I disagree - they were trying to intimidate as well. This is the ideal situation where an illegal act for a minor offence can be easily made appropriately severe by the application of hate-crime legislation.
-
Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more
South Carolina, tear down that flag!
- Thread starter Alferd_Packer
- Start date
I disagree - they were trying to intimidate as well. This is the ideal situation where an illegal act for a minor offence can be easily made appropriately severe by the application of hate-crime legislation.
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
And I really have problems with that. As much as I despise racism,I don't think making a misdeamnor offense into a felony just because of motive is a good idea.
I disagree, it was also intended to intimidate and/or incite further crimes against blacks. I can easily believe that such crimes would be harder to prove to a legal standard than required for conviction under hate-crime legislation.
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
Discussed a great deal before in this Forum. But just to summarize: a large number of crimes are routinely treated differently by the criminal justice system expressly because of motivation. Just one example: killing someone with your car by accident with neither carelessness nor intent is usually not considered a criminal act at all. Killing an individual with your car unintentionally but knowing that you are driving in manner that is reckless and might hurt others is usually the crime of involuntary manslaughter. Killing a person with your car intentionally is an even much more severe crime, that of murder 1. The only thing that distinguishes these acts is their motivation and what the "perp" is thinking.
Some like to convince others that "hate crimes" are thought crimes. But no one is seeking to charge anyone for what they were thinking, only what they were doing. And yes, in these cases what the individuals were doing was to attempt to intimidate an entire ethnicity, a terror crime.
Meadmaker
Unregistered
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2004
- Messages
- 29,033
I logged on to google news to see if anything was up with the Confederate flag these days. There was of course the Ebenezer Baptist case. There were also numerous acts of petty vandalism. Flags stolen. Rocks thrown at cars. One suspicious death. (possible anti-Confederate flag road rage.) At least one of the rock throwing incidents involved white guys with flags driving through black neighborhoods. That pattern was present in a couple of the stories: White guys with flags drive through black neighborhood. Angry black people inflict harm on persons or property of the white guys.
Ahh, what a wonderful world.
If someone sees a Confederate flag flying in your window, and throws a rock through the window, is it a hate crime?
Ahh, what a wonderful world.
If someone sees a Confederate flag flying in your window, and throws a rock through the window, is it a hate crime?
tyr_13
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2008
- Messages
- 18,095
It's almost as if people view what they're doing as a threat or something, for some historic reason.
Being a racist asshat isn't a protected class. So, probably not.
RandFan
Mormon Atheist
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2001
- Messages
- 60,135
Agreed ^^
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
So it's OK to give somebody greater punishment for a crime if he has the wrong ideology?
Nice.
Nice.
tyr_13
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2008
- Messages
- 18,095
No.
thaiboxerken
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2001
- Messages
- 35,104
Yes. Motive pays a significant role in our justice system.
No. It is OK to give someone greater punishment based on what they were trying to do. If I accidentally hit you in the nose when I am really trying to hit the ball it is punished less that if I hit you in the nose with the same baseball bat because I am trying to punish you for skipping out on a bet.
Would you have the law different?
And if I graffiti a fence with "jimbob '15" it is not the same as scrawling swastikas and extracts from mein kampf. Both are minor criminal damage, but one would be intended to intimidate and to incite violence... however it could be hard to show in several situations, whilst easy to convict against hate crime legislation.
ponderingturtle
Orthogonal Vector
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2006
- Messages
- 54,796
But calling out right wing terrorism for the danger it is to the american people only gets those places tracking it shut down by republicans in congress.
lobosrul
Master Poster
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2011
- Messages
- 2,313
You are confusing intent with motivation. If someone sprays graffiti because he views at as art, his intention is different than someone who sprays it to cause another fear. If someone sprays graffiti to cause another person fear because of a personal vendetta, his motive is different than a Neo-Nazi who sprays swastikas to scare his black neighbour. But his intention is the same: to intimidate.
The motivation for a crime rarely makes a difference in what a suspect is charged with in the US, hate crimes being the exception. It does sometimes make a difference in sentencing. Someone convicted of shop-lifiting to feed their hungry children can expect a lighter sentence than someone taking a stack of DVD's for example.
Last edited:
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
I think calling such actions "hate crimes" tends to elicit a certain confusion and misunderstanding of why said actions are treated differently; and does imply a kind of "thoughcrime" basis in many peoples' minds. It would be better to refer to them as what they are: acts of domestic terrorism.
Use either of these 2 words you wish; my point is unchanged and is that we have routinely charged (for thousands of years) people with quite different crimes based on the perception of intent/motivation. And yes, we also have sentenced people differently based on what the criminal justice system perceived as their motivation/intent while committing the crime (and we still do); often it plays a major role in determining if it is even a crime or not. The precise word (IANAL) is a very minor point to me.
And I agree with lunchdog: there has been an attempt by the right wing to portray "hate crime" laws as "thought crime" laws. To my knowledge, no "hate crime" law or rule in the USA charges anyone for anything that they may think, publicly express, or even actively lobby for. The "hate crime" rules are restricted to heinous physical acts, and in all cases that I know of, are based on doing something (vandalism, assault) that was already illegal; these rules simply make it a more serious crime (or allow more severe sentencing). Given the difficulty in proving a "hate crime" enhancement was indeed committed, I think these laws typically only apply to the most blatant acts. And to my knowledge, they apply to majority religions, ethnicities, etc. just as they apply to minority ones. If you are beaten because you are "white" it is a hate crime legally just as much if you are beaten because you are "black."
If you wish to argue that "hate crimes" are defined on "motivation" and other crimes are defined by "intent" I don't see this as an important issue.
lobosrul
Master Poster
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2011
- Messages
- 2,313
Umm I use those words as they are defined.
Intent: something that is intended; purpose; design;
Motivation: something that causes a person to act in a certain way, do a certain thing, etc.
Your analogy comparing hate crimes and vehicular homicide is flawed.
You said "Killing a person with your car intentionally is an even much more severe crime, that of murder 1. The only thing that distinguishes these acts is their motivation and what the "perp" is thinking. "
Not it isn't. Its the fact that the perp intentionally ran someone down, rather than getting behind the wheel after a night of drinking, or just didn't see someone step out in front of them.
I've never said hate crimes (as defined in the US) are thought crimes. Please also note that I called out right wing pundits for re-defining the word "socialism" to gain political points in another thread
And I do. Its special pleading. If someone beats the living crap out of me because they were having a bad day, I want them punished just as severely as if they did so because I'm white. There is no other example I can think of in the US criminal justice system where you are charged with a different crime based on your motivation for committing it (your REASON for doing it, not whether you meant to do it or not).
And I'll even add, the original purpose of hate crimes in the US was so that the federal justice department could try people of serious crimes where the state wouldn't because of racism. That was good. Using hate crime legislation to tack on extra punishment is not.
This appears to me to be a non-productive discussion. I get your point, I believe: that legally intent is focused on the goal of the action, whereas motivation can relate to the impetus for the action. And that may help to distinguish some legal language. However, here I believe that intent, wish, impetus, desire, motive, motivation and many more similar words are close enough in common speech to serve to make my point on the forum: that the criminal justice system does care very much what you were thinking and can as a consequence charge you and punish you very differently for the same physical act.
In fact, voluntary manslaughter is usually distinguished from murder based not only on what you were thinking at the time (in both cases "I am going to kill this person"), but how long you were thinking it and if a reasonable person would have been driven "momentarily" to such an action given the circumstances. So I would suggest that here the law is attempting to distinguish not only intent, but the basis of, and the length of, the motivation. The "intent" (to kill the person) is the same in both cases.
I thank you for supplying the proper legal terms. But to my mind, I am happy to have laws that attempt to fight terrorism against whole groups rather than laws that ignore such an intent/effect. And for reasons discussed elsewhere on this forum, I would rather have someone punished more severely if they beat me up because I am Jewish than if they beat me up because they are having a bad day. The effect on other Jews, and the impact of the action, is much greater in the first case. Just look at the recent example in Israel: someone knifed participants in a Gay Pride parade, then after his release from prison, did it again because (by his own statements) they were gay. I have no problem treating this more severely because of its impact on society compared to if he knifed people because they made fun of his face in a bar.
Last edited:
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
And that's one of the biggest problems with treating hate crimes like regular crimes: the chance of recidivism is profoundly higher with hate crimes, because they are motivated by ideology rather than circumstance or personal issues. They're pretty much guaranteed to re-offend unless their ideology changes.