as a deterrent, to try and cut down on crime against specific groups.

Does that make sense?
But that said, isn't it obvious, that if someone really hates gay people and wants to beat up every single one he comes across, they're going to do it regardless of what the law says?

I would suggest it's less related to any uptick in crimes committed against a group of people than it is to the insane urge to "engineer" society using special, politically correct definitions to define and isolate specific issues.

 

[gallantwarrior]

^I would be totally ignoring those hate laws about calling a fat person fat. How about they also make it a crime to call a skinny person skinny?

So you do agree, both skinny and fat victims should be treated equally?

 

[Noomi]

^I would be totally ignoring those hate laws about calling a fat person fat. How about they also make it a crime to call a skinny person skinny?

So you do agree, both skinny and fat victims should be treated equally?

If we are talking about name calling, then yes. But an assault against them? Perhaps not.

 

[gallantwarrior]

There is a difference between bashing up some random person, and targeting a person because they are black. Searching out a black person, or a gay person with the intention of beating them up is a worse crime.

Not all rapes are treated equally, because some are worse than others. Likewise, some assaults are worse than others.

there is NO difference....

crime is crime.

There is a difference.

Case one: John hits Jack while drunk, because he believes that Jack is sleeping with his wife. Jack falls back and splits his head open.

Case two: Mark hates blacks, and sets out one night with the intention of assaulting a black person. He finds Bill, and shoves him. Bill falls down, hits his head on the curb, and splits his head open.

One of the above cases is worse than the other.

Case three: Mary invites Craig back home with the intention of sleeping with him. Halfway through, she changes her mind, but Craig continues, even though Mary is struggling against him.

Case four: Lucy is walking home from a bar one night, when she is attacked by Martin, who has been waiting in the bushes for a lone woman to pass by.

Again, one of those cases is worse than the other.

Yep, that's why crimes are also defined by degree, i.e. First degree, Second degree...or by some other additional descriptor, i.e. Aggravated assault. All of those descriptors provide more precise definition of the offense based on intensity of the crime, or use of weapons, or specific intent.

 

[Montrovant]

Is it not possible to enhance sentences without codifying special treatment for specific groups of people? If, by chance, someone targets people to commit crimes against based on, say, the color shirt they are wearing, should that count as a hate crime? It is a crime based on bigotry (against people who wear said color shirt), it is irrational, it is something society would probably like to deter....doesn't that fit the criteria on which hate crime legislation is based?

I know my example is extreme and ridiculous, but the point is that people can be put into so many different groups, and there may be someone willing to commit crimes based on any one of them. By specifying certain groups of people, certain bigotries as motivation for crimes, you leave the possibility of excluding other groups of people. Everyone may fit into one of the groups covered by hate crime legislation, but not every grouping of people is covered, so if a crime is committed based on an uncovered group, they are SOL. The sentence for the criminal who committed the crime against them or their property is less, they are less worthy of protection. Even if the actions taken are the same, be it assault, robbery, murder.....even if the specifics of the actions are the same, say being set on fire by a complete stranger with no obvious provocation, the sentencing is different. If there must be hate crime legislation, I would prefer a blanket coverage; if the crime was committed based on ANY sort of grouping: religion, race, gender, hair color, shoe size, whatever, the sentence can be increased.

I don't agree with hate crime legislation. I think it is a sop to the electorate by legislators who want to look like they are doing something about crime. I think it is extremely unlikely to work as a deterrent; does anyone truly think that there are people out there who have contemplated committing a crime, but were stopped not by the fact it is illegal, not by the fact they may go to jail, but by the fact it's possible they will go to jail longer? In every argument I've heard in favor of these laws, it still seems to boil down to an attempt to legislate away people's prejudices. I also think that enhanced sentencing might be possible under previously existing laws in many cases. Worst of all, it sends a message that some people are more worthy of protection and justice than others without giving a compelling reason why that is so.

I've discussed this issue on the board before, specifically with George a time or two. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to change anyone's mind nor are they going to change mine. Still, I can't help but at least put out some of my reasoning and hope that either someone reads it and it resonates with them, maybe makes sense to them in a new way, or maybe that someone else will post an argument I haven't heard or in a way I haven't seen which might change my own views. It seems unlikely, though.

 

[gallantwarrior]

There are no legal foundations whatsoever for conservatives to object to enhanced sentencing on Constitutional grounds.

Then why is it, I wonder, that so many conservatives DO object to hate crime legislation? Anyone care to hazard a guess? I'll take a shot ...

Because they FAVOR picking on the weak and helpless, humiliating the less fortunate and generally conducting themselves along the lines of the true, authoritarian personalities that so many of them have. The last thing they want is for the government to cut through to one of their favorite pasttimes and punish them more for engaging in it because it is so much more reprehensible tha similar conduct that is not directed against the less fortunate merely because they are less fortunate or weaker.

How can anyone argue AGAINST hate crime legislation and not be FOR the committing of hate crimes?

All right, cons . . . . bring it on . . . .

Oh, yeah...my favorite pastime is cruising and beating up, lighting homeless on fire. I just adore the warm glow they make when you light that match and toss it on their gasoline-soaked bodies...'specially on those frosty winter nights...
Are you a fucking imbecile? "Favorite pastime"?

 

[gallantwarrior]

Bill adds homeless to list of hate crimes

"Albuquerque, will introduce a bill next month to add homeless people to the state Hate Crimes Act. The proposed law means those who attack homeless people would be subject to harsher sentences if caught and convicted. "This sends a message to the general public - people need to have dignity," O'Neill said in an interview. "If we're going to talk about hate crimes, let's talk about the homeless."


....

I hope that includes the police. Around here the police are constantly harassing the homeless. we give out lunches to the homeless at my friends church and one bright sunny day, one of the regulars picked up his lunch, went out into the nice sunny day and lay down on the grass and fell asleep. He was arrested.

Are there laws against vagrancy where you live?

vagrancy, in law, term applied to the offense of persons who are without visible means of support or domicile while able to work. State laws and municipal ordinances punishing vagrancy often also cover loitering, associating with reputed criminals, prostitution, and drunkenness.

Vagrancy definition of Vagrancy in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

 

[gallantwarrior]

There are no legal foundations whatsoever for conservatives to object to enhanced sentencing on Constitutional grounds.

Then why is it, I wonder, that so many conservatives DO object to hate crime legislation? Anyone care to hazard a guess? I'll take a shot ...

Because they FAVOR picking on the weak and helpless, humiliating the less fortunate and generally conducting themselves along the lines of the true, authoritarian personalities that so many of them have. The last thing they want is for the government to cut through to one of their favorite pasttimes and punish them more for engaging in it because it is so much more reprehensible tha similar conduct that is not directed against the less fortunate merely because they are less fortunate or weaker.

How can anyone argue AGAINST hate crime legislation and not be FOR the committing of hate crimes?

All right, cons . . . . bring it on . . . .

It’s also part of this ‘reverse discrimination’ nonsense; where conservatives have contrived some inane notion that ‘minorities’ are allowed to engage in hate speech with impunity while only white Americans are subject to prosecution – either by the legal system or by social condemnation, hence the myth of ‘political correctness.’

OK, let's try this on for size: Obama is a stupid fucking ******. And ******* have no call being president of this country.

 

[gallantwarrior]

The designation for the crime is wrong. What they should be concentrating on isn 't hate crimes but crime committed in the pursuit of having fun. Kids don't set people on fire because they hate them but because it is so funny.

That fact is a symptom of a truly sick society.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Hate crime legislation has been held time and time again NOT to violate Equal Protection.

If a law provided for increased punishment for any white person who, for racial reasons, assaulted a person of any other race, such a law would violate Equal Protection, because it would punish members of only one race while allowing members of other races to commit similar crimes without being subjected to any increased punishment.

Hate crime legislation provides increased punishment for crimes committed by ANYONE (regardless of their race) against any other person for racial reasons. It punishes white, black, yellow or green equally - makes no difference.

Therefore, hate crime legislation is not violative of the Equal Protection clause.

Hate crimes are enhanced punishment based on how the defendant felt about the victim.

A serial who hates tall women, and seeks them out and murders them, and a serial killer who hates gay women and seeks them out and murders them should face the same punishment.

Lots of crimes are committed out of hate, that doesn't mean it's ok to give people a harsher sentence because you don't agree with their reasons behind the crime.

Yes, hate crimes provide for enhanced punishment based on how the defendant felt about the victim.

Virtually all crimes are committed out of some degree of "hate." The law has decided that some forms of hate are worse than others and deserve added punishment. You may not agree with that, but it is the law - and I agree with it fully. To me, a cretin who drags a black man behind his pickup truck because he hates blacks is far, far worse than a guy who beats another guy up because he thinks the other guy has been sleeping with his wife.

In the latter case, one can see a rational reason for what happened. In the former, no rational reason at all appears, other than bigotry and prejudice. Don't you see that disctinction?

You never answered my question: How can a person be against hate crime legislation and not be in favor of the commission of hate crimes?

Now you want to split hairs about the quality or degree of hate that motivated a crime?

 

[MikeK]

Then why is it, I wonder, that so many conservatives DO object to hate crime legislation? Anyone care to hazard a guess? I'll take a shot ...

Because they FAVOR picking on the weak and helpless, humiliating the less fortunate and generally conducting themselves along the lines of the true, authoritarian personalities that so many of them have. The last thing they want is for the government to cut through to one of their favorite pasttimes and punish them more for engaging in it because it is so much more reprehensible tha similar conduct that is not directed against the less fortunate merely because they are less fortunate or weaker.

How can anyone argue AGAINST hate crime legislation and not be FOR the committing of hate crimes?

All right, cons . . . . bring it on . . . .

Or maybe they just favor equal protection under the law.

Hate crime legislation has been held time and time again NOT to violate Equal Protection.

If a law provided for increased punishment for any white person who, for racial reasons, assaulted a person of any other race, such a law would violate Equal Protection, because it would punish members of only one race while allowing members of other races to commit similar crimes without being subjected to any increased punishment.

Hate crime legislation provides increased punishment for crimes committed by ANYONE (regardless of their race) against any other person for racial reasons. It punishes white, black, yellow or green equally - makes no difference.

Therefore, hate crime legislation is not violative of the Equal Protection clause.

What has always puzzled me about so-called "hate crime" laws, as you have defined them, is unless the accused perpetrator of a hate crime openly confesses his motive, how is it possible to prove it was ethnic bias?

On that basis the very concept of "hate crime" prosecution seems nonsensical and futile.