[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I think the reason we have "hate crime" laws is because we as a society want to send a strong signal that we will not tolerate people being attacked simply for being black, white, Latino, Asian, Jewish, gay, or whatever.

I don't have any problem with "hate crime" laws. If the person's motive was obvious and the person obviously hates a certain group and assaults a member of this group (for that reason), then I have no problem with giving that person an even greater punishment.
What I do have a problem with is when the government totally overreaches and tries to turn something into a hate crime. A person should only be charged with a hate crime when it is obvious that they assaulted a person because they hate people in that group and the reason for the assault was because of that.

A case should only be looked into as a hate crime when it looks like an obvious "hate crime". When a group of skin-heads assaults a person of color, that is a "hate crime". The other day in West Hollywood, a group of guys in a car pulled up to a pedestrian and asked him if he was gay. When he affirmed that he was, they beat him up. That is a "hate crime". There was a case I referenced in another thread where a group of 7 black teens assaulted a Latino teen and shouted racial slurs at him. That looks like is an obvious "hate crime".

I think it is good to charge those people with a "hate crime". Send a message to people that we as a society are not going to tolerate this type of behavior. But as I said before, I think it should only be used for obvious cases. I don't think they should be looking into every single case that involves people of different ethnicities or sexual orientations as a "hate crime". Zimmerman obviously does not hate black people. He has many black friends. He mentors black youths. There is zero evidence that suggests a hate crime.

In my opinion, I think there should be "extreme probable cause" before they even consider looking into a crime as a possible "hate crime". Otherwise you end up with biased federal prosecutors going on fishing expeditions and being totally arbitrary in terms of which cases they will look into as "hate crimes".

i disagree. the crime shouldn't get less of a sentence because it had a different motive. how do you explain to the parents of a victim that the perpetrator got 10 years, when someone else might have gotten 15-but it was a different victim? or a different motive? motive doesn't matter, it's the crime.