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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: d[-_-]b who wrote (111701)	5/23/2009 11:01:52 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541358

I wonder if you'd be so quick to condemn some gays for attacking christians that voted down prop 8 if they were attacked - seems like a pretty clear hate crime or at least intolerance of others views and beliefs. Absolutely, I would in a flash. You said "if" - were there any such assaults in reality? Because if you don't make a positive choice to go assault someone you don't like, the issue doesn't arise. Non-perpetrators are at no risk from this statute. Free speech is still protected. I repeat my question, has any appeals court found hate crimes statutes unconstitutional and a violation of equal protection? Wiki has this on it: Justifications for harsher punishments for hate crimes focus on the notion that hate crimes cause greater individual and societal harm. It is said that, when the core of a person’s identity is attacked, the degradation and dehumanization is especially severe, and additional emotional and physiological problems are likely to result. Society then, in turn, can suffer from the disempowerment of a group of people. Furthermore, it is asserted that the chances for retaliatory crimes are greater when a hate crime has been committed. The riots in Los Angeles, California, that followed the beating of Rodney King, a Black motorist, by a group of White police officers are cited as support for this argument.[3] The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that penalty-enhancement hate crime statutes do not conflict with free speech rights because they do not punish an individual for exercising freedom of expression; rather, they allow courts to consider motive when sentencing a criminal for conduct which is not protected by the First Amendment.[38] When it enacted the Hate Crimes Act of 2000, the New York State Legislature found that: Hate crimes do more than threaten the safety and welfare of all citizens. They inflict on victims incalculable physical and emotional damage and tear at the very fabric of free society. Crimes motivated by invidious hatred toward particular groups not only harm individual victims but send a powerful message of intolerance and discrimination to all members of the group to which the victim belongs. Hate crimes can and do intimidate and disrupt entire communities and vitiate the civility that is essential to healthy democratic processes. In a democratic society, citizens cannot be required to approve of the beliefs and practices of others, but must never commit criminal acts on account of them. Current law does not adequately recognize the harm to public order and individual safety that hate crimes cause. Therefore, our laws must be strengthened to provide clear recognition of the gravity of hate crimes and the compelling importance of preventing their recurrence. Accordingly, the legislature finds and declares that hate crimes should be prosecuted and punished with appropriate severity."[39]

To: d[-_-]b who wrote (111701)	5/23/2009 1:22:45 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541358

>>Obiviously not every crime against one of these newly protected classes is a hate crime, even assault, but now the court must probe the depths to determine the level/degree of hate in every case. This is going to be applied poorly over time I feel - with various outcomes. No good deed goes unpunished I suspect and we'll rue the day the ACLU uses this to protect a pediphile.<< DB - You are correct that not every crime against one of the groups specified would be considered a hate crime. The fact that the victim might be gay, black, or whatever, is not the main issue, nor what defines a hate crime. Thus, the gay man lying in the hospital bed next to another assault victim would not be able to truthfully say that his assailant was punished more severely because he himself was gay. As for that last sentence, I'm appalled, and not just at your spelling. If some pedophile who also happens to be a homosexual is targeted and attacked because he's homosexual, then that would be, as defined under these laws, a hate crime. And so what? If he's attacked because he's a pedophile, then it wouldn't be a hate crime. You are certainly correct that this will make the job of the courts more difficult in some instances, because they will have a new class of crime, with its own set of rules to adjudicate. However, not being able to prove that a particular assault is a hate crime won't make prosecuting the actual assault any more difficult, as undoubtedly it will be charged as a separate count. - Allen