Memorial

[dwenius]

Mathew Shepard was killed 7 years ago today.

His murderers both copped pleas, and are serving consecutive life sentences in an undisclosed prison.

Later that year, the Wyoming legislature refused to enact a hate-crimes bill that was introduced in response to the killing. Federal efforts for a similar bill also failed within the year, thanks in no small part to the intervention of Trent Lott, who was all for a hate crimes bill when it was only protecting women and jews and even blacks, but throw in the queers and you get nowhere.

As a final, minor, ignorable-except-for-its-crass-fuck-knobbery point, Fred Phelps, Supreme Wingnut and Founder of the Westboro Baptist church, led a contingent of protesters to wave signs and shout slogans at Matthew's funeral.

Comments

The second part of this response contains a common rhetorical fallacy, but I don't care.

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

There are dozens of extenuating factors that affect the sentences juries are instructed/allowed to proscribe; this is why we have both manslaughter and several degrees of murder. The primary benefit of hate crimes legislation is to allow questions of race, gender, and sexual orientation to influence these designations directly, and impact sentencing in a corresponding fashion.

On an indirectly related topic, why do we need the Unborn Victims of Violence Act? A fetus isn't counted on the census, doesn't provide any tax benefit, and cannot be used to obtain welfare benefits, yet we now have a federal law that specifies that killing a pregnant woman counts as two murders, not one.

Re: The second part of this response contains a common rhetorical fallacy, but I don't care.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

"The primary benefit of hate crimes legislation is to allow questions of race, gender, and sexual orientation to influence these designations directly, and impact sentencing in a corresponding fashion."

I can't tell the difference between the above and "Killing a black/queer/woman is worse than killing a straight white dude." I disagree with the second, therefore I must disagree with the first.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The difference is easy: a non-white killing a white because he's white.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

Blerg. I am foolish today, and must ask you to explain in a bit more detail, because I'm not getting it. Perhaps when I return for lunch it will all make sense.

Re: The second part of this response contains a common rhetorical fallacy, but I don't care.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

No.

Killing a person who is /N/ is not a hate crime. Killing a person because he or she is /N/ is a hate crime.

Re: The second part of this response contains a common rhetorical fallacy, but I don't care.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

The difficulty of proving motivation entirely aside, penalizing someone for thoughts in their head is, well, antithetical to my sense of justice. Kicking Lance Fabulous in the head for the $20 in his wallet is bad; I don't see why doing it because he's gay is worse.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

'Extenuating' is probably not the exact word you want, but i understand what you mean. Nonetheless, i do not see any reason for the motivation behind a crime to make any difference in the sentencing. Kicking the crap out of a homosexual because of a hatred for homosexuals shouldn't be prosecuted any more vigorously than kicking the crap out of any other person. It's an added burden to prove, too.

And, yeah, we don't need the UVVA. That's just crap all around. I look forward to the first criminal to challenge that in court and win.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

Criminalizing motivations is making thoughts illegal, which is my core objection to hate-crime legislation. As you say, violence is already illegal. Extra penalties for racial/orientation animus are punishments for badthink.

Put me down for a shot of 'UVVA sux' as well. It's poorly thought out, a marketing pamphlet masquerading as law, and generally a waste of time all 'round.

here, have some grey.

[anavolena.livejournal.com]

i've never understood it as criminalizing the thought. rather, it's criminalizing *acting* on the thought.

as pointed out, intent is a critical element of our justice system. in our system, accidentally causing the death of another human being is punished differently than intentionally causing the death of a human being. one is manslaughter, one is murder.

further, if you murder someone in the spur of the moment, it's bad. but if you decide to murder someone, plan the murder, and enact the murder, it's even worse. you had time to realize the implications of your actions, and you went through with it, anyway.

the concept of a hate crime goes to intent. "i hate N people, i decided to go out and take my hatred of N people out on N people, i ran into n person, i killed n person." that demonstrates intent at the level of premeditation. the killer didn't specifically intent to kill "n", but he intended to kill "an n."

saying there's no hierarchy of evil is no different than any other attempt to force the world into an untenable level of black and white, right or wrong.

so is saying violence is always wrong. would you argue that the we should have prosecuted the instigators of the [insert your favorite revolutionary or independence movement here]?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Premeditated murder is premeditated murder. I don't see why doing so out of bigotry is somehow worse than doing it out of greed, jealousy, envy, or just plain fucked-in-the-headedness.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

I don't know the finer details of the specific law which was proposed, but I get the impression that the intention of the hate crime laws, apart from extra publicity for those who introduce them[1], is to make it easier to demonstrate pre-meditation in cases where people kill random strangers because of race, gender, sexual orientation or whatever. When the accused tries to offer a plea of manslaughter ("Hey, I was drunk and got in a fight, but I didn't mean to kill the jerk", or somesuch), evidence of previous racist/misogynist/homophobic/whatever behaviour can be used to demonstrate premeditation where there is no other obvious motive. In theory, this makes it harder for such people to escape with 5 years for manslaughter. In practice, I'm not sure how well it works.