hate crime laws, should they be unconstitutional?

[rainstorm]

No..The law makes sense, If you target someone because they are a certain race or sexuality..That is a hate crime..because your doing it because they are black..arab..gay .. Not because they dated your boyfriend..That law is designed to stop the abuse of certain groups..To target someone because of who they are race or sexuality is wrong. This law is for the kind of idiots who do just that and I think anyone who hates anybody because of this criteria is a moron!! Back a few years back remember The gay kid.. Matthew sheppard .. beaten to death and left on a fence and the colored guy dragged behind the truck..This law is to prevent those type of crimes..to show there are consequenses..

there were consequences. if i am not mistaken they were sentenced to death. the question is should a person go to prison because they hate black people , or white people, or gay people or short people, or conservative christians, or stupid people. if you committ a crime a person should be punished for it. they should be punished for their actions, not their thoughts. here is my point, which groups should 'hate" crimes pertain to? is hate the only emotion that should be punished?

[rainstorm]

No..The law makes sense, If you target someone because they are a certain race or sexuality..That is a hate crime..because your doing it because they are black..arab..gay .. Not because they dated your boyfriend..That law is designed to stop the abuse of certain groups..To target someone because of who they are race or sexuality is wrong. This law is for the kind of idiots who do just that and I think anyone who hates anybody because of this criteria is a moron!! Back a few years back remember The gay kid.. Matthew sheppard .. beaten to death and left on a fence and the colored guy dragged behind the truck..This law is to prevent those type of crimes..to show there are consequenses..

But rainband, is it worse that those 3 SCUMBAGS dragged James Byrd Jr. behind the truck to his death than if those same 3 SCUMBAGS dragged another guy they of the same race behind their truck to his death? Why is one murder worse than the other? They are both "hate" crimes. There are consequences no matter what the motive is.
This law keeps racism alive and kicking.

it is a politically correct law that protects them from people "hating" them. the next logical step will be to imprison people for hating certain groups. wouldnt we all be in prision? dont we all hate someone or something. which 'hate" should be prosecuted and which shouldnt?

[rainstorm]

BUT THEY DIDN"T TARGET THEM BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE OR SEXUALITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HATE crimes TARGET PEOPLE because of their ethnic backround or sexuality..For no other reason!!! That is my point!! It is wrong to kill anybody..but to kill someone because they are a different race and only for that reason is far worse!!!!!!!!

the govt can not prosecute someone because of what they think. if a person hates conservative christians should that person be imprisoned? if a person hates obese people, or makes jokes about them, should they be imprisoned? actions should be prosecuted, not thoughts

[mf_dolphin]

Rainstorm it's not the thoughts that get prosecuted it's the actions. If you can show one case where someone's thoughts were prosecuted I would be very interested to look into the details.

[Rainband]

BUT THEY DIDN"T TARGET THEM BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE OR SEXUALITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HATE crimes TARGET PEOPLE because of their ethnic backround or sexuality..For no other reason!!! That is my point!! It is wrong to kill anybody..but to kill someone because they are a different race and only for that reason is far worse!!!!!!!!

the govt can not prosecute someone because of what they think. if a person hates conservative christians should that person be imprisoned? if a person hates obese people, or makes jokes about them, should they be imprisoned? actions should be prosecuted, not thoughts

Actions are being prosecuted..not thoughts..If you kill someone for no other reason except that they are a race or sexuality you hate and thats why you kill them THAT IS A HATE CRIME!!!! Are you reading what I said??? You can hate as many people as you wnat but if you kill them for that reason it's a hate crime..PLAIN and SIMPLE!!!

[Rainband]

Rainstorm it's not the thoughts that get prosecuted it's the actions. If you can show one case where someone's thoughts were prosecuted I would be very interested to look into the details.

Thanks Marshall :o I was beginning to get dizzy :?

[rainstorm]

Rainstorm it's not the thoughts that get prosecuted it's the actions. If you can show one case where someone's thoughts were prosecuted I would be very interested to look into the details.

where is the line drawn? if a parents kid makes fun of an obese kid on th playground, should that childs parents be prosecuted? there is a concept called "equal treatment under the law" you can not set up one group as being politically protected. again, if "hate" is a crime, then we all need to be imprisoned.. this is why i want these laws declared unconstitutional. they will lead to us being stalins russia.

[rainstorm]

H.R. 1082: Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 Bill
This act Amends 18 U.S.C. 245 that prohibits persons from interfering with an individual's Federal right (e.g., voting or employment) by violence or threat of violence due to his or her race, color, religion, or national origin. This act allows for more authority for the Federal government to investigate and prosecute hate crime offenders who committed their crime because of perceived sexual orientation, gender, or disability of the victim. It also permits the Federal government to prosecute without having to prove that the victim was attacked because he or she was performing a federally protected activity.

notice the word "perceived" percieved by who? how can anyone know what another persons thoughts are? actions can be proven, but can thoughts?

[Rainband]

H.R. 1082: Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 Bill
This act Amends 18 U.S.C. 245 that prohibits persons from interfering with an individual's Federal right (e.g., voting or employment) by violence or threat of violence due to his or her race, color, religion, or national origin. This act allows for more authority for the Federal government to investigate and prosecute hate crime offenders who committed their crime because of perceived sexual orientation, gender, or disability of the victim. It also permits the Federal government to prosecute without having to prove that the victim was attacked because he or she was performing a federally protected activity.

notice the word "perceived" percieved by who? how can anyone know what another persons thoughts are? actions can be proven, but can thoughts?

perceived in this case obviously means they thought the person was gay..because it's obvious if you can see what race a person is. I agree this is a "gray area" but I still agree if you attack or kill someone because of this criteria and this alone it's a hate crime!!

[mf_dolphin]

Rainstorm if you read the text again I think you'll see that the law is talking about the attackers "perception". Again, if you know of a case when thoughts were the reason for a prosecution that please share it.

This act Amends 18 U.S.C. 245 that prohibits persons from interfering with an individual's Federal right (e.g., voting or employment) by violence or threat of violence due to his or her race, color, religion, or national origin.

The law specifically states "violence or threat of violence". Unless you can show some support for your "prosecuting thoughts" not actions, it seems to be a moot point. The reason that some cases aren't prosecuted under this law is the difficulty of proving that the basis for the crime can be proven to be "due to his or her race, color, religion, or national origin" or "perceived sexual orientation, gender, or disability of the victim"

[Lake Effect1]

I think the media keeps racism very much alive, whenever a crime is commited, they always mention whether the person is white, native american, hispanic, ect. If a crime is commited, and a person is hurt or dead , they should be punished. Childern get hurt all the time by people who are suppose to protect them, I've yet to hear of it ever called a hate crime, but I guess it could be classified as that.??

[mf_dolphin]

Unfortunately racism doesn't need the media to keep it alive. The intent (and practice from what I can see) is to add special circumstances to those crimes which have racial, age, sexual preferrence etc. There are many laws on the books for crimes against children (rightfully so). The criminals in jail also have their own set of rules for these special sickos!

[WidreMann]

Should we change the rules about murder and manslaughter? After all, how do we KNOW that the murderer actually intended to kill the person? And who gets to decide anyways?

That's why we have courts in the first place.

It is important what the motive is. And in the case of hate crimes, we are just looking at motives. Maybe it's difficult to find the motive or to draw the line, but that just means we should try all that much harder, not throw up our hands and say "there's no way to clearly delineate a hate crime and plain murder, so let's not bother".

[weatherlover427]

But are courts always fair? How can you tell if the juror(s) are actually biased or not?

[WidreMann]

Childern get hurt all the time by people who are suppose to protect them, I've yet to hear of it ever called a hate crime,

It's called child abuse. It doesn't really matter that it doesn't share the same name - that's just a terminology issue.

But are courts always fair? How can you tell if the juror(s) are actually biased or not?

That's always a concern with any court system and any court case, but there isn't really a solution, so we have to try our best and hope that we have a fair and impartial court system.

[Derek Ortt]

Unconstitutional. there are already laws on the books to deal with the actions. A person should be allowed to like who he/she wants to, but not infringe upon their rights. If they do, the normal laws should apply, not extra ones

[Guest]

I agree with Derek on this...........Keep it simple.........

[coriolis]

Iv'e studied everyone's arguments and I'll weigh in on this.
There's two issues here:

1. Every crime has a motivation. A street punk will rob someone who he perceives as having money. That's discrimination too. I don't think that there should be a heiarchy of motivations, with some being worse than others. This is a slippery slope to the thought police. The actions have to be judged and punished appropriately. Americans are still on a guilt trip over minority issues and feel that more and more symbolic measures are necessary to make up for it. Emotional issues make bad laws. Either that, or politicians make these symbolic laws to get votes. After all who can be against doing something for the oppressed?

2. If some girl dates your boyfriend, don't beat up the girl, beat up your boyfriend. Or at least, lose the boyfriend, he's no good.

[WidreMann]

1. Every crime has a motivation. A street punk will rob someone who he perceives as having money. That's discrimination too. I don't think that there should be a heiarchy of motivations, with some being worse than others. This is a slippery slope to the thought police. The actions have to be judged and punished appropriately. Americans are still on a guilt trip over minority issues and feel that more and more symbolic measures are necessary to make up for it. Emotional issues make bad laws. Either that, or politicians make these symbolic laws to get votes. After all who can be against doing something for the oppressed?

Good point. But that too is a fine line. Yes, there is a lot of guilt tripping going on, but...should we not bother to try to set things right again, even if it means taking measures that aren't exactly ideal? That's a tough question and I know nobody here is going to agree on that (I have gone back and forth myself over the past several years)

[fixitmhn]

The thought is not the CRIME. The action taken on that thought IS THE CRIME. Nobody is going to be prosecuted because of their thoughts. They will be prosecuted because they have acted on those thoughts and targeted someone because of their beliefs, etc.