Should these people be charged with the new hate crime legislation?

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=30504 - http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=30504

FreeEnterprise wrote: Should these people be charged with the new hate crime legislation? http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=30504 - http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=30504

Pray, do tell - what is this "new hate crime legislation" of which you speak?

"Hate crime laws" is another one of those fluffed-up concepts that is vastly misunderstood and blown way out of proportion on a regular basis.  As in this thread.

Bruce Banner wrote: FreeEnterprise wrote: Should these people be charged with the new hate crime legislation? http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=30504 - http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=30504 Pray, do tell - what is this "new hate crime legislation" of which you speak? "Hate crime laws" is another one of those fluffed-up concepts that is vastly misunderstood and blown way out of proportion on a regular basis.  As in this thread.

Bruce, you have no credibility.

you stated you make $250,000...

you stated that agentwhale is a newspaper editor and reporter... (high school or college papers aren't "real" papers...)

but, here you go...

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/Sh4z0n555pnuvbw55xcf1coic/mileg.aspx?page=getobject&objectname=mcl-750-147b&userid - http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(h4z0n555pnuvbw55xcf1coic))/ mileg.aspx?page=getobject&objectname=mcl-750-147b&us erid =

750.147b Ethnic intimidation.

Sec. 147b.

(1) A person is guilty of ethnic intimidation if that person maliciously, and with specific intent to intimidate or harass another person because of that person's race, color, religion, gender, or national origin, does any of the following:

(a) Causes physical contact with another person.

(b) Damages, destroys, or defaces any real or personal property of another person.

(c) Threatens, by word or act, to do an act described in subdivision (a) or (b), if there is reasonable cause to believe that an act described in subdivision (a) or (b) will occur.

(2) Ethnic intimidation is a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years, or by a fine of not more than $5,000.00, or both.

(3) Regardless of the existence or outcome of any criminal prosecution, a person who suffers injury to his or her person or damage to his or her property as a result of ethnic intimidation may bring a civil cause of action against the person who commits the offense to secure an injunction, actual damages, including damages for emotional distress, or other appropriate relief. A plaintiff who prevails in a civil action brought pursuant to this section may recover both of the following:

(a) Damages in the amount of 3 times the actual damages described in this subsection or $2,000.00, whichever is greater.

(b) Reasonable attorney fees and costs.

And more recently...

28.257a Crimes motivated by prejudice or bias; report.

Sec. 7a.

The chief of police of each city or village, the chief of police of each township having a police department, and the sheriff of each county within this state shall report to the department of state police, in a manner prescribed by the department, information specified under section 1 related to crimes motivated by prejudice or bias based upon race, ethnic origin, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

FreeEnterprise wrote: you stated that agentwhale is a newspaper editor and reporter... (high school or college papers aren't "real" papers...)

UCF is bigger than many towns in this country, and Whale's paper has greater circulation than many of what you consider "real" papers.  I would suggest that your characterization is entirely incorrect.  He is not just in the journalism club.

Anyway:

750.147b Ethnic intimidation. Sec. 147b. (1) A person is guilty of ethnic intimidation if that person maliciously, and with specific intent to intimidate or harass another person because of that person's race, color, religion, gender, or national origin, does any of the following: (a) Causes physical contact with another person. (b) Damages, destroys, or defaces any real or personal property of another person. (c) Threatens, by word or act, to do an act described in subdivision (a) or (b), if there is reasonable cause to believe that an act described in subdivision (a) or (b) will occur.

Great example.

Items a, b, and c are already crimes, regardless of motivation.  This law, like almost all other "hate crime" laws, does not create a new crime, but rather provides for stiffer punishments for crimes committed with certain motivations.

Most hate crime rules are not set apart as in your example, but are simply listed as aggravating factors along with other aggravating factors.

As Whale pointed out, you first have to commit a "crime".

Every jurisdiction in this country has aggravating and mitigating factors for various crimes.  These range from witnessing your wife cheat on you to hiring a hitman.  Penalties can vary depending on the nature of the victim, your motivation, your method, and a bunch of other things.

Legislatures have decided that race-based crimes are particularly injurious to society, just like murder for hire is more injurious to society than doing the killing yourself.

There are centuries of precedent for this approach to sentencing.  You may think that ethnic motivation should not be an aggravating factor, and there are certainly arguments to be made for that position.  But to declare these laws out of line with the rest of the system is simply incorrect as a matter of legal history.

adrenalinejunky wrote: i dont pretend to know our legal system well enough to make such a statement regarding whether its precidented. but i still think its retarded. and wow racism is retarded, i dont see how this is much of a solution.

It's tricky stuff.

I'll start with the premise that racism, and racial issues in general, is still a major problem in this country.  Assuming that to be true, we would like for our legislatures to try to help with that, since helping society is part of their job.

Further assuming that increasing penalties for certain crimes decreases the frequency of those crimes, these laws would reduce frequency of ethnically-motivated crimes.  This is good.  However, there is also an obvious backlash against perceived special treatment, as evidenced in this thread.  Does the former outweigh the latter?  I don't know, and don't know that it is knowable.

I am also very torn on these sentencing rules.  I think they could have been helpful, but I think that they were marketed very badly.  With different presentation I suspect they could have been a good thing, but now I tend to believe that their very existence increases tension to an unacceptable level.

Random comparison:  In New York, if you kill a cop you might get the death penalty.  If you kill your wife you generally can not get the death penalty.  Is that "fair?"  Is that any better or worse than ethnic hate crimes?

• The general opinions on whether the church disruption should be considered a hate crime.
• Why this gets such limited coverage from the media compared to bashing that occurs in the other direction.
  

Brian Fellows wrote: Capital punishment was abolished in New York in 2004.

Kind of.  The current death penalty statute was deemed unconstitutional, but for reasons not due to the death penalty itself.  The court in People v. LaValle indicated that if the statute were fixed, the death penalty would be just fine.

But I had forgotten that anyway, so thanks for the reminder.

But even without the death penalty, New York State has a special category of murder, which is only for cop killers, hitmen, and those that hire hitmen (and other lesser categories, I believe also).  The general point being that New York deems in qualitatively worse to kill a cop than to kill a schoolteacher, and worse to hire Jimmy the Nose than to do the deed yourself.   Agree or disagree with the correctness thereof, distinctions of that nature are made in most, if not all, states of the union, on the basis of a wide variety of distinctions.

Mack wrote: The general opinions on whether the church disruption should be considered a hate crime. Why this gets such limited coverage from the media compared to bashing that occurs in the other direction.

1.  Depends.

2.  Depends.

Slightly longer versions:

1.  Assuming we already have a law adding extra penalty for religious-based crimes, then yes, IF the other criteria of the statute are met.  In particular, a crime must have been committed.  "Disruption" generally is not a crime.  Theft, assault/battery, arson, murder - those are crimes.  Disruption, usually not so much.  If anything, opinion-motivated disruption is usually protected by the First Amendment.  Witness the KKK and the WBC, for instance.

Then, the crime in question must have been motivated by the religion of the victim, which is not always the case even when the victim is of a protected class.  Contrary to popular myth, it is not a "hate crime" every time a white guy kills a black guy.

But I presume you had some particular church disruption in mind - care to fill in the details?

2.  Without specifics I can't comment, but it seems to me that obnoxious churchy behavior gets all kinds of coverage.  Not that I watch enough TV to get a good sample, though.  But just this past Wednesday, between O'Reilly and Hannity I saw a silly clip of some guy knocking a cross out of an old lady's hand approximately 1,000 times.  They sure seemed very excited about it

choopie911 wrote: Reb Cpl wrote: Isn't 'disturbing the peace' a crime?The most interesting part to me is this: “The real story here is the refusal of the mainstream media to cover what is surely one of the most disturbing events of 2008. If an organized group of gay bashers stormed a gay church, there is not a single sentient person in the United States who wouldn’t know about it. I think this is a completely legitimate point, and I support this claim 100%

+1

Hate crime laws are too subjective and prone to contradictory judgements based on demographics (ha,ha sounds like democratics) and the many geo-political areas in our country. The short version is it's based on where you live. Interpretations will not be consistent. Most hate crime laws are redundant. Any crime considered a hate crime can most likely be charged under an already existing statute.
Hey , how did I get into T & O anyway?