Does this qualify as a "Hate Crime"?

[SkyChimp 0]

Anne Presely (TV anchor for KATV) was burglerized, raped, and then brutily murdered allegedly by Curtis Lavelle Vance. Curtis has pled not guilty in the murder and rape but if convictied after DNA tests, he could face the death penalty. My question is since he made racial statements against white people, does this qualify for a hate crime? The murdered victim Anne Presely is white.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573826,00.html?test=latestnews

Does anyone else find it funny that we made a SPORT out of an EMERGENCY PROCEDURE?!?!

[namgrunt 0]

In our PC world

No

white on black crime=Hate Crime
Black on white crime=misunderstood,poor childhood

Black on Black crime=just another day in the hood
White on White crime=Family violance

remember people do not kill people evil guns do

now back to sleep you PC folks

59 YEARS,OVERWEIGHT,BALDIND,X-GRUNT
LAST MIL. JUMP VIET-NAM(QUAN-TRI)
www.dzmemories.com

[SkyChimp 0]

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In our PC world

No

white on black crime=Hate Crime
Black on white crime=misunderstood,poor childhood

Black on Black crime=just another day in the hood
White on White crime=Family violance

remember people do not kill people evil guns do

now back to sleep you PC folks

I have to say that your content is pretty accurate for today's society. Oh the double standards......

Does anyone else find it funny that we made a SPORT out of an EMERGENCY PROCEDURE?!?!

[Andy9o8 2]

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he made racial statements against white people

I didn't see reference to this in the article you linked, so I did several Google searches to try to find some reference to that. I couldn't find anything at all, aside from several articles saying police were at a loss to understand the motive for the crime, and a few that said police were thinking that robbery may have been a motive. Do you have a specific link or source that we can examine, please?

[loumeinhart 0]

Here in Cleveland a white jogger was laid up hard after getting attacked by 6 black teens. There was no reason/motive for the attack and I don't recall it ever being called a hate crime by the media or officials.

Here is a NYtimes article on it.

A black 52yr old jogger getting attacked by 6 white men would be a Hate Crime.


..I'm just sayin

[Andy9o8 2]

OK.
Still waitin' on SkyChimp's source.

[ryoder 1,590]

The whole concept of "hate" crime is bullshit.
People should be tried and convicted base on what they do, not what they think,
let alone what twelve strangers think they were thinking at the time of the crime.

The whole hate crime concept sounds like something borrowed from George Orwell's "1984".

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[Andy9o8 2]

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The whole concept of "hate" crime is bullshit.
People should be tried and convicted base on what they do, not what they think,
let alone what twelve strangers think they were thinking at the time of the crime.

The whole hate crime concept sounds like something borrowed from George Orwell's "1984".

There's obviously a lot of debate over this subject. But the fact is that legislation is frequently a barometer of the prevailing attitudes of the given legislature's constituency, which is to say, of society at large.

Hate crime legislation now exists, in one form or another, not only at the federal level, but in the laws of 45 states (and state legislators are often pretty conservative.)

Most people think of hate crimes laws as being championed mainly by liberals. But in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, a unanimous US Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling that had tried to invalidate Wisconsin's hate crimes laws. In the Court's opinion, Chief Justice Rehnquist, unquestionably one of the most conservative members of the SCOTUS on which he served, gave the following policy rationale for hate crimes laws:

"this conduct is thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm.... bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest."

Now you may disagree with that rationale, but it's not as though it's restricted to a small, tree-hugging segment of society.

[Andy9o8 2]

Still waitin', Chimp.
(Not that you're on my schedule, of course. )

[Lucky... 0]

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People should be tried and convicted base on what they do, not what they think,

But the motivation for teh crime is part of what they think. Actus Reus and Mens Rea are the elements that comprise a crime, the latter IS the formation of thought and motive and is part of what drives a person to the crime.

[GeorgiaDon 362]

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The whole concept of "hate" crime is bullshit.

How about if the crime is intended to "send a message" to a target group. For example, a victim is killed and that killing is accompanied either explicitly or by strong implication with the message "the rest of you [insert ethnic/sexual orientation/religious group of choice] better get out of town or you'll be next. Is that not different from the typical robbery gone bad type murder?

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[JohnRich 4]

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he made racial statements against white people

I didn't see reference to this in the article you linked...

Do you believe that racial statements are a prerequisite to charging someone with a hate crime?

If a bunch of rednecks beat up a homosexual, are they immune from hate-crime charges as long as they don't utter the word "faggot"?

[ryoder 1,590]

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The whole concept of "hate" crime is bullshit.

How about if the crime is intended to "send a message" to a target group. For example, a victim is killed and that killing is accompanied either explicitly or by strong implication with the message "the rest of you [insert ethnic/sexual orientation/religious group of choice] better get out of town or you'll be next. Is that not different from the typical robbery gone bad type murder?

Don

There is already a differentiation for the examples you gave:
- The former is First Degree Murder.
- The latter is Second Degree Murder.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[ryoder 1,590]

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People should be tried and convicted base on what they do, not what they think,

But the motivation for teh crime is part of what they think. Actus Reus and Mens Rea are the elements that comprise a crime, the latter IS the formation of thought and motive and is part of what drives a person to the crime.

As I understand it Mens Rea is about separating about whether the act was:
- Accidental
- Deliberate
- Unintentional result of recklessness
- Unintentional result of negligence

The hate crime concept is trying to subdivide deliberate motivation.
Why should it matter whether the reason was for vengeance, money, or bigotry?

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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People should be tried and convicted base on what they do, not what they think,
let alone what twelve strangers think they were thinking at the time of the crime.

So what then is the difference between running a stop sign causing death and a drive by shooting?

[ryoder 1,590]

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People should be tried and convicted base on what they do, not what they think,
let alone what twelve strangers think they were thinking at the time of the crime.

So what then is the difference between running a stop sign causing death and a drive by shooting?

Google "Involuntary manslaughter" and "First Degree Murder".

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[Caitlin89 0]

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Anne Presely (TV anchor for KATV) was burglerized, raped, and then brutily murdered allegedly by Curtis Lavelle Vance. Curtis has pled not guilty in the murder and rape but if convictied after DNA tests, he could face the death penalty. My question is since he made racial statements against white people, does this qualify for a hate crime? The murdered victim Anne Presely is white.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573826,00.html?test=latestnews

Where exactly are you getting this information?

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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People should be tried and convicted base on what they do, not what they think,
let alone what twelve strangers think they were thinking at the time of the crime.

So what then is the difference between running a stop sign causing death and a drive by shooting?

Google "Involuntary manslaughter" and "First Degree Murder".

The difference between them is what you were thinking leading up to and at the time of the offense; that's my point.

[Kennedy 0]

Hey, come on, he doesn't hate white folks, in fact he likes white women so much he wants to sleep with them, whether they agree or not, and if they resist, he crushes their face like an egg and hits them so hard he forces their jaw into the rear of their skull, cutting off blood flow to the brain.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[Kennedy 0]

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So what then is the difference between running a stop sign causing death and a drive by shooting?

Google "Involuntary manslaughter" and "First Degree Murder".

The difference between them is what you were thinking leading up to and at the time of the offense; that's my point.

That's intent. Intent is not the same thing as motivation. Whether you meant to kill someone is far more important than why you wanted to kill them, though I suppose they both fall under the category of "what you were thinking."

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[LyraM45 0]

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Anne Presely (TV anchor for KATV) was burglerized, raped, and then brutily murdered allegedly by Curtis Lavelle Vance. Curtis has pled not guilty in the murder and rape but if convictied after DNA tests, he could face the death penalty. My question is since he made racial statements against white people, does this qualify for a hate crime? The murdered victim Anne Presely is white.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573826,00.html?test=latestnews

If officials do the proper investigating just as they would do for any hate crime regardless of who on who it was and find that the person meets the criteria, then they should be charged. If this guys intent was to harm this woman because she is white, then he should be charged as such. If he makes racial comments previously in other situations it doesn't mean his sole reason for harming or targeting this woman was because she is white. How many white guys do you hear telling a racial joke or making racial references at some point in their life? It doesn't mean that if down the road that white guy gets into a bar fight with a black guy it was because he was black since he made a racial comment a long time ago. Who knows what the trigger was for the fight at that exact moment. There are a lot of reason why people do stupid things.

Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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That's intent. Intent is not the same thing as motivation. Whether you meant to kill someone is far more important than why you wanted to kill them, though I suppose they both fall under the category of "what you were thinking."

Good point. My intent was to debunk Ryoder's comment about judging the actions only.
While we are on the subject of intent, it is my understanding of US criminal law that any collateral damage incurred during the commission of a felony is deemed to be intended. This is the rational for charging a bank robber with first degree murder if they run over a pedestrian while fleeing. Given that and Justice Renquist's opinion,

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"this conduct is thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm....

does it not follow that if ones motivation is to cause greater harm within the target community that it is therefore deemed to be their intent?
How does this differ from terrorism?

[billvon 2,991]

Nope. It was a "rape and murder" crime.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Anne Presely (TV anchor for KATV) was burglerized, raped, and then brutily murdered allegedly by Curtis Lavelle Vance. Curtis has pled not guilty in the murder and rape but if convictied after DNA tests, he could face the death penalty. My question is since he made racial statements against white people, does this qualify for a hate crime? The murdered victim Anne Presely is white.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573826,00.html?test=latestnews

Part of the motivation for hate crimes legislation was to increase the penalties for assault cases. But since this guy already faces the death penalty, does it really matter? Slapping on the designation would be another argument for the prosecution to present and possibly lose, and potentially tarnish the rest of the case.

[Andy9o8 2]

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he made racial statements against white people

I didn't see reference to this in the article you linked...

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Do you believe that racial statements are a prerequisite to charging someone with a hate crime?

No. But since the OP, but not the article he linked, made reference to alleged "racial statements against white people", I wanted to see some source reference* so I could make an informed evaluation of the query he posed.

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If a bunch of rednecks beat up a homosexual, are they immune from hate-crime charges as long as they don't utter the word "faggot"?

No. There has to be some kind of evidence of racial/ethnic/anti-gay animus as a motive for the crime; and that evidence, as long as it's competent, need not necessarily take the form of a verbal statement. Assuring that such evidence is sufficiently specific and non-speculative such that it does not violate the Constitution is a tough chore for a conscientious trial judge.



*...for which we're still waiting, BTW. Calling Mr. Chimp...