Re: Joe "So if say my car loses control and I hit you accidentally, I murder you."

No, I though I explained this already. Accidentally killing someone is manslaughter, not murder. If there is no intent to kill you cannot be convicted of murder. Intent always determines the severity of the crime, except in the case of "hate crimes," which are determined by motive.

Re: Adam "This argument strikes me as strange. It seems like you are saying that if a judge takes it into consideration that the sole reason for one person killing another was the religion, skin color or sexual orientation of the victim, then somehow this is a violation of the murderers beliefs?"

No, this has nothing to do with "violating someone's beliefs." It's about punishing people differently because they have certain beliefs, which violates the principle of blind justice.

Further, it's easy to see why we treat robbery differently from assault, or murder in the first degree differently from murder in the second degree, but it is not clear why a crime motivated by racism should be treated differently from the same crime motivated by personal hatred, or whatever other despicable reason. So why do you think hate crimes deserve more punishment?

Whether anyone likes them or not is irrelevant. If they are not APPLIED equally, the entire notion of the law is unjust. The constitution guarantees equal application of the law. If this event does not get prosecuted as a hate crime, it is clear the law is unjust. Plain and simple.

This argument strikes me as strange. It seems like you are saying that if a judge takes it into consideration that the sole reason for one person killing another was the religion, skin color or sexual orientation of the victim, then somehow this is a violation of the murderers beliefs? You should consider that the murder victim would have had his beliefs violated, which is the belief that he shouldn't be murdered for being black, gay, Muslim, or Christian. And since when have "beliefs" been sacrosanct in a murder case?

Again, I suspect that you might think that these laws give some classes of victims special treatment and not others, but that isn't the case. There are differing degrees of crime, and judges and prosecutors make these distinctions all the time. Otherwise we might as well just have robots handling our judicial system.

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So if say my car loses control and I hit you accidentally, I murder you. But if I hunt you down and terrorize you and murder you, you're saying the punishment should be exactly the same? Murder is murder, right? No difference? Intent doesn't matter at all, right?

Re: Adam You didn't answer my question. Why is a "hate crime" worse than murdering someone because you hate them personally, or because you just don't care about human life? The distinction is completely arbitrary.

Re: Joe Yes, I completely agree, terrorism shouldn't be a crime, only murder. That's like punishing serial killers who kill people with brown hair because it scares people with brown hair. Or should that be a "hate crime" too? And by your logic, random crimes should be punished more severely, since they can hit anyone and thus terrorize everyone.

@Chris Just like everyone else, you're confusing motive with intent. The reason you wouldn't be charged with 6 murders is because you didn't INTEND to kill anyone. By definition, there is no motive in an ACCIDENT. It's funny that I told people not to confuse intent and motive in my last post, and yet you do it instantly.

There is nothing special about race or sexual orientation as motives compared to any other motive for murder. If justice is blind, it shouldn't treat bigots differently from any other murderer. Whether or not you intend to, Adam, you ARE indeed punishing people for their beliefs (specific beliefs that have been chosen arbitrarily) with hate crime laws.

Kev from Texas,

I think it's important to understand that under the US criminal justice system the motive for a crime matters as much, if not more, that the results of a particular action. For example, let's say you were driving along and you had a seizure. You lose control of your car and kill a family of 6 on their way to grocery store. You've killed six people. If motive doesn't matter then why shouldn't you be prosecuted as harshly as if you intentionally drove your car into that family? Basically put, you didn't have the intent to kill anyone. It just happened. Lots of harm but you won't be strapped to a table with a hot shot waiting for the governor's phone call.

Obviously, part of the role of the legal system is to determine the motivation that underlies an action and not just the action in and of it self. Obviously you must agree with that for if you don't then you are saying we should only judge people based on the results of their action. In which case your seizure induced accident would be dealt with as harshly as if you targeted that family for death. Remember, claiming it was an accident is an explanation of your motivation.

Now, being that we've established that the legal system *cares* about motivation then we can obviously look at the intent behind an action in addition to the results. As such, if someone drags a random black person to death behind their pickup because that person was black - and only because they were black, then that person had, as far as the legal system is concerned, more evil intent than someone who dragged a black man to death that, say, beat them up in bar last week. In the first case you hate black people as a whole and in the second you only hate that particular person because of what they did. Obviously, both involve the characteristic of hate but the focus of that hate is different and the first will result in enhanced penalties.

Neither one is 'alright' regardless of how you may think about it. Neither one is acceptable or less deserving of prosecution. Anyone who would argue that is reprehensible and I don't see anyone doing that here. Now, reasonable people can disagree on the merits of hate crime laws but no one who is reasonable can disregard the fact that motivation is a significant determinant in the penalties for the results of a specific action.

So why don't we treat terrorism simply as multiple counts of murder then if intent doesn't matter? It is, after all, a particularized form of a hate crime, one targeted towards a larger group: Americans. Why do we call it out for special punishment instead of just murder?

Motives matter because the person goes from a random crime to a targeted crime, particularly because they are a member of a certain group. Most people of majority groups don't understand what it means to be targeted until, like now, it happens to them. There's a big difference that they still cannot imagine though: If someone is targeted because they are Christian, the possibility that they're targeted the orders of magnitude lower than being targeted than someone is gay, just in sheer numbers. If gay people were to target non-gay people, well, since gay people are only a few percent of the population, the threat is low. But because gay people are out-numbered (somewhere in the range of 10-30 to 1) the threat is that number squared higher for gay people. The odds of it happening to them are just that much larger, and it is a number borne out in FBI statistics.

This is why so many non-gay people don't believe these laws are necessary: They simply don't feel the problem. They fail to empathize with those who are literally terrorized by hate crimes, even when it happens to them, because they don't happen on nearly the same level of magnitude. So it's simple: if you felt targeted by this crime, imagine at terror multiplied by 1,000, and you start get to get an idea of why this is an issue in the first place.

"you want to make it a crime when someone who holds beliefs you disagree with acts violently."

That is absolutely not true. I don't agree with Fred Phelps. If Fred Phelps decides to beat up his non-gay neighbor (or his gay neighbor for that matter) because the neighbor partially blocked Mr. Phelp's driveway, I would certainly not be calling for him to be prosecuted under hate crime statutes.

If a mugger robs a guy coming out of a gay bar, I would not be calling for that mugger to be prosecuted under hate crime statutes, even if the mugger called the victim "a fag" during the course of the robbery.

A lot of you seem to be missing the distinction between what constitutes a hate crime and what doesn't. If the shooter went into the FRC lobby without having any idea what the FRC does, and only wanted to rob the place, not a hate crime. But he knew what they do, and more importantly, he knew about their religious beliefs and wanted to kill a few of them because of those beliefs. See? Hate crime.

You should also bear in mind that I am calling for hate crime laws to be applied in an even handed way, and not just in ways that please my political leanings, which I think is one of the biggest fears of people who don't like hate crimes. You seem to think that they will place certain groups into a 24 hour a day protective bubble against any and all crimes, and that anyone who commits a crime against a minority or a religious group will be prosecuted for a hate crime regardless of what the crime was, and that is not the case. That isn't how hate crime laws work.

"Motives absolutely matter. If a guy beats a random person into a coma in a bar fight because the random person happened to be standing in front of him, that is terrible. But if the same guy beats a black guy, or a jew, or a muslim, or a homosexual into that same coma specifically because he happened to belong to that respective group, that is significantly worse than terrible, and extra penalties should absolutely apply."

Why is it worse? It's bad to beat someone up, regardless of what kind of asshole you happen to be. Last I checked "hate" isn't a crime, but you want to make it a crime when someone who holds beliefs you disagree with acts violently. Not only does this not make sense, it goes against the fundamental principle of blind justice.

You guys also need to learn the difference between motive and intent. Motive is part of the burden of proof for prosecution. Intent is what determines the severity of the crime and punishment.

Adam is 100% correct that motives matter. This is not new, either, in the general legal arena or in the area of hate crimes specifically. The justice system of the 50 states as well as the federal courts system recognizes degrees of murder, the classification of which depends on the accused's mental state. Malice aforethought is an element of first degree, or premeditated, murder, where the state must prove the defendant possessed "mens rea," or an "evil mind." On that intangible bit of motive hangs a much more aggressive penalty than a lesser degree of having caused someone's death illegally. Hate crimes, which Adam rightly points out are more terrible than impulsive crimes, indicate the accused had a more evil state of mind, which has been traditionally punished more harshly than a crime committed without that essential evil quality. As my criminal law professor said many years ago, the degree of the crime, and the concomitant harshness of penalty, depends entirely on the perpetrator's "mental furniture." Some defendants have none (and are legally insane). Some have lots of bad stuff in there.

So Harmony, are you saying there should be zero difference in sentencing between someone trying to hold them up for their paper clips and someone targeting them up simply because of their beliefs? Because I get the impression this wouldn't have made the national news if this was the former...

Three priests in Michigan begged to be arrested under hate crime statutes for preaching that gays should be put to death under Leviticus. The judge asked them, "Are you actually going to kill them?" "No," they said, "that's G-d's to do." "Then what do you want me to arrest you for?" the judge asked. He then dismissed he case.

Another "Washington Deceased" Shooting

Re the Family Research Council shooting, it looks like Luke 17's two predicted "days" are becoming one "perviolent" day - and that the misguided critics of FRC don't NoahLot ! (Everyone should Google "The Anti-Chick-fil-A Jihad" and "Dangerous Radicals of the Religious Right.")

Kev. Buddy. Listen.

The guy who walked in to the offices of the Family Research Council apparently did so for no other reason than he wanted to kill fundamentalist Christians. Not for money, or because somebody there was messing around with his wife or boyfriend or whatever, but because of what they believed. That is terrible. Completely terrible. I would argue that it is even worse than robbing and killing for money or materialistic or jealous motives, and ultimately that's what hate crime laws are about. That's the point. And at no point did I ever say that it was entirely in the hands of the FRC as to whether or not they decide whether or not to prosecute under hate crime law standards. I think you got a little worked up and maybe the red you were seeing blocked the language you were reading, which is ok. That happens.

Then what is your point? Just to make a snarky commentary? Trying to be 'edgy'?
Recommend that in the future you think before you click 'submit'. It might keep you from making yourself out a fool, in public.

Kev,

Third paragraph:

"It’s ultimately up to DC to determine whether or not they prosecute this guy under hate crime statutes, and they would be well within their rights to."

Harmony, please find me one case on one court docket anywhere where someone has been prosecuted and locked up for thoughts and biases? I've looked, and I can't find any. Which is a good thing, because otherwise I would be doing time for hating the hell out of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Motives absolutely matter. If a guy beats a random person into a coma in a bar fight because the random person happened to be standing in front of him, that is terrible. But if the same guy beats a black guy, or a jew, or a muslim, or a homosexual into that same coma specifically because he happened to belong to that respective group, that is significantly worse than terrible, and extra penalties should absolutely apply.

Dear Jackass,
So it's okay to shoot the place up, as long as you don't say anything mean to the people while you're blowing their heads off? Have I got that about right? What if he didn't say anything? Would that make it less bad? Oh! I forgot. He had a Chick-fil-A bag. We'll tack on 10 years to life for that. This is nuts!!! And your thesis is moronic. FRC has no standing to tell the DA what to charge. Even the victim can't do that.

Adam, shooting at innocent people was illegal before hate crime laws were passed. Violent criminals were already indicted, prosecuted, and punished. Americans concerned with civil liberties oppose hate crime laws because they are unnecessary and they prosecute thoughts and biases, rather than the crimes that were already illegal--not because violence should go unpunished. Thus there is no irony in the fact that Family Research Council opposes hate crime laws yet wishes VIOLENT CRIMINALS to be punished, no matter who is their target.