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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (125773)	7/17/2005 8:12:38 PM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793684

They should be. It is outrageous that the Supremes passed this by They distinguished hate crime from hate speech - hate speech law is pretty much flat out unconstitutional. RAV v. City of St. Paul is the case. The hate crime cases they've heard are sentencing enhancement statutes, like in Wisconsin v. Mitchell and more recently Apprendi v. NY. They're ok because they proscribe conduct, not speech, and intent and motive is a valid sentencing factor. So some guy kills someone because of their race, they get murder and a hate crime sentencing enhancement, for example. But after Apprendi, the finding of bias has to be determined by a jury, and has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, so it's a pretty high bar. I still think it's totally redundant hooey. Derek

To: LindyBill who wrote (125773)	7/17/2005 8:24:50 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793684

I believe reasonable and rational men can come to agreement on crimes of mitigating circumstances to crimes that warrant additional sanction. The example given at equalitymaryland.org seems quite reasonable to me. Your use of Dean Martin song seems quite dumb to me. It's not what you are thinking, it's how you commit a crime. HATE CRIMES What is a Hate Crime? When teenagers spray paint random graffiti on the façade of a bridge, this is a crime of vandalism. When teenagers spray paint a Nazi swastika with the words "die Jews" on a synagogue, this is an altogether different crime. This is a hate crime. Hate crimes differ from other crimes in that they target a whole community as opposed to just an individual victim. Hate crimes are intended to cause fear to an entire group of people. A hate crime sends a message that an individual and "their kind" will not be tolerated, many times leaving the victim and others in their group feeling isolated, vulnerable and unprotected.