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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mixedmedia
this is ridiculous, cyn. I'm really surprised at this stretch coming from you.
dippin pretty much encapsulated my thinking on hate crimes legislation and why it is of benefit to our justice system. I always find the best way to comprehend the difference between crime and hate crime is to look at one of the less violent forms of crime that can incorporate hate and that is vandalism. Is it not obvious that there is a broad difference in intent between someone who spray paints graffiti on a subway car and someone who spray paints swastikas in a Jewish cemetary? Think about the difference in mindset behind each act. If you believe the latter should be punished more severely than the former, then you cannot not carry it through to punishment for the perpetration of violent crimes. They are NOT the same thing.
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Living in a very Jewish community, I get the vandalism aspect of it, since, most of us in the neighborhood can see it's affects firsthand as a Jewish person walks past a swastika or the defacing of one of the oldest synagogues in the US in our neighborhood. I get it for the vandalism aspect, I get extreme disconnect when I see it applied to crimes where there is already a sufficient description and punishment to mete out for the actual crime committed. So thus the murder and assaults of the examples I put before in my post are sufficient crimes to punish offenders. To say that the intent of hate for those crimes makes the crime "worse" is in effect then reducing the same crime if it were to happen without the hateful intent.
---------- Post added at 09:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:12 AM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
Are you serious? I don't see where he even implied that. Why would anyone think that?
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Quote:
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- As much as people like to believe that we live in this abstract world where prejudice doesn't exist, the fact has been that our justice system is biased. In fact, prejudice has often been used as a defense, a mitigating factor in sentencing or in reducing the charge to a "heat of the moment" crime. The other day a man who killed a gay man was sentenced to 180 days in prison after using the "gay panic" defense.
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gay panic defense.... the judge and DA should have not accepted that as a reasonable defense.
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