Legend responds to me:
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The question now becomes: Do you think there is such a thing as "incitement"?
Yes. Unfortunately the legal definition covers a very broad spectrum of words and actions.
But by the logic you have been presenting here, there can be no such thing as "incitement" because it is mere words, not actions. You're contradicting yourself.
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And that's exactly why I have such grave concerns about this law.
But that wasn't a hate crime law. Why did you bring up a red herring?
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Her speech led to her arrest and trial!
Didn't you just say that incitement was a crime? Which is it? Can speech be sufficient cause for police to investigate potential crime or not? You seem to be upset that the cops are paying attention.
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I've already provided many examples of people getting intimidated by the authorities because they expressed an opinion.
No, you haven't. You've provided examples of the police investigating possible crimes, which is their job. By your logic, every single act of investigation by the police regarding a potential crime that doesn't lead anywhere is an act of "intimidation."
Once again, your argument is that if a law is ever misapplied anywhere at any time, then it is a corrupt law and needs to be done away with. And thus, we need to reject all laws for every single law has the potential to be misapplied as every single law must be enforced by fallible humans.
Do tell: Exactly how do you expect the police to determine if a crime has been committed if they are not allowed to interview people regarding the incident? After all, the police cannot be at all places at all times. They will necessarily have to subject people to scrutiny. For you to call this "intimidation" means that there can never be any real justice system.
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No, because in the vast majority of cases where people have been wrongly prosecuted for some crime it's been either because of a failure of the system or a failure of the people implementing the system.
And how is this any different for hate crimes? You haven't provided any evidence of such. If wrongly accusing someone of murder does cause a "chilling effect," why would wrongful accusation for any other crime do so?
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But these hate/incitement/witch-hunt laws are something totally different: they actually promote and foster prosecution based simply on *perception*
Incorrect. You're confusing incidents with crimes again.
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Prosecuting people for terrorism...?
Yes. Hate crimes are terrorism. You have been paying attention to this thread, have you not? The reason why a hate crime is more significant than other crimes is due to the fact that a hate crime affects more than the individual person it is carried out against. By your logic, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should only be tried with aggravated vandalism. But clearly, what he was doing was something much more than that.
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Prosecuting people for writing poems, no matter how distasteful and disagreeable they are?
Where was this? You haven't given any example of such. Nobody has been arrested simply for "writing poems." Something much more was involved. Let's not pretend that the prosecution was for "writing poems."
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# 2 cases of people intimidated (i.e. home-interviewed) by the police for expressing an opinion about homosexuality.
# 2 cases of people intimidated (i.e. home-interviewed) by the police for cracking an 'incorrect' joke.
Where's the intimidation? Oh, that's right...anytime the police talk to anybody, it's intimidation. So we had better make sure that nobody is ever questioned by the police regarding anything. The only crimes that can ever be prosecuted are those for which the police have direct experience.
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# 1 case of a woman who was charged and tried with a racially-aggravated crime because her opponent belatedly alleged to have been called a racial epithet.
And found innocent. Oh, that's right...anybody ever accused of a crime and found innocent is proof that the law is bad and thus should be abolished. And since all crimes are incorrectly applied at some point, all laws should be done away with.
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# 1 case of a woman who was charged, tried and convicted with a racially-aggravated crime because her drunken stupidity was deemed to be racist, or deemed to "try to subjugate the community" as you put it.
Incorrect. She pleaded guilty.
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# 1 case of a mugger who had his sentence multiplied because his actions were unfoundedly deemed to be hateful.
"Unfounded"? Says who? You? So far, not a single example you've given supports your claims. In fact, many of them say the exact opposite.
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create crimes of perception
Incorrect. You're confusing incidents with crimes again.
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suppress free speech and freedom of expression.
So why are there still white supremacy groups?
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lack supporting evidence that these laws have any deterrent effect, that they protect the public.
Says who? You? So we should deny justice simply because there are lots of people who want to commit crime?
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only increase social and racial tensions by adding special weight on crimes dependent on the race/religion/sexuality of the victim.
Not a single word of that is true. The King verdict riots are proof against that. And there is no "dependent" aspect. All races, religions, and sexualities are protected. That's why of all the racial hate crimes that were committed here in the US, about 20% of them were committed against whites. How could we even know that if they were "dependent" upon race?
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punish an anticipated impact on the community which, apart from patronising, is unproven and often simply not true, i.e these laws punish ghost-crimes.
Incorrect. They punish a very real impact upon the community. The charges against the police in Atlanta and their raid of the Eagle prove that.
And I would think Matthew Shepard might have something to say about this "ghost-crime" he somehow managed to die from.
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Murder convictions are based on (i) evidence that a killing has been commited by the defendant
And hate crime convictions are based on evidence that the defendent committed the crime, too. No, not "perception" but real felonies committed against a community using an individual as a proxy.
So why the special pleading?
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evidence that the killing was planned and intentional, that's what makes it murder as opposed to manslaughter.
That's trying to read somebody's thoughts, is it not? You mean if we find poems of the accused where he writes about how he's going to kill someone in a certain way and we find the victim killed in precisely that manner, we shouldn't be allowed to use it as proof because we'd be punishing them for "writing poems"?
So why the special pleading?
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Hate-crime convictions on the other hand are based on the perception of the victim or anyone else that the crime was motivated (specifically-intented, if it makes you feel better) by hate on race/religious/etc grounds.
Incorrect. You're confusing incidents with crimes again.
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Take the Cheryl Tweedy case
We already did. She claimed self-defense, indicating that she didn't think she even committed a crime. Too, she wasn't being charged for saying something. Instead, what she said was being used as proof that what she did was beyond simple assault. Just as a murderer's writings are used to show that what was done was beyond simply manslaughter.
Plus, she wasn't convicted.
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Same thing with the drunken idiotic woman who called the cab driver a racist epithet.
You mean the one who pleaded guilty? Oh, that's right...you're capable of reading her mind.
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To put this in the context of a murder case, since you so much love drawing parallels between the two, this would be the equivalent of someone calling the police claiming that you murdered someone.
Oh, but then the cops would "intimidate" people by sending someone out to actually investigate the crime, and we all know how horrible it is to be "intimidated" by the cops.
And again, you're confusing incidents with crimes.
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Still, they arrest and charge you and you go to court.
Incorrect. My defense attorney is competent and asks for immediate dismissal with prejudice which the competent judge immediately grants and then files charges against the DA for malicious prosecution.
You're confusing incidents with crimes. Do you have an example of anybody ever being brought to trial on nothing more than a tip?
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Thankfully, murder offences aren't pursued with the same zealotry as hate-crime offences
(*blink!*)
You did not just say that, did you? There are 10 times as many murders in the US as hate crimes, according to the stats.
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require much more stringent standards of evidence than hearsay and conjecture
None of which is allowed in hate crimes trials, either. Hearsay is hearsay no matter what. Conjecture is never allowed in a trial.
Once again, your argument rests upon every single member of the entire judicial profession to have lost their minds, that not a single defense attorney would ever object to hearsay or conjecture and that if they had the sanity to do so, the judges are all involved in a vast conspiracy to overrule such.
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Which is why no-one opposes murder statutes but many oppose hate-crime ones.
Incorrect. People oppose hate crimes laws because they don't understand what such legislation actually entails.
Rrhain
Thank you for your submission to
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