TexasCHLforum.com

WildBill wrote:After doing a little research, I found that other countries have hate crime laws. I thought that they existed only in the U.S. because of congress pandering to certain groups of people.

I disagree with having hate crime laws. If I were all judge, I would declare hate crimes to be unconstitutional. IANAJ .

Oldgringo wrote:Brilliant Bill, positively brilliant. No more mollycoddlin' of criminals and their lawyers, I'm all for it.

tallmike wrote:Not that I think hate crimes are a good idea, but we take motivation for a crime into account in many areas of the law. Accidents are not treated the same as intentional acts. Intentional acts to enrich ourselves and random acts of violence are treated differently than intentional acts to save another or save ourselves.

Again, hate crimes are not something I would argue for, but arguing against them by saying that the motivation for a crime makes no difference is not being honest.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:In my opinion, so called hate crimes violate the equal protection requirements of the U.S. Constitution. If someone rapes, tortures and murders a woman, it shouldn't matter if she was of a different color from her attacker. To do so elevates the value of one person's life and diminishes the value of another. It's political pandering at its worst.

Chas.

b322da wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:In my opinion, so called hate crimes violate the equal protection requirements of the U.S. Constitution. If someone rapes, tortures and murders a woman, it shouldn't matter if she was of a different color from her attacker. To do so elevates the value of one person's life and diminishes the value of another. It's political pandering at its worst.

Chas.

With the greatest of respect, Chas., as I am sure you know, but perhaps as some of your readers do not know, the rape, torture and murder of a woman of a different color does not, in and of itself, constitute a hate crime. Congress has carefully defined, and limited, a hate crime to a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against such as a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation. The woman's rape, torture and murder is a hate crime only if it was motivated in whole or in part by as bias against a person of that color.

b322da wrote:". . . Hate crimes demand a priority response because of their special emotional and psychological impact on the victim and the victim's community. The damage done by hate crimes cannot be measured solely in terms of physical injury or dollars and cents. Hate crimes may effectively intimidate other members of the victim's community, leaving them feeling isolated, vulnerable and unprotected by the law. By making members of minority communities fearful, angry and suspicious of other groups -- and of the power structure that is supposed to protect them -- these incidents can damage the fabric of our society and fragment communities." http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Charles L. Cotton wrote: We are going to have to disagree...

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

b322da wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:In my opinion, so called hate crimes violate the equal protection requirements of the U.S. Constitution. If someone rapes, tortures and murders a woman, it shouldn't matter if she was of a different color from her attacker. To do so elevates the value of one person's life and diminishes the value of another. It's political pandering at its worst.

Chas.

With the greatest of respect, Chas., as I am sure you know, but perhaps as some of your readers do not know, the rape, torture and murder of a woman of a different color does not, in and of itself, constitute a hate crime. Congress has carefully defined, and limited, a hate crime to a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against such as a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation. The woman's rape, torture and murder is a hate crime only if it was motivated in whole or in part by as bias against a person of that color.

You're absolutely right and that is my point. It should also be noted that it takes little evidence to elevate any crime to a so-called hate crime. When this happens, the life of a victim of the same color (for example) is diminished when compared to the life of a victim of a different color. The rape/murder example was just that, an example, but the principle applies to everything from damaging property to an open-handed slap to my murder example.

b322da wrote:". . . Hate crimes demand a priority response because of their special emotional and psychological impact on the victim and the victim's community. The damage done by hate crimes cannot be measured solely in terms of physical injury or dollars and cents. Hate crimes may effectively intimidate other members of the victim's community, leaving them feeling isolated, vulnerable and unprotected by the law. By making members of minority communities fearful, angry and suspicious of other groups -- and of the power structure that is supposed to protect them -- these incidents can damage the fabric of our society and fragment communities." http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I agree that this is the ADL's alleged justification for the statute, but I could not disagree more with this premise. I believe it is factually inaccurate and philosophically wrong. While I agree that the the stated consequences could, indeed would, result from genocide as in the Holocost, or with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or the Sudan, it does not result from isolated crimes committed against individuals in the United States. All Jews were terrified in Nazi Germany because of what was being done to all Jews. This is not the same fact pattern as an isolated property damage, simple assault, or rape/murder perpetrated against a person of another race or color, or any other basis for prejudice.

We are going to have to disagree as to whether the application of so-called hate crime provisions diminish the value of one person's live relative to another. When we leave the theoretical halls of law school or Congress and enter the homes of crime victims, all the alleged justification for special treatment of one group of people runs headlong in to reality. Huntsville just saw the execution of the leader of a gang that brutally tortured, raped, then murdered two teenage girls. One girl was Caucasian, the other was Hispanic, and all five of their attackers where Hispanic. These innocent girls were killed in 1993 and the crimes were not subject to "hate crime" laws. But if they occurred today, how could we possibly stand before the parents of Elizabeth Pena and tell them her murderers deserved a more severe punishment for killing Jennifer Ertman because she was white? (Again, about all it would take to transform the attack against Jennifer into a hate crime would be to have evidence of a racial slur against her.)

When all the rhetoric is stripped away, hate crime provisions diminish the value of one person's life, liberty or property as compared to another. When we allow this to happen, we don't take a stand against bigotry, we foster it.

Chas.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

b322da wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:In my opinion, so called hate crimes violate the equal protection requirements of the U.S. Constitution. If someone rapes, tortures and murders a woman, it shouldn't matter if she was of a different color from her attacker. To do so elevates the value of one person's life and diminishes the value of another. It's political pandering at its worst.

Chas.

With the greatest of respect, Chas., as I am sure you know, but perhaps as some of your readers do not know, the rape, torture and murder of a woman of a different color does not, in and of itself, constitute a hate crime. Congress has carefully defined, and limited, a hate crime to a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against such as a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation. The woman's rape, torture and murder is a hate crime only if it was motivated in whole or in part by as bias against a person of that color.

You're absolutely right and that is my point. It should also be noted that it takes little evidence to elevate any crime to a so-called hate crime. When this happens, the life of a victim of the same color (for example) is diminished when compared to the life of a victim of a different color. The rape/murder example was just that, an example, but the principle applies to everything from damaging property to an open-handed slap to my murder example.

b322da wrote:". . . Hate crimes demand a priority response because of their special emotional and psychological impact on the victim and the victim's community. The damage done by hate crimes cannot be measured solely in terms of physical injury or dollars and cents. Hate crimes may effectively intimidate other members of the victim's community, leaving them feeling isolated, vulnerable and unprotected by the law. By making members of minority communities fearful, angry and suspicious of other groups -- and of the power structure that is supposed to protect them -- these incidents can damage the fabric of our society and fragment communities." http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I agree that this is the ADL's alleged justification for the statute, but I could not disagree more with this premise. I believe it is factually inaccurate and philosophically wrong. While I agree that the the stated consequences could, indeed would, result from genocide as in the Holocost, or with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or the Sudan, it does not result from isolated crimes committed against individuals in the United States. All Jews were terrified in Nazi Germany because of what was being done to all Jews. This is not the same fact pattern as an isolated property damage, simple assault, or rape/murder perpetrated against a person of another race or color, or any other basis for prejudice.

We are going to have to disagree as to whether the application of so-called hate crime provisions diminish the value of one person's live relative to another. When we leave the theoretical halls of law school or Congress and enter the homes of crime victims, all the alleged justification for special treatment of one group of people runs headlong in to reality. Huntsville just saw the execution of the leader of a gang that brutally tortured, raped, then murdered two teenage girls. One girl was Caucasian, the other was Hispanic, and all five of their attackers where Hispanic. These innocent girls were killed in 1993 and the crimes were not subject to "hate crime" laws. But if they occurred today, how could we possibly stand before the parents of Elizabeth Pena and tell them her murderers deserved a more severe punishment for killing Jennifer Ertman because she was white? (Again, about all it would take to transform the attack against Jennifer into a hate crime would be to have evidence of a racial slur against her.)

When all the rhetoric is stripped away, hate crime provisions diminish the value of one person's life, liberty or property as compared to another. When we allow this to happen, we don't take a stand against bigotry, we foster it.

Chas.

Charles, if you don't mind, I'm going to use your words elsewhere. You've summed up perfectly the argument against hate crimes statutes.