Yes, Walter WOULD be charged with a "hate crime," if it could be proved that he selected his victim (Albert) precisely because of his whiteness/atheism/homosexuality. The following passage is from a description of a landmark Supreme Court case on discriminatory selection of a victim, written by a lawyer who submitted briefs in the case:
...In "Wisconsin v. Mitchell," the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of laws that enhance the punishment of crimes involving the discriminatory selection of a victim. In 1989 Kenosha, Wisconsin resident Todd Mitchell incited a crowd to chase down and beat a white teenager who was walking nearby.
Mitchell, then nineteen, was incensed over a scene in the movie Mississippi Burning, where a white supremacist ruthlessly beat a young black child in the midst of prayer. Mitchell asked the crowd whether they were "hyped up" to "move on" some white people. When fourteen-year-old Gregory Riddick walked by he exclaimed, "There goes a white boy, go get him." The crowd did "get" Riddick and beat him into a temporary coma.
Mitchell had his sentence doubled from two years to four years out of a possible seven year maximum owin to Wisconsin's penalty enhancement law. The penalty enhancement law increased the sentence for crimes involving the "intentional selection" of a victim or property based on certain characteristics including race, religion, and national origin.
There are several bases for the constitutionality of hate crime penalty enhancers. First, discrimination is an evil that the government has an obligation to punish. People are free to believe what they want, but when they cross the line into committing a discriminatory crime, the government can punish both the underlying criminal act and the discriminatory act of target selection.
So while hateful ideas can not be punished, the civil or criminal discrimination that results from those beliefs can be punished. The rationale is that hateful ideas are a form of expression protected by the First Amendment. But discrimination, especially in the selection of a crime victim, is a form of harmful conduct that the government has an obligation to eradicate. Furthermore, the court found that enhanced punishment for hate crimes was warranted because the offenses were more violent, disruptive and harmful than similar crimes lacking the discriminatory component......
loki.stockton.edu
Please note, of course, that Mitchell was black, in case your point was that individuals from traditionally discriminated-against won't be prosecuted for hate crimes if they are the ones committing them. |
