Monday, July 06, 2009

The idiocy of hate crime legislation

The death of Steve McNair and his 20 year old girl friend show the bizarre possibilities of hate crimes legislation. Were they killed because someone hated them for their race and ethnicity or what they were doing? Could be! Was it murder-suicide? Possibly. Crime of passion? Obviously. He was an older married man, rich and famous; she was a powerless waitress. Maybe she found out, like many star struck girls do, that the "divorce" story was a lie. Spurned 3rd party? Could be--Law and Order plot. Maybe she had more than one boyfriend. Maybe she wasn't even a girl! OMG! This is a case for the Closer--I saw an episode like that. Was it race or gender or just old fashioned sin? Both were minorities. Hate crime investigators, go for it. The current legislation is about "perception" not fact. The idiocy of all hate crime legislation is that all the crimes are covered by other laws, and only certain Americans are protected/covered by this one. And the liberals are stumped when black on black crime, or gay on gay crime (by far the majority), just have to be plain old insult, murder or mayhem.
Posted by Norma at 7/06/2009 05:56:00 AM
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2 comments:

Unknown said...

You say - "The current legislation is about 'perception' not fact."

Not quite. To prosecute under the existing federal hate crimes law (the current debate is about revising the law on the books), prosecutors must make an evidentiary showing of the defendant's intent to select his/her victim on account of race, color, religion, or national origin. Most crimes cannot, and do not, meet that high evidentiary threshold, which is why most crimes are not prosecuted as hate crimes, unless there is, well, evidence of hate. The mere existence of, say, a black victim is not enough to make something a hate crime. Please read the statute.

You say - "The idiocy of all hate crimes legislation is that all the crimes are covered by other laws, and only certain Americans are protected/covered by this one."

Not completely true. In criminal law, many crimes are covered by more than one law (for example, manslaughter and murder can cover the same thing, so long as the defendant is only prosecuted under one). We have degrees and nuances all over the criminal law. Hate crimes laws are just another example.

Hate crimes laws protect all Americans that are subject to hate crimes. And every group suffers from hate crimes (look at the FBI statistics). The Department of Justice prosecutes every kind of defendant committing hate crimes against every kind of victim.

"And the liberals are stumped when black on black crime, or gay on gay crime (by far the majority), just have to be plain old insult, murder or mayhem."

According the FBI (really the only reputable source for statistics on this issue), "gay on gay" crime is not "by far the majority." This is not an issue of liberals being "stumped." Liberals and conservatives, both, seek to focus legislative efforts on specific groups that they perceive to be specifically harmed.

7/06/2009 5:18 PM
Norma said...

More gays are killed by other gays than non-gay; more blacks are killed by blacks than non-blacks; more Asians by Asians, etc. Focusing on ethnicity or race as a "hate" crime is just dumb. It is actually a vendetta against Euro-Americans.

7/06/2009 5:47 PM

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