David Beito reports what many suspected: the recent notorious “hate crime” at Trinity International University that resulted in 200 black students being hustled off to a motel with police protection for their safety after several students received threatening letters was the result of another hoax.
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I wouldn’t consider it a hoax. People still received threatening letters and apprehended the fear.
I’d say a hoax is when someone is faking having received the letter, and thus there was never any fear.
I know I just said in a recent comment that I was glad actus commented here because so often he (unwittingly) makes my own argument for me, but enough is enough!
I will not allow this site to serve as a platform for dirty tricks or deception if I can help it, and so I would now like whatever conservative or right winger or even rightwingchristian who is sending in these unbelievable comments over the name of “actus,” obviously in an increasingly transparent attempt to make liberals look foolish, to cease and desist immediately. Liberals are perfectly capable of making themselves look silly in their own words. We don’t have to stoop to parody like this.
Just another liberal chiming in here, John.
The article reads:
>>>Hardin appeared at the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan Tuesday morning on a charge of disorderly conduct and a hate crime charge. Bond was set at $5,000.”
So we now know that there was, according to the law in Waukegan, an authentic allegation of a “hate crime”, because that is what Alicia Hardin, a 19 year old black female was charged with alongside of disorderly conduct.
So is this a case of me looking “silly”, the Waukegan Police Force, or the perpetrator Alicia Hardin?
My money’s on the perp.
–Cobra
I’m not sure if you’d call this a “hate crime”, but the actions of Hardin were certainly criminal. She clearly showed a complete disregard for students of every color at the school, and frankly deserves any punishment she gets.
I’m not sure how threatening the letters really were, and, depending on the level and secificity of the threat, it may indeed have been better for the police to play it safe and protect the students.
Still, the situation reveals the sort of hair trigger school administrators are on regarding such “threats”, leaping to conclusions before all the facts are in. Protecting students in the face of a credible threat (even if it turns out to be a hoax) is one thing, but starting a racism witch hunt before the validity of the threat has even been investigated is something totally different.
It’s almost like the administrators WANT some white students to threaten black students so they can unload their anti-racist arsenal. Seems a little sick to be wishing for racial tension and confrontation, but that’s what it looks like.
“I’m not sure if you’d call this a “hate crime”, but the actions of Hardin were certainly criminal.”
why do you think its not a hate crime? no bias motivation? I could see that. She did, however, pick her targets on account of race.
Let me clarify: I guess I wouldn’t call it a “hate crime” per se, because she didn’t seem motivated by any particuarly hateful feelings towards an ethnic group, and racial hatred didn’t seem to be her motive (getting out of school was). It may be a “hate crime” in the legal sense that the victims of the crime were selected due to race. My main point is that I hope she gets hit by the law pretty hard, and that it’s sad to see school administrators jumping to conclusions.
Personally, I think that the university administrators are between a rock and a hard place. What are they supposed to do? Investigate whether the threats are “real” or not – and simply hope that nothing happens to the students in the meantime?
Very sad that this woman chose to scare people, spend precious school dollars for no reason, and make millions of people think that racism and violence are alive and well in this community, rather than dealing directly with her personal problem.
What annoys me the most is the press. I saw the CNN article splashed all over the place: black students’ lives threatened by some racist jerk.
I wonder how much we will see of this new revelation outside of “Discriminations” ….
” It may be a “hate crime” in the legal sense that the victims of the crime were selected due to race.”
I dont’ know if the legal sense is selected due to race, or if the legal sense is motivated by bias. I’m more just asking for your gut understanding of hate crime because i’m interested.
I would say that there is a good argument that to intentionally show bias anger, and cause biased based fear, is close enough to bias motivation.
actus, as for gut feeling, I’d say that, in this case, the student didn’t show “bias anger” so much as she took advantage of the fact that “bias based fear” would be produced. So I don’t really know what the best thing to call it would be. It’s really just semantics to me- it’s criminal whatever you call it.
In response to Peg, the administrator’s are in somewhat of a bind, but they could show more restraint. Not sure of all the details in this case, but in the last major incident (involving a woman defacing her own car) the college started a crusade against racism with mandatory diversity training, candlelight vigils, and protest marches.
My point is, the responsible thing to do would be to not ignore the threat, because it may indeed be real, but to avoid being accusatory and throwing the whole school into chaos by assuming that racism is rampant before all the facts are known. If there was a credible, specific threat against students, then it was right to protect them. But even if such a threat existed, judgement should be withheld until an investigation can be conducted. Instead, it seems like administrators are almost giddy when a “hate crime” pops up so they can show the ignorant masses how racist they all are and justify their often excessive speech codes and the like.
It was not a hate crime! It was a hate crime hoax — a fraud, a fake, a false alarm.
Just like many of the other “hate crimes” reported on campuses across the country.
“It was a hate crime hoax — a fraud, a fake, a false alarm.”
Um, a threat is a threat, “I didn’t mean it” doesn’t really excuse the damage done to the recipients of the threat: a fear has been apprehended. Thats what we care about when worrying about threats.
I understand there are some places were people fake the receipt of threats — ie, they know they’re not getting real threats — but I think that’s a different situation. We don’t have that harm to the recipient.
John,
I think actus has a point. It may have been a hate crime hoax, but it certainly was an usual one. The typical hate crime hoax is by some activist type seeking to draw attention to his cause (and himself). In contrast, Hardin appears to have had no political or ideological motive. For her it was merely a spectacularly ill-conceived, but ultimately utilitarian attempt to leave school.
As for whether hate crime hoaxes are also hate crimes, I think that’s a tough one. It partly depends on whether one defines a hate crime by its motive or by its effects. While Hardin didn’t have the motive of creating racial terror, that was definitely the effect of her actions.
The girl is lucky she’s not going up the river in a federal pen for 15-25 for violation of federal anti-terrorism statutes (of course, politically, she’d be protected on this issue – see the recent story about how the DoJ was prosecuting abortion protestors under the new anti-terror provisions). If she sent multiple threats of violence, and a school reasonably acted (this is key in my mind) to sequester individuals, it is terrorism.
I think Actus is partially right, but he proves a conservative point. Its like “reverse discrimination.” There is no “reverse” — discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. This was a “hoax” in the sense that it faked the “racist motive,” but it is real in its instillation of terror. It proves the point though that any color person can engage in racism – or instill a racially-based fear, even if it is from someone in the same race. It also proves that we should never assume a crime is what it appears.
>>>Alicia Hardin, 19, of Chicago was charged with disorderly conduct and a HATE CRIME. The HATE CRIME CHARGE carries up to five years in prison.
She confessed to police Monday, saying she was unhappy at Trinity and wanted to leave, said Lt. Ron Price.
“It’s kind of a sad story actually,” Price said.
The letters, filled with threats and racial slurs, were sent to two black students and a Hispanic student over the past three weeks. The third letter contained a threat to use a weapon against a black female student.
“I saw you in the chapel … I had my gun in my pocket, but I wouldn’t shoot,” the letter read, according to Bannockburn Police Chief Kevin Tracz.”
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/nation/11496079.htm
John writes:
>>>It was not a hate crime! It was a hate crime hoax — a fraud, a fake, a false alarm.”
#1, I don’t think the District Attorney in that particular county agrees with you, because Hardin faces up to five years in prison for “Hate Crime.”
#2–
Given the Red Lake, MN incident, and threatening letters to black athletes revolving around interracial dating–
>>>Because the threats came within days of the anniversaries of the Columbine High School shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing and Adolf Hitler’s birthday, the school suggested that all minority students be given the option of staying in a hotel if they did not feel safe in the dorms, the police chief said.
“They just didn’t want to take any chances, and I agree with them,” he said.
Dean of Students William Washington said he and 43 students spent the night at a hotel, while others who are from the area stayed with family or friends. Cantwell said it was not clear how the long the students would be put up at a hotel.”
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1023728&tw=wn_wire_story
Red Lake High school shooter Jeff Weise had a thing for making cartoon fantasy killings before taking up the real thing.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0323051weise1.html
Why is there such a blind acceptance that Alicia Hardin was not capable of violence? She wrote letters threatening to shoot specific individuals at a school. That’s nobody’s hoax anymore…not in 2005 America.
–Cobra
What a bizarre discussion!
What this actually proves is that those who find racism everywhere are conning us.
If you have to invent racism to get people in an uproar, that means that the alleged universe of racism so often noted by actus and Cobra is a fabrication. Yes, it is.
The convoluted arguments actus and Cobra presented had me laughing out loud. The “racism is everything” crowd is scamming us. This, and only this, is what this incident proves.
This con game is now an industry. People do fight ruthlessly to hold onto what they do for a living, even when it is hopelessly corrupt. Maybe, especially when it is hopelessly corrupt.
Stephen,
I would guess that what it also proves is that too many blacks live in an echo chamber. Want to bet the accused student has never heard of the hoaxes at places like Emory University. Want to be that the accused student went to a majority black high school, attends a virtually all black church and gets most of her news and information from all black media.
She expected to be able to covertly scream “Racism” and for it to be believed without question.
“She expected to be able to covertly scream “Racism” and for it to be believed without question.”
The key thing is she didn’t just scream racism. she threatened. And thats improper, no matter who does it. I’m sure a conservative can appreciate that.
Geez, actus, dyuh think even a dumb conservative can appreciate that? If you can appreciate something, my money is on 53% of America appreciating it. (The other 47% …well, who knows what they are capable of appreciating).
As much as I’m dismayed to admit it, I think actus is right. She did make racially based threats. Further, she sent racially threatening messages to a student of another race (the Hispanic student), thus meeting the classic liberal definition of a hate crime.
“Further, she sent racially threatening messages to a student of another race (the Hispanic student), thus meeting the classic liberal definition of a hate crime.”
Whats the classic liberal definition? that they are of different races?
Yes. Although to be more precise, the perpetrator should be white and the victim non-white. And by classic liberal definition, I don’t mean legal definition, but rather ideological definition.
I know your penchant for focusing on the legal definition of such matters and if I can state your view, the legal definition is that the victims must be selected for targeting because of their race, regardless of the race of the perpetrator or their intent. I could accept that definition, as long as it is applied fairly (which it isn’t).
I think actus has it right here. The professor who last year vandalized her own car was perpetrating a hoax. Unless this student was colluding with all her victims, I don’t see how this isn’t a real hate crime. Racism wasn’t a motivation, and perhaps that makes this not the equal of other hate crimes, but in a similar vein I consider affirmative action to be discrimination though the motivation behind it is usually not racism against whites, asians, etc.
I think we’ve milked this for more than it’s worth, but here is one more squeeze: hate is an essential element of hate crimes. Faked hate, as here and elsewhere, is (or certainly can be, depending on the facts) a crime, but not a hate crime.
If a black murders another black and leaves a note saying “Death to all Blacks!” and signed it “White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” that would be murder, but not a hate crime.
There both right, as I point out above.
John correctly sees the “hoax” portion – the hoax was the implication that the letters were motivated by white racism. Actus correctly sees the “no reverse terrorism” point, just as there is no “reverse discrimination.”
By the way, “hate crime” legislation is dumb, and this case illustrates it. If I’m the victim of a crime, I could care less what the motivation of the perp is. People should be prosecuted based on the severity and impact of their actions on other people — not on something that is so open to political and personal whim and manipulation. Additionally, all crimes against other people are “hate crimes,” in my opinion. They express a fundamental disregard for the rights of others — something in my mind that qualifies as hate. Why distinguish (yet another discrimination) among types of hate?
There both right, as I point out above.
John correctly sees the “hoax” portion – the hoax was the implication that the letters were motivated by white racism. Actus correctly sees the “no reverse terrorism” point, just as there is no “reverse discrimination.”
By the way, “hate crime” legislation is dumb, and this case illustrates it. If I’m the victim of a crime, I could care less what the motivation of the perp is. People should be prosecuted based on the severity and impact of their actions on other people — not on something that is so open to political and personal whim and manipulation. Additionally, all crimes against other people are “hate crimes,” in my opinion. They express a fundamental disregard for the rights of others — something in my mind that qualifies as hate. Why distinguish (yet another discrimination) among types of hate?
“If a black murders another black and leaves a note saying “Death to all Blacks!” and signed it “White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” that would be murder, but not a hate crime.”
Under the definition that it’s going to install race-based fear it certainly is a hate crime. If your intent is to instill that fear it also is. If your intent is a bias motivation against whites, it is as well.
I guess its a complex question of the motivations — is playing on and relying on biases and racial animus as hate based as being motivated by that racial animus? It certainly feels the same to the victim, and the community who apprehends the race based fear.
The problem here is we don’t really have a good definition of ‘hate crime.’ I’m sure statutes do, and I’m also sure they vary somewhat. Bias motivation seems like a good definition, because it addresses the evil intent. But it misses out the race based fear that might be caused.
And it does no help to perpetuate the myth that people think that hate crimes can only be commited by members of one race, or by members of a race against another race.
“And it does no help to perpetuate the myth that people think that hate crimes can only be commited by members of one race, or by members of a race against another race.”
I think it would help to dispel that myth by the fair application of so-called hate crimes laws. Until that happens, it is reasonable to conclude that some people do in fact think that.
“I think it would help to dispel that myth by the fair application of so-called hate crimes laws. ”
I don’t know anything about these numbers. Do you have some? I think the FBI keeps track of htem. But I haven’t looked at them yet.
Oh, my. So very complicated. I dislike hate-crime laws, because they’re so often thought-crime laws; what it ultimately boils down to is whether dude A screamed a racial or merely a scatological epithet when slugging dude B. On the other hand, I think the difference between trespassing on a black family’s lawn and trespassing on a black family’s lawn in order to burn a cross on it is something a little bigger than a trespassing charge vs. a trespassing charge, plus charges relating to vandalism and fire safety. A graffiti tag spray-painted on a synagogue is not the same thing as a swastika spray-painted on a synagogue.
But you can’t make everything about the effect on the victim, because sometimes people are “victimized” through sheer misunderstanding, like the college students some years back who mistook a candlelight vigil for something like a Klan rally. (I forget the circumstances and indeed the outcome.)
The law somehow has to deal both with the terroristic effect and with the motivation for causing it. In this case the perpetrator knew very well what the effect would be on the students she threatened; this is no case of innocent misunderstanding. So I would side with actus. Intentionally terrorizing people is a wrong even if you didn’t really mean to carry out the threats, and I imagine that “hate crime” statutes are, unfortunately, probably the easiest laws to use to prosecute. Personally, I’d much rather that terrorizing people be made a crime, and “bias” be left out of the definition, but introduced in court, if necessary, as evidence of the nature of the terrorizing. But what do I know?
(Thought experiment: If you burn a cross on a black family’s lawn, and actually they’re on vacation and never so much as find out that you did it, has a hate crime been committed?)
“But you can’t make everything about the effect on the victim”
In my limited experience, most times that an emotional impact on a victim is used in law, the victim’s impact must be “reasonable.” Which is the legal way of saying that the jury should decide that they too would feel that emotional impact, they think that a ‘reasonable person’ would feel it. So its not just the subjective feeling of the victim.
There are thought-crime laws on the books already. They fall under “solicitation” and “conspiracy.”
They generally require more than one person, however.
Two, how do we know there wasn’t a racist motive? Being a member of a race doesn’t innoculate one from intra-racial-loathing or hatred.
According to the FBI, a table breaking down the bias motivation of known offenders of hate crimes in 2002 is rather interesting.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0RFV/is_2002_Annual/ai_n7639725/pg_3
Table 5 illustrates that of 888 reported single-bias anti-white incidents, 130 of the known offenders were WHITE, and of the 2,967 reported single-bias anti-black incidents, 84 of the known offenders were BLACK.
It’s actually quite easy to see where intra-racial hate crimes can occur. Sadly, I hear of accounts where conservative blacks are threatened with violence by other blacks, and other instances where interracial couples have been confronted physically. In fact, the subject of interracial relationships has been a tinderbox historically for both intra- and interracial violence. At the core of this Trinity College incident were allegations that black athletes who dated white co-eds were being targetted in the letters, though school officials denied it. (and subsequent release of ONE letter I posted earlier would at least back up some of that denial.)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-te.threats23apr23,1,3899080.story?
–Cobra
I think this thread amply illustrates the stupidity of having a hate crime statute. The arguments made to justify or deny that it was a hate crime were equivalent to trying to decide how many angels can dance on the head of pin. The crime the woman committed was threatening the other students. She should be charged with that crime and if convicted she should be given a sentence commensurate with the harm she did. In other words a person should be tried for what (s)he did, not what (s)he was thinking while (s)he was doing it. Actually, what she did was simulated a hate crime. But if the purpose of having hate crime legislation is to show societies disapproval of certain motives for a crime, then she did not commit a hate crime because hatred of a person
“Complicated, isn
Just what I needed, a comment from the Peanut Gallery.
not really. most of our certainty is that we don’t know precisely the wording of the hate crime statute at play.
You don’t even read what you write, so I guess I can’t expect you to read what I wrote. My comment was not on the specific legislation but on the philosphy behind hate crime legislation.
Richard,
First, tweaking actus about an obvious typo was rude.
Second, the legitimate purpose of hate-crime statutes is to punish crimes meant to terrorize, meant to threaten. It isn’t that people “disapprove of the motives” of a crime so much that the intent was to cause fear in the targets. I think that hate-crime statutes exist mainly to do what I suggested earlier — to distinguish the spray-painted tag on the synagogue from the swastika.
And, you know, if I (say) caused a man’s death, I think it might make a significant (and legitimately so) legal difference why I did it. Was he breaking into my bedroom window? Did he just run over my best friend? Were we mountain-climbing and I forgot to secure a rope properly? Or did I stand to inherit a lot of money from him and carefully contrive to kill him?
Different situations, different crimes (one, maybe two, probably not crimes at all), and all because of what was going on in my head. In fact the difference between the mountain-climbing accident and the cold-blooded murder depends entirely on what was going on in my head, because maybe the two items are the same incident and I “forgot” to secure the rope on purpose.
” My comment was not on the specific legislation but on the philosphy behind hate crime legislation.”
Sorry. I meant ‘uncertainty.’
There are different philosophies. And its worthwhile to discuss which we should focus on, and if the focus should be exlcusive on one or the other: the harm to the victim or the intent/bias motivation of the perp.
Just like there are different philosophies animating other areas of the criminal law that would lead us to different ideas for how those crimes should be punished.
And, you know, if I (say) caused a man’s death, I think it might make a significant (and legitimately so) legal difference why I did it. Was he breaking into my bedroom window? Did he just run over my best friend? Were we mountain-climbing and I forgot to secure a rope properly? Or did I stand to inherit a lot of money from him and carefully contrive to kill him?
Come on Michelle, you know that was not the point I was making. Obviously I was not referring to the difference between self-defense, an accident or a deliberate murder. Yes, I read crime stories where the detective has to determine if it was suicide or a deliberate murder made to look like a suicide. But when Hercule Poirot solves the murder he doesn
Richard,
Then, in your opinion, is spray-painting a “tag” on the side of a synagogue the same crime as spray-painting a swastika, or is it not? The crime on its face would be vandalism, and I gather you’re arguing that all vandalism should be punished equally, whatever its content. I’m sorry, but I find it difficult to accept that. Even though I suspect most people who spray-paint swastikas on synagogue walls are young idiots trying to cause a stir who wouldn’t know a Jew if they met one, let alone hate her.
Michelle, I would give that person the maximum penalty allowed for the crime of vandalism since we punish deliberate acts more harshly and I would expect the judge to let the individual know how despicable he or she is at sentencing time. In other words I would punish the individual for the act not for the thought behind the act. If we want to prevent this from happening again we can simply increase the penalty for multiple acts of vandalism. Why is it necessary to add an additional penalty for the evil thoughts in the person’s mind? We do not punish Ward Churchill for calling the 9/11 victims little Eichmanns even though that comment is equally despicable. In other words I believe in free speech.
“When we start punishing people for their thoughts then the next step is to start sending people to jail for making statements about a person
Ooh, and I just thought of fraud and perjury. Aren’t those ‘thought’ crimes because they punish people for what they are thinking?
I’m sure people have already tried to explain to you that this sort of thinking is wrong.
I know I am going to regret asking this question, but what are you talking about?
Ooh, and I just thought of fraud and perjury. Aren’t those ‘thought’ crimes because they punish people for what they are thinking?
This is pure sophistry. You may not agree with my point of view, but you must know that this is not what I am referring too. Unless one is brain dead, every action has some thought involved with it. If you robbed a bank, the planning of the robbery is not a thought crime. A thought crime is when we punish someone for expressing inappropriate thoughts, like racism or religious bigotry (or opposition to affirmative action?). Hate crime statutes add an additional penalty to a crime if the person states something during the course of the crime that can be construed to be an expression of bigotry. It is my contention that we all lose our freedom of expression when society starts punishing people for what they think. It is not clear that freedom of expression means the right to say hateful things? Yes society should disapprove of such statements, but it should be done through additional speech not jail terms.
Richard, you’re missing the point. Or missing mine, at least. Crimes designed to terrorize people beyond the immediate victims are different in kind from crimes aimed only at the immediate victims. It’s a question of “what’s in the perp’s head” only in the sense that it is in any other crime where intention is at issue — which is to say any crime.
My problem with hate-crime laws is that they tend to list protected classes; e.g., crimes motivated by bias against a race or a sex or homosexuals come in for extra punishment. The better approach would be to punish more severely any crimes committed so as to terrorize any group of people. If someone starts, say, systematically vandalizing the homes of any specific group of people, be it blacks or Democrats or abortion providers or bankers or Wal-Mart executives, I say it’s the same sort of thing, and different from random or personally-directed crime.
The problem is that all sorts of people want, first, to restrict this principle to protected classes; and second, to expand it so that (for example) all rape is a “hate crime” against women. But the basic difference between random or personal crime and crime in terrorem seems to me pretty obvious. I just wish we had better laws.
Michelle writes:
>>>Crimes designed to terrorize people beyond the immediate victims are different in kind from crimes aimed only at the immediate victims. It’s a question of “what’s in the perp’s head” only in the sense that it is in any other crime where intention is at issue
Cobra, what I would like to see is the term “hate crime” flushed down the toilet, and current hate-crime statutes replaced with statutes intensifying the penalties for a crime if it can be shown that it was designed to intimidate members of any group. Not the selected list of groups in the current statutes — any group. In other words, cross-burners would qualify, but so would the amiable folks that were out systematically keying SUVs in SF’s Mission District a few years ago to protest “gentrification” and loft-building.
What I want, basically, is law that would penalize criminal behavior meant to achieve a political end by frightening people on the other side. And I wouldn’t call that “hate crime.” Can we go with “domestic terrorism”?
Michelle, I don
“Hate crime statutes add an additional penalty to a crime if the person states something during the course of the crime that can be construed to be an expression of bigotry.”
Are you sure? Not if its bias motivation. The bias can be proved by other means.
“Unless one is brain dead, every action has some thought involved with it. ”
Ah. But in perjury you’re punished for thinking that its a lie. if you don’t think its a lie, its not perjury!
“Society already defines murder with special circumstances as eligible for the death penalty.”
I think if its pre-planned, that’s one. So “thoughtcrime”?
What I love about you actus is that your comments are content free. You don’t even try to find out the correct information. You just make it up as you go along. There is something called Google that lets you look things up. You should try it before you post next time.
Under a California law passed in 1978 with the reinstatement of the death penalty, special circumstances are felonies committed during the act of first-degree murder that may have aggravated the offense. Common examples include multiple murder, murder of a police officer, murder for financial gain, and murder during a rape, arson, or robbery.
First degree murder, i.e, premeditated murder, is the necessary precondition. It is not the special circumstances.
actus,
No, Richard has a point. The question shouldn’t be whether a crime was committed out of bigotry, but whether it was committed deliberately to terrorize others. If someone kills the guy next door, I really don’t care much whether he did it because the guy was Korean or because he was sleeping with the killer’s wife or because the guy’s dog was wreaking havoc with the killer’s prize tulips. But if the crime is deliberately framed as a warning to other members of a group — be it Koreans, adulterers, or owners of wayward dogs — then we’re in different territory.
The problem with existing hate crime/bias crime laws is that they tend to focus on the bias and not the terrorization. So that, say, an ordinary assault that’s really a personal dispute becomes a “hate crime” if the assailant yells “Die, you n*gga,” but not if he yells “Die, you f*cker.” Both nasty, but neither really calculated to harm people beyond the actual victim of the assault.
It’s the situation where a crime is calculated to affect people beyond the immediate victims that I think ought to be addressed by law. Take the death threats recently against allegedly “activist” judges. Suppose someone starts attacking judges called “activist,” maybe just vandalizing their cars, maybe assaulting them or worse. That to me is domestic terrorism, but it wouldn’t fall under a hate-crime statute, because it’s not based on race or sex or sexual orientation. On the other hand, if an allegedly “activist” judge who was a woman was mugged by a guy who called her a “b*tch” in the process of snatching her purse, the crime might fall under a hate-crime statute. This is silly.
” It is not the special circumstances. ”
I wasn’t sure, that’s why I said “i think.” But first degree is not a thoughtcrime right?
The problem we have here Michelle is that we both like the candy, but you don’t like the wrapper it comes in. We both agree that “special punishment” should be dealt out regarding these crimes. You simply can’t bring yourself to use the term “hate crime”, even though the statistics I provided here show that all Americans are protected under the term, not just non-whites. I understand your request for a change to “domestic terrorism”, but really…is it so painful to state the obvious?
–Cobra
Cobra, you don’t understand at all. Your usual “hate crime” statute has certain categories of bias built into it, and it’s about the bias motivation behind the crime rather than the intended effect on the targeted group. The “hate crime” laws we now have wouldn’t punish someone who systematically targeted, say, nuclear physicists, because they aren’t a protected category; they might, however, punish someone who shouted a racial or sexual epithet in an altercation. What I want is the reverse: punishment for deliberately threatening a group, no punishment merely for being a bigot (beyond, obviously, what you deserve for the actual crime you committed). It is not semantics; we’re talking about two totally different things.
Michelle,
But we have protected categories in other instances. Look at the category of sexual assault. There are debates raging about whether convicted sexual offenders should have their names placed on published lists, whereas alleged victims, primarily women, can remain essentially anonymous. What other statutes afford such a range of special accomodations?
We have a different scale for crimes against law enforcement agents, jurists, and federal officials and employees than for the average citizen.
Taking race, ethnicity, gender and religion into account for specific bias related incidents is no more of a hinderance of justice than the other protected classes, IMHO.
–Cobra
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