is an absurd piece of legislation it creates "thought police" and this is just another act of political

pandering to a particular voting block by Obama.

Maybe the most rediculous part is that they(the Dems) have to attach it to a defense bill to get

it passed......politics as usual.....from the Libs.

So you think a Hate Crimes Bill couldn't pass on its own merit?

That's ridiculous. Who would be dumb enough to vote against it? Besides you? Smaller pieces of legislation get this treatment all the time. BY BOTH PARTIES.

NO it wouldn't, that is why they attached it to the defense bill, I hate to confuse you with FACTS....but that is a fact.

Yes I would vote against punishing people for what you think.... they think.......punish them for their actions.

PS all violent crimes are hate crimes.

Intent is a large part of any law.

Your hate clouds your thinking.

Intent plays no part in the law your lack of IQ clouds your thinking.

I don't think it's a matter of punishing people for what they think, rather it's punishing action that intensifies the impact to the victim. You may disagree, but it's not outrageous to believe that a family will suffer more if a racial slur is spray-painted on their house as opposed to nonsense like "tagging." Victim-impact is a significant and increasing factor in modern criminal jurisprudence, so it's not unreasonable that the law would be updated this way. (Though there are fair arguments on the other side, as well). The thoughts in the tagger's mind might be even more hateful than the thoughts of the other criminal. However, it's not the thoughts that count.

I'd think it likely would pass but why attach it to a defense bill?

I don't think this is a "smaller piece of legislation".

I've never agreed with a Hate Crime bill because the murder of any person is just as awful, regardless of whether the person is gay or not. I think a Hate Crime bill is unnecessary. But, I'm open to rethinking it.

But, isn't that considered by the judge anyway when sentencing occurs? That's where a judge's discretion is included.

That's a good point, but leaving something entirely up to judicial discretion connotes a lack of commitment to the goal sought after. Presently, a judge can take the hate-crime aspect into sentencing or ignore it entirely. Like victim-impact, mandatory minimum sentencing is something that has boomed over the last generation (primarlily, but not always, associated with a politically conservative model of retributive justice). Concerns about "judicial activism" have led legislatures to narrow the options available to judges. Again, there are positive and negative aspects to this, and I think we've increasingly seen problems with mandatory minimums, but that's been the trend.

Perhaps you're right and I don't pretend to ignore the fact that there are rogue judges who are either way too harsh or way too lenient. However, if I have to prioritize whether I have the most legal and moral confidence in a lawyer, a politician or a judge, I'll take the judge every day.

With that said, judges can be removed from the bench.

Yes, it does. But proponents of this type of law frequently confuse "intent" with "motivation." Our legal system has always based punishments on intent, but hate crime laws are about motivation, not intent. If a man goes home and finds another man in bed with his wife and shoots him, that's 2nd degree murder, because he was so angry and out of control that he couldn't really form the requisite intent for murder. In contrast, if that same man leaves and then follows the man home from work and shoots him 2 weeks later, that's first degree murder, because he had time to form intent to kill, which is considered more egregious. In both cases, the motivation is the same.

Hate crime laws punish motivation, rather than intent. If I punch a guy because I don't like the way he looks, how is that any worse than punching a guy because of his race or sexual orientation? What if I don't like fat people and punch someone for that reason? Laws like this just throw up more imaginary barriers between groups when we should be taking them down, IMO.

I agree, and I think at least within the federal system, the quality of judges and the check/balance mechanisms are strong enough so that these societal goals could be accomplished with a gentler hand that provides greater judicial discretion.

However, it always comes back to politics and I think liberals have watched Congress restrict judges to accomplish conservative goals for a generation, now they want to do the same thing to accomplish their own goals.

If we lived in Fantasyland, we might have parties that decided "the opposition went too far in this area, let's cut it back a little." Instead, we get, "the opposition went too far in this area, we'd better do the same thing and ramp it up a little to get what we want."

And so our laws get so convoluted it takes a lawyer to understand them. (Similar to tax laws and work programs for accountants.)

Reminds me of the Gore/Bush debate, Gore brings up the 'fact' that the guy who did the horrific dragging crime in Texas wasnt charged with a 'hate crime', somehow as it would be better if he was.

Never mind within the normal judicial system the guy was sentenced to death.

I too agree with this whole intent aspect to a 'hate crime' law.

Mike Royko did a piece on racially based motives on crime, unfortunately I have not been able to find it via google. But basically the artcle was about a black kid who went through bridgeton and was attacked by a gang of whites and how the community (rightfully) was up in arms about the event. But he also made the point that if a white kid walked through the Robert taylor homes and was attacked that there would be little controversy about the crime being a 'hate' crime or racially motivated.

Royko made the point in some of the best prose I have ever read on the subject, but it is relevent to the whole 'hate crime' idea.

To me you have laws, if someone breaks them you find them guilty, and punish based on that fact. Now sentencing has always been about the details of the crime, I personally think there should be a large leeway given to judges. And I have no problem with a tougher sentence if a crime was done in an aggrevated manner.

Like a previous poster mentioned, we wont take the next step in race relations unless we move past seeing things in terms of race/religion/sexual orientation etc. Creating laws that look for, and sentence specifcally for those differences strikes me as just another form of bigotry.

Wow. MiniDitka providing the slap down!

Intent as well as motivation play into hate crimes.

Motivation is already part of the law. This is reason why threatening to kill the POTUS is a crime punishable by up to 5 years in jail.

"...Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/871.shtml

Thanks for the compliment, but you are also confusing intent with motivation. Only intent matters under the law you posted - you have to intend to threaten the president, or at least do it knowingly or willfully. Under this law, the reason WHY you are threatening the POTUS (i.e. your motivation) does not matter.

let me put it this way, a non hate crime affects the victim and those who know the victim. A hate crime affects all of those in the same class even though they might not know the victim.

The Klan lynched African Americans in the town square and left the body hanging from the tree to scare other African Americans.

More victims. New charge.

Right, but that's not what hate crime laws do. A hate crime law is NOT a new charge - it merely increases the sentence for an existing crime based on the motivation. For example, if you punch someone because you don't like his race, your sentence is greater than if you punch him because you don't like his clothes. What is the sense in that?

And you are still confusing intent with motivation. When the Klan lynched people, they had the INTENT to harass and intimidate other people. That intent has NOTHING to do with hate crime laws, which focus on motivation instead of intent. It's enough to form a separate crime all by itself even without hate crime laws. You can charge someone with harassment or intimidation in addition to murder for that, because there is INTENT to intimidate. Hate crime laws only come into play if the offender picks his victim because of his race. If they just picked up a random guy off the street, ignoring his race, and lynched him in order to intimidate others, that wouldn't be a hate crime. The intent would be the same, but the motivation would be different. I don't see how one is worse than the other, or more deserving of punishment.

This is correct.

Why are we having this debate? There is sense in punishing someone more harshly for being motivated by racial hate than fashion hate. That's not debatable.

And codifying a new area of law, hate crime law, is simply a continuation of using law to push social agendas. It's been done forever, and it will continue to be done because most people are completely ignorant and need mores to be legislated into their lives.

Get on Google and put in "mens rea" and see what you get.

Synonyms.

Not in legal terms.

Intent when used in the criminal law means an intent to commit a further offense than the one committed. e.g. assault with intent to rape or whatever. To convict someone of that requires proof that they had the further intent as their purpose in committing the crime.

The post earlier made a good point that you could make a hate crimes law that was specific intent crime rather than just a sentencing escalator that would punish KKK types for their intent to cause terror in a certain community.

And just as a general point, I hate it when politicians flex their muscles by arbitrarily ramping up criminal sentencing. It's distorting justice for political expediency, and it preys on societies worst instincts.

That depends on what you mean by "sense." If you mean that there are some rational arguments in favor of it, then yes, you are correct. If you mean that it's a sensible means to a sensible end, then that's very, very debatable (and wrong, in my opinion).

IPI Crim3d defines a person who acts with intent when his conscious objective is to accomplish a result or engage in conduct. Intent is not necessarily prospective, as when one causes the death of another having acted with intent to do so, without legal justification, it being first degree murder. Motivation isn't really a legal term at all; you won't find it in the Criminal Code. By the way, I do this for a living.

Right. Motivation had never been a part of criminal law before the enaction of hate crime laws. Motivation only fit into criminal trials because prosecutors found it easier to convince a jury that someone was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt if they could establish a motive for that person to commit the illegal acts. There has never been a law that said you have to show a motive to convict someone.

Hate crime laws do punish a person based on their motivation for committing a crime. This is a departure from previously well-established legal principles, which is one of the reasons I object to them.

If you rob a person over 60, it's a greater class felony. Battery is a misdemeanor, but battery of a police officer is a felony. There are plenty of protected groups and classes, crimes against whom carry greater penalties. Actually, for hate crimes, the state's burden is greater because they must demonstrate that the defendant intended to commit his crime against a member of the target group, not that he just happened to, as in the case of robbery of a person over 60. By the way, all races, not just minorities, are protected by the Illinois hate crime law.

Yes, but the examples you give do not punish motivation, because (as you said) it doesn't matter what your motivation is. There isn't a chance of an overzealous prosecutor trying to dig up dirt to paint you as someone who hates old people or cops in order to get a longer sentence and make himself look better. That is a concern with hate crime laws, if you punch someone who happens to be a different race than you. The fact that Illinois' hate crime law protects all races makes it more clear that these laws are about punishing motivation rather than establishing protected classes.

My bigger problem with hate crime laws, as I said before, is that they create additional imaginary divisions between races, when we need to be eliminating those divisions and treating everyone as if they were the same. Laws like this reenforce the proposition that races are different and separate. Attacking an old person or a cop is worse than attacking someone else, for the simple reason that they are an old person or a cop. They are clearly and identifiably different and more worthy of protection due to their frail nature or their position of authority. That logic does not follow to different races or sexual orientations unless you accept the proposition that different races have natural characteristics that render them more or less worthy or protection.

You're confusing 2nd degree murder with manslaughter. The difference between 1st and 2nd degree murder has nothing to do with the person being in or out of control (those are concepts that are relevant to a manslaughter analysis), it has to do with the planning and forethought associated with the crime. If a liberal wacko sees Rush Limbaugh on the street and decides to shoot him because they happen to have a gun and don't like his politics, that's 2nd degree. If they drive over to his house, kick in his door and shoot him for the same reason, that's first degree.

Sorry, you're right. I mixed up 2nd degree and manslaughter. The point remains the same though.

I love where you head is at here, but it's a little Utopian to pull the 'treat everyone equal' card. Just doesn't happen. Divisions are real and they happen everyday, in both the minds and actions of people. Laws have been out there forever that reinforce these divisions, whether intentional or not. Racial profiling is often (later) lauded as good police work. In other cases it's blatant racism. Those 'hunting' terrorists have found potential dangerous cells in one step, and wrongfully imprisoned others... all by association with Islam. Why in the 80s/90s, were penalties so different for people busted with coke (trended towards more affluent/whites) and those busted with crack (trended towards inner city, black)? Because Reagan and the War on Drugs said so?

These laws are in place to give the courts, on a case by case basis, the ability to punish those who not only acted with pure hate but took advantage of a situation where the victim had little protection. To me, there's a pretty big difference between two groups of kids getting into a brawl, and a group of skinheads overwhelming some unsuspecting black kids and using their faces to play curb stomp. But that's just me...

Just because laws have reenforced divisions doesn't mean they should. The process of tearing down racial divisions is gradual, and it won't happen overnight. The last thing we need is more divisions to tear down, which is what these laws create. Of course everyone will never be actually treated equally, but your examples have nothing to do with hate crime laws. Hate crime laws are not designed as reparations or something similar, since they often do not protect certain specific races. Instead, they ostensibly protect all races against all other races (i.e., creating legal racial divisions).

Also, the difference in egregiousness in your two examples have nothing to do with race, since your situations aren't similar. A proper comparison is whether there's any real difference between a group of skinheads curb stomping a white guy because he looked at them wrong or that same group of skinheads curb stomping a black guy because he's black. I don't see any difference in the two, and certainly not any difference that warrants a stricter punishment.

Intent and motivation are not synonyms. Intent is what you want to accomplish, and motivation is why you want to accomplish it. If you intend to cause serious bodily harm to another person, is it really worse that you did it because someone was gay or black than if it was a random act of violence. I have a real problem with harsher punishments based not on the harm you caused the victim but rather on some perceived motivation behind it. Because whatever the motivation it is a crime.

I'm also not saying that it is impossible to factor motivation as aggravation for sentencing. My problem is with mandating it.

PS I also think naming a law after a victim of a horrible crime should be outlawed because that automatically makes the motivations behind that law suspect. Our politicians shouldn't be conducting witch hunts for political gain.

I think the only reason Obama signed the defense authorization was to be able to pass the hate crimes portion.