"Hate Crime", and it's terrible implications

Yep. My line of work means snatches of computer time. Do your best ... show me the goods.

 

Nope. You just use that next snatch of time to read the link.

 

If I was sufficiently interested. Right now I'm using those moments for the Homelessness thread

 

Its called a 'hate' crime but that's just a generic name. What, if any emotion someone was feeling prior to or during a criminal act has nothing to do with the legalities involved. The point is that legally hate crimes are treated as more serious because the motivation for that type of crime both increases the likelihood of further offending and decreases the chances of there being any mitigating circumstances. Such crimes also tend to involve higher degrees of premeditation.

So the summarize: (1) The likelihood of re offending, (2) the presence of any mitigating circumstances and (3) the degree of premeditation involved. These are all factors that weigh heavily on judges when making sentence determinations. And in the case of hate crimes those factors don't do the convicted party any favors.

 

No. Not all are prison gangs. I don't know where you get that sort of information. They're not all in prison gangs.

 

While the reasons make sense in theory, in reality such a thing is entirely unknowable. Since no one can know whether 'hate' was present - and even if that were possible, hate is subjective - it's really an exercise in advancing powers. That's the point of the thread.

You've verified that power seeking, in advising that the asumption of the presence of particular emotions, allows for harsher sentencing. What if a future Govt simply decides that speaking against the state is 'hate', and so instead of rapping you over the knuckles, they lock you up?

 

That's how it actually works in practice, not just theory. And there's no 'advance' in powers. The legalities around the likelihood of re-offending, the presence (or absence) of mitigating circumstances and premeditation have been well established at law for generations and are applied in all criminal trials regardless of the offense. The only way hate crimes differ is that it's more likely these factors will weigh more harshly against the offender than in other types of serious crime. Note use of the term 'likely' given the specific merits of each will vary from case to case, hate crime or not.

As I have said repeatedly 'hate crime' is a convenient label used to denote certain underlying aspects of specific instances of crime. They could just as easily be labelled a as 'bigotry crimes ' or 'racist crimes' or any other label of choice someone decides to pluck at random from a thesaurus. But we're stuck with 'hate' so hate it is.

And as a rule the courts don't give a flying 'f' about what emotions the offender was 'feeling' unless its raised by the defense during trial or otherwise brought into evidence via things like admissions made during questioning. And it's certainly not a consideration at sentencing - unless the convicted party has admitted to feeling emotions (joy, excitement???) that a Judge deems need to be taken into consideration when looking at the issues of mitigation or the likelihood of re-offending (back to those things again).

 

Exactly my point. And when that equates to harsher sentencing .. or worse (as has already happened), the criminalisation of previously non-criminal activities and words ... it becomes less about justice today, and more about the certain future abuse of such power.

 

Looks like you have some time available.

 

Salon shooting suspect indicted for anti-Asian hate crime
DALLAS (AP) — A man accused of shooting three Asian American women at a hair salon was indicted Tuesday on multiple counts, including committing a hate crime.

The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office announced the indictment Tuesday of Jeremy Terrence Smith, 37, for the May 11 shooting at a salon in Dallas’ Koreatown. It alleges Smith entered the salon and fired 13 shots from a .22-caliber rifle, wounding three women and endangering four others.

“Smith is alleged to have intentionally selected the complainants because of his bias or prejudice against Asian Americans,” according to the statement.

... https://news.yahoo.com/salon-shooting-suspect-indicted-anti-214440446.html

 

The 'label' applied to a crime has zero, repeat zero effect on sentencing and there is no evidence proving otherwise. Furthermore and sorry to say but any argument to the contrary is fantasy. To say otherwise is to argue that all words like 'high speed', 'violent', 'serious' or indeed any other word in the English language ever used as an adjective when describing crime is also being 'criminalized'.

 

Did you not say that 'hate crime' attracts higher sentencing that other random crime (in other words, random crime which doesn't have the emtion 'hate' attached to it)?

 

No, sentencing decisions are not based on the choice of adjectives used to describe any particular crime. In the case of hate crimes the onus is on the prosecution to prove that the actions taken by the accused and the motivations underpinning those actions meet the criteria specified in the legislation. If the they do? Fine the matter can be prosecuted as a 'hate crime. If they don't don't? Then the matter has to be prosecuted via whichever charge best matches the conduct. Alternately is some jurisdictions the court may have the option of having the jury find the accused guilty of an alternate (lessor?) charge if the jury isn't convinced that all the elements needed to prove it was a hate crime have been satisfied.

The thing is how a hate crime is defined at law and what conditions have to be met before any crime can be prosecuted as one is going to very from jurisdiction to jurisdiction so there's no way to give a simple answer. How a hate crime is defined in statute law will depend on what jurisdiction your talking about - and you really need a lawyer to work through all the specifics. Point is though no prosecutor can just walk into court and say 'your honor this is a hate crime' he or she has to support that contention with evidence.

 

1) Exactly the problem. Once it's allowed, the definition will be adjusted according to the mores of the day and the power.

2) Obviously, but that 'evidence' is always going to be a fiction, given it's not possible to know what motivated someone in the absence of personal links .. or even prior sentiments. The evidence will be found either way, when this particular charge is favoured. Again, this is the problem.

 

On the first issue? So what? Law has always reflected the mores of the days when mankind first stated making them. Its been that why since Ur-Nammu started issuing edicts about 4000 years ago. It was that way when it was 'legal' to burn witches in Salem. So whats the your point?

On the second issue? As I keep telling you its entirely possible to know what someones motivation was. For a start they can tell you and for the second you can look at the evidence. And in any case what is this fixation you have with having to prove a person convicted of a hate crime was actually feeling hate at the time? The might have felt elated, they might have felt anger, they might have 'felt' nothing. Hate the emotion is not the essential element of a hate crime. Why do you find that so hard to understand? Its just a name, a descriptor.

 

what would they do in your country?

 

Blacks kill whites quite a lot. So much that it's not considered news. I'm hard pressed to remember when a Black person was charged with a hate crime in regards to killing white people. I'm sure it happens if the black person actually comes out and confesses that he did it out of hate, but that's not required for the reverse. It seems to be assumed.


link: here

If you know of any situations like that I would be curious.

 

how about the stats for black cops killing whites vs white cops killing blacks

 

Those would be interesting statistics! Why don't you get them and post them here and we can discuss.

 

if I had them, would not of asked

 

Thank you for your service.

 

thanks for your help as well

 

Hate is an emotion. Furthermore, it's subjective. What you regard as hate, will not be the same as what I regard as hate. What you regard as the feeling of hatred, someone else might recognise as a feeling of anger, or frustration. So it's not just subjective, it's not even definable.

 

The same thing, probably. This is creeping into all Western nations.

 

what does it matter?