A Nice Friendly Hate Crime

Points over which you have not previously puzzled:

To Commit a Hate Crime, Must the Criminal Truly Hate the Victim?

By MICHAEL BRICK

In her courtroom on the 21st floor of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn yesterday, Justice Jill Konviser-Levine sat and pondered the question of hate.

“Bottom line,” Justice Konviser-Levine ruminated aloud, “is animus an element of the crime?” 

Apparently that is an easy question in some states, where the underlying statute
is clear.  But nothing is simple in New York:

The crime in question was the killing of Michael J. Sandy, 29, a gay man who was lured to a parking area in Sheepshead Bay last October, beaten and chased into traffic. He later died in the hospital.

Prosecutors have said a group of young men contacted Mr. Sandy through an online gay chat room, selecting him as a robbery victim in the belief that a gay man would be unwilling or unable to put up a fight and unlikely to report the crime.

The defendants — John Fox, 20; Ilya Shurov, 21; and Anthony Fortunato, 21 — have been charged not just with murder, but with murder under the state Hate Crimes Act of 2000, which provides longer prison sentences for crimes motivated “in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person.”

So you don't have to hate a member of a group believed (rightly or wrongly) to have particular characteristics; arguably, it is enough to believe that those characteristics make the target victim appealing.  Hmm.

In court documents, a defense lawyer has asked Justice Konviser-Levine to dismiss the enhanced murder charges against all three defendants because “the crimes alleged are not crimes of hate but rather crimes of opportunity.”

That lawyer, Gerald J. Di Chiara, filed a motion in which he argued that lawmakers responsible for the Hate Crimes Act had written a statute applicable only to defendants who truly hate their victims. He quoted from a State Senate memorandum in support of a law “designed to ensure that only those who truly are motivated by invidious hatred are prosecuted for committing hate crimes.”

To allow prosecutors to pursue hate crime charges without demonstrating such hatred, Mr. Di Chiara argued, would render the law unconstitutionally vague and arbitrary.

For example, he wrote, the authorities could then ascribe hate crimes to “a mugger who selects an elderly or disabled person because he believes that such a victim will be unable to resist effectively, a pocketbook snatcher who targets women, or a burglar who selects a victim from an ethnic minority group because the victim does not speak English.”

Good point - next we can institute quotas for criminals.  But don't call them quotas!  Affirmative action it is!  In any case, if a particular criminal does not select victims in proportion to prevailing neighborhood demographics, this will be judged a hate crime offense.  Cool.  But hold on...

In addition, [Lieberman for the prosecution] argued, if lawmakers had intended to make prosecutors prove defendants hated their victims, the Legislature would have said so in the law’s final language.

“By contrast with New York State,” Mr. Lieberman wrote, “other states have hate crime statutes that require evidence of bias, animus or prejudice.”

Citing legal scholars, he suggested that hate crime prosecutions without evidence of hatred could benefit society. As in the era of racially motivated lynching, he noted, prosecutors could alter perceptions of vulnerability among certain groups and impunity among others.

Ahh!  So old folks, for example, who don't feel sufficiently protected by the knowledge that mugging is a crime, will feel an extra bit of security with the news that mugging a frail and elderly type is a hate crime, even if no one hates them at all.

I love New York.

Comments

[clarice]

What a tangled web we weave when he try to add penalties to vicious crimes depending on p.c. I hate these laws and this one is a good indiccation why.
I believe Horowitz still hasn't had to pay out his bet that no one can find a case where Blacks were ever convicted of a hate crime even though all indications of hatred of others motivated the crime were met.

[Jane]

I'm with you Clarice. If someone is committing murder they hate something - so why the need for an enhancement? It's that kind of thing that keeps everyone unequal, which supposedly it is just the opposite of the intent.

[clarice]

More so--evidence of intent is almost always (as Libby's counsel states in its latest brief) think of what discretionary power this gives the prosecutor. Conduct which is perfectly legal albeit abhorent , is used to add a substantial amount of time to a deserved sentence.(Dare I callSharpton and Jackson race baiters? ) Does Precious get extra time if charged with filing false charges if we find out some time somewhere she said she hates white boys? Is it okay if she just said she hated Duke boys or athletes?) PHEH on all of that.

[clarice]

***More so--evidence of intent is almost always CIRCUMSTANTIAL (as Libby's counsel states in its latest brief) think of what discretionary power this gives the prosecutor. Conduct ***

(If you knew how much commotion was going on here all day and how much multi-tasking I'm attempting you'd just HAVE to give me a pass on these badly drafted posts.........)

[Jane]

I'd give you a pass without the commotion. I'm in the same club.

[Cecil Turner]

Conduct which is perfectly legal albeit abhorent , is used to add a substantial amount of time to a deserved sentence.

Yes, and now we see it taken to the ridiculous extreme. . . where "hate" isn't even a requirement . . . merely using a stereotype is enough. This can't possibly be applied objectively, and does exactly what Jane suggests: keeps everyone unequal. Punish crimes, not perceived "thought patterns."

[JM Hanes]

Cecil:

Punish crimes, not perceived "thought patterns."

It's not just crime, it's politics too. Folks don't talk about bad policy, they talk about bad motives and bad people. In fact, policy promoted by bad people like Bush/Cheney is, by definition, bad policy.

[JM Hanes]

TM:

Wait! It gets better! Noted at Instapundit:

Dems Seek Study Of Broadcast Speech and Hate Crimes.

[Neo]

Hate crimes are so bogus.

For example, if hating was a crime, most of the left-leaning side of the blogosphere would be in jail .. sent there by the victim, George W Bush.

[BarbaraS]

What the hate crime laws boil down to is protection for certain elements of our society more than others. It seems from this NY case prosecution is protecting the gay element and any time a gay is murdered it is a hate crime. In my opinion, all murders are hate crimes and all should be treated in the manner. It used to be that when a murder was commited the perpertrator was sentenced to life in prison or death by exection. We have dumbed down punishments and deterences.