@BillRM,
Quote:
It is a back door means of punishing people for their non-PC opinions if they ever get into conflict with a group member that they had express an unkind opinion of.
That is another of your absurd statements. Bias-crime laws
do not punish opinions, whether these opinions are PC or not. Again, you demonstrate nothing more than your embarrassing ignorance of actual bias crime laws.
Bias crime laws enhance penalties for acts which are already criminal under existing law.
Since the element of bias must be proved to a jury's satisfaction, it is not an easy matter to convict someone of a crime which is bias-related. A judge alone cannot impose enhanced penalties for bias-related criminal acts, it must be the finding of a jury that bias was an element of the crime--and the evidence of bias must be
explicit.
So, your claims of people being pushed into plea deals on bias-related crimes is nonsense. The plea deals would involve only the criminal acts without the element of bias, which would make them no different than the plea deals in any other criminal case.
Quote:The hate crimes laws was sold on a wave of emotions as a means of punishing such members of hate groups as the KKK.
Groups such as the KKK could be punished under existing criminal laws, they didn't need bias-related laws to do that. The bias-laws simply provided enhanced penalties when bias was a factor in the criminal act. The enhanced penalties are intended to send a strong message about the unacceptability of such bias-related criminal acts, because the element of bias is seen to increase the seriousness of the offense in terms of the impact on the community.
And these laws were never intended to just protect minority groups--these laws help to protect the civil liberties of virtually all groups in the community.
It is more than naive to think that blacks cannot be as motivated by hatred, and just as biased as whites, and that this would not be a factor in the commision of certain crimes. Consider this case, in which a black man was convicted of a bias-related crime.
Quote:The New York Times
March 2, 2007
Man Is Convicted of Attempted Murder as Hate Crime in Village Rampage
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
An unemployed barber who went on a shooting rampage in an East Village wine bar more than four years ago, screaming, “White people are going to burn tonight,” was convicted yesterday of attempted murder as a hate crime.
The barber, Steven Johnson, 39, shot and wounded three people and sprayed several patrons with kerosene, threatening to set them on fire, at Bar Veloce on Second Avenue in June 2002.
He was disarmed after two women in the bar tackled him.
The women, Anne Hubbard, who was 34 at the time, and Ann-Margret Gidley, who was 23, were waitresses at the Gotham Bar and Grill. They had gathered at Bar Veloce with other Gotham employees for a farewell party for a waiter moving to Dallas, when Mr. Johnson burst in.
Mr. Johnson shot Ms. Hubbard in the shin as she tackled him. Shoji Iso, the owner of a sushi restaurant three doors down, heard the commotion and was shot in the wrist when he peeked in the door of Bar Veloce to see what was going on.
The jury of six women and six men in State Supreme Court in Manhattan convicted Mr. Johnson yesterday after four and a half days of deliberation. They rejected the contention of Mr. Johnson’s defense lawyer, Michelle Gelernt, that he was suffering from delusions and therefore not legally responsible for what he did.
It was the second trial for Mr. Johnson; a jury deadlocked in his first trial in November 2004.
One of the jurors, Harry Donas, 45, an engineer, said after yesterday’s verdict that the jury thought there were other reasons besides delusions to explain Mr. Johnson’s behavior. Among them, Mr. Donas said, were that his female companion had died of AIDS, that he planned it two months earlier, and that he was losing his business.
Attempted murder normally brings a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. But prosecutors said yesterday that Mr. Johnson faced a potentially longer sentence, depending on his prior record, because attempted murder as a hate crime is considered a more serious offense than attempted murder.
Mr. Johnson has a criminal record for weapons and drug arrests going back to 1985. He showed no reaction to the verdict yesterday. Sentencing was scheduled for later this month.
On the night of the shooting, Mr. Johnson — armed with a samurai sword, three pistols, kerosene and plastic handcuffs — took the train from his Williamsburg, Brooklyn, housing project into Manhattan, later telling the police that he went to the East Village in search of people partying, and that he wanted to kill as many white people as he could.
The rampage began around 2 a.m., when he demanded a man’s wallet and then shot him in the torso.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said after the shooting that the attack was so bizarre that it could only have been the product of someone who was “clearly deranged.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/nyregion/02shootout.html
And the sentence that Mr. Johnson received was indeed stiff....
Quote:Black Charged with Hate Crime, Sentenced
2007-03-22
Desired to kill 'happy white people'
By SAMUEL MAULL
NEW YORK - A judge sentenced a man to 240 years in prison Wednesday for taking hostages in a bar and telling patrons that "white people are going to burn tonight."
State Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley told Steven Johnson, 39, who is black, that he had forfeited his "right to live in society."
Johnson, 39, was convicted March 1 of attempted murder, assault and other charges, including some designated as hate crimes.
Johnson invaded Bar Veloce, in Manhattan's East Village neighborhood, while nine men and six women were inside it June 16, 2002. He was carrying three pistols, a samurai sword and a container of kerosene.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=137
In this very recent incident in Wisconsin, which took place at a state fair, hate crime enhancements will apparently be lodged against some of the teens involved.
Quote:Wisconsin State Fair mob attack: Police seek hate crime charges
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer
August 12, 2011
Police in West Allis, Wis., say some attacks by black teenagers on white people outside the gates of the Wisconsin State Fair on Aug. 4 were racially motivated and should be prosecuted as hate crimes.
One African-American teenager arrested Wednesday confirmed witness statements suggesting that the large group of black teens, who had originally fought among themselves, specifically targeted white people as they spilled out of the large fairgrounds on the outskirts of Milwaukee at closing time. According to the West Allis Police, he said he personally picked out white people because they were "easy targets." Eleven people were hurt.
The incident sparked a crackdown by Gov. Scott Walker (R) and widespread condemnation of the acts by leaders in Milwaukee's black community. After the incident, Milwaukee joined Chicago and Philadelphia in efforts to combat a spate of recent attacks by groups of primarily African-American teens against strangers who are white.
Opportunistic thrill-seeking and resentment fueled by stark segregation and high unemployment among young black males (39 percent versus 23 percent for white teens) have been cited by sociologists as possible causes for the recent attacks. The attacks have touched off debates in Milwaukee and elsewhere about who bears ultimate responsibility for the incidents: parents or society at large?
While racial motivations have been suspected in several other mob attacks, the recommendations by the West Allis police department appears to be the first time that specific hate charges have been cited in relation to recent attacks. Two similar attacks earlier this year in Milwaukee did not result in hate crime charges against the suspects.
"Attacking anyone based on their ethnicity or color means a racial hate crime should be an additional" charge, said Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines, who is black, two days after the attacks.
Of a total of 36 race-related hate crime prosecutions in Wisconsin in 2009, 27 of the alleged crimes were antiblack, two were antiwhite, and the remainder were against other ethncities or nationalities, according to the most recent statistics from the Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance.
Governor Walker deployed more state police to the fair after the incident and ordered that teens have to be chaperoned after dark. No other incidents have since been reported at the fair, which ends Aug. 14.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/0812/Wisconsin-State-Fair-mob-attack-Police-seek-hate-crime-charges
Quote:The only problem is if you are a black man for example you are 2.5 times more likely to be charge under the hate crime laws then a white person.
Not according to the data cited for Wisconsin in the above article. The figures you are using seem to be over a decade old. Newer data might not support your conclusions. In fact, there have been recent criticisms of the U.S. Justice Dept. for not wanting to acknowledge or prosecute black on white bias-related crimes.
Bias-crimes are equally deplorable regardless of which racial group commits them.
