quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: What is an 'act of terror'? And I can see invoking it in plain cases, but extreme? And why the arbitrary one or two cases a year?
"Extreme" as in extremely clear and easy to prove. One or two cases a year as in, this is how many cases I think it would actually apply to, not that it could only be used in one or two cases, but that it probably only would apply in one or two cases, which is just my guess based on nothing in particular.
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quote: I have no idea the best way to go about it but I think the whole system could use an overhaul, and after it did our preconceptions of how to handle hate crimes might be irrelevant (or at least different).
That I can agree with. I think if we're slapping "hate crime" on top of some other offense, or jury-rigging (NPI) our sentencing guidelines and prosecutorial practices in order to get a politically acceptable outcome, do the detriment of the system as a whole and to society in general, it's time for a major overhaul. We do need to be asking ourselves why a particularly heinous crime cannot be punished enough under our current statutes, and why other crimes are being dealt with in an extremely harsh manner for no good reason when the individual cases are considered. The problem with involving a large scale political process in sentencing and prosecution is that each crime, each case, and each defendant is an individual, and has the right to have his/her case decided on individual merits. We shouldn't have to worry that these people who did what they did to Shepherd will not be punished enough, just as we shouldn't have to worry that we or someone we know will be sent to prison for an offense that any reasonable person would judge unworthy of such harsh treatment.
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posted
My issue has nothing to do with "what is punishment enough." The notion of law enforcement being "punishment" at all seems petty and vengeful to me. Law enforcement's purpose should be to discourage people from doing bad things and preventing them from doing said bad things multiple times. The fact that this often resembles punishment is essentially coincidence. Generally, we need degrees of dis-incentive because otherwise people would feel no reason to stop something from going bad to worse.
I don't know the specifics of the Shepherd case that well, but I'd have to agree that any murder that ends with the victim being tortured and then put on public display is an act of terrorism in addition to murder, and thus warrants additional disincentive. It's just that figuring out what that additional disincentive should be is tricky
One thing that does bug me about current (or at least last I heard) hate crime legislation is that you have to fall under one of a few specific categories to qualify as a hate crime victim. It doesn't matter whether the victim is black, gay, or white - leaving the victim in obvious display terrorizes the population as a whole.
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quote:"Extreme" as in extremely clear and easy to prove. One or two cases a year as in, this is how many cases I think it would actually apply to, not that it could only be used in one or two cases, but that it probably only would apply in one or two cases, which is just my guess based on nothing in particular.
Ahh, I didn't get where you were applying the word 'extreme'.
What would you consider extremely clear and easy to prove? Would the bar be set so high as to have written, even published threats against a larger group? Or would warning that homosexuals better watch out or hanging a black man from a tree be sufficiently clear, absent other evidence?
quote: quote:
quote: But when we allow sentencing to be established by politicians, we get 3 strikes laws, we get mandatory minimums for drug offenders, and other very consequential trends.
Sentencing is already established by politicians. Judges in many places are politicians.
And you see no problem with that? You like it when it works in favor of something you want? Do you like the fact that there are people in prison who by any reasonable standard should not be, because their crimes were politically important issues? (I'm talking about the very silliest of the 3 strike offenses, the mandatory minimums involving small or even tiny amounts of drugs, etc).
Certainly there's a big problem with that, though for me the much more serious problem is that when you have a politician-judge it becomes much, much easier to buy a verdict or an appeal victory. My point was simply to mention that "It's politicizing the criminal justice system!" seems a bit of belaboring the already-happened, that's all.
I think you're also drawing an artificial distinction here. The problem with mandatory minimums isn't nearly as much the politicization of the law, but the word mandatory.
There's simply no reason at all why hate crimes penalties would rise to nearly that level of absurdity, or at least it's not a given as you appear to be arguing. Just like many first degree murders are, for reasons of expedience, not tried to seek the death penalty or a life sentence without parole.
quote:We do need to be asking ourselves why a particularly heinous crime cannot be punished enough under our current statutes, and why other crimes are being dealt with in an extremely harsh manner for no good reason when the individual cases are considered.
It's not necessarily about the biggest crime being punished 'enough'. If a man rapes and then murders a woman, is he tried only for the murder, because that's the more heinous crime? Should being punished for murder be 'enough'? I don't think so. It's about the criminal justice system responding to the crimes committed, I believe, more than punishing 'enough'.
Also, of course, there's the odd chance that a lyncher might go from getting parole in a few decades to never getting paroled at all, something that I wouldn't be unhappy with.
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quote:The notion of law enforcement being "punishment" at all seems petty and vengeful to me. Law enforcement's purpose should be to discourage people from doing bad things and preventing them from doing said bad things multiple times.
I don't know that I'd call it 'petty'. There's nothing petty about an individual or society wanting vengeance for a transgression against it. Actually taking it for the purposes of vengeance becomes problematic, though.
I also think that fulfilling this impulse is actually a pretty important part of our criminal justice system, too. Vigilante justice becomes less likely, for example, if society feels criminals are suffering.
I don't think that should be the first or even second goal (which would be protecting society from criminals, and rehabiliting criminals in that order), but I don't discount it either.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I don't know the specifics of the Shepherd case that well, but I'd have to agree that any murder that ends with the victim being tortured and then put on public display is an act of terrorism in addition to murder...
Why? Is it inconceivable that such actions can be undertaken as a result of drug use, peer pressure, mental instability, etc? Does it need to be an act of terror? How are you defining terrorism then? Is an arson therefore an act of terrorism, in that it has the same result as a bombing done for political purposes? What about a hostage taking for money? Is it an act of terror as well? These are kind of wall bangers I realize, but they remain important to consider.
quote: Certainly there's a big problem with that, though for me the much more serious problem is that when you have a politician-judge it becomes much, much easier to buy a verdict or an appeal victory.
This is a serious difference between us then. The focus should always be on making sure that the innocent are not sent to jail, and that no one is punished or incarcerated a day longer than is absolutely necessary. That you see guilty people getting off as a bigger problem bothers me- I wonder how many people think that.
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quote:Why? Is it inconceivable that such actions can be undertaken as a result of drug use, peer pressure, mental instability, etc? Does it need to be an act of terror? How are you defining terrorism then? Is an arson therefore an act of terrorism, in that it has the same result as a bombing done for political purposes? What about a hostage taking for money? Is it an act of terror as well? These are kind of wall bangers I realize, but they remain important to consider.
If someone commits murder as an act of drug use or peer pressure, it doesn't suddenly stop being murder. Displaying a tortured corpse to a community is a worse offense to that community than simply torturing and killing the victim and then leaving them somewhere more private. A public display makes the whole community (or a specific, targeted subset of the community) feel unsafe. Terrorized. And in the case of the fence/tree hanging scenario, the symbol is ancient and powerful whether or not the murderer intended it to be.
Peer pressure, drug use and mental instability may all add to circumstances that a judge/jury might take into account to lessen the sentence. But that doesn't change the fact that an additional crime against the community was committed.
quote:This is a serious difference between us then. The focus should always be on making sure that the innocent are not sent to jail, and that no one is punished or incarcerated a day longer than is absolutely necessary. That you see guilty people getting off as a bigger problem bothers me- I wonder how many people think that.
This is something I'm unsure about. I understand the mindset of "'tis better to let a thousand guilty men go free than to imprison a single innocent person." But frankly, any kind of criminal justice system is going to make mistakes. If we didn't want innocent people getting imprisoned sometimes, we wouldn't have a justice system in the first place. So obviously there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. I think the "official" line would be drawn at a theoretical ideal, where if we let additional guilty people go, those guilty people will end up killing/seriously-ruining-the-lives-of more innocent people than we would be saving.
That's obviously a very hard line to find precisely. But philosophically it's what I'd shoot for. Innocent people killed by guilty people the state let go are still innocent people dead. (I dunno what to think about other/lesser victimizations.)
But to me, the biggest problem is not so much that an arbitrarily large number of guilty people are going free, but rather than the demographics of who goes free is unfairly tilted in certain groups favor. Poor street criminals who steal $10,000 get caught, humiliated, dehumanized. Rich corporate criminals who steal millions are gonna get thrown humiliatingly against the wall less often.
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quote:This is a serious difference between us then. The focus should always be on making sure that the innocent are not sent to jail, and that no one is punished or incarcerated a day longer than is absolutely necessary. That you see guilty people getting off as a bigger problem bothers me- I wonder how many people think that.
Wow.
OK, let's see. First of all, nothing I said indicates I want to innocence protected by our criminal justice system downplayed or weakened even the tiniest iota.
Second, you're creating a distinction where one does not necessarily exist. Nothing about having a larger problem with buying verdicts than 'politicizing' the criminal justice system means that protecting innocence must come second. There can be two primary, equally important goals, and since it's not just a matter of spending equal amounts of dollars on both goals, we can't say when precisely one is advanced at the expense of the other without some very major differences in priorities.
Third, why do you think buying verdicts is somehow more likely to result in innocents being punished than politicizing verdicts? If a verdict or an appeal victory is bought, someone somewhere innocent isn't being served-because the guilty aren't being responded to.
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quote:The notion of law enforcement being "punishment" at all seems petty and vengeful to me.
From a behavioral psychology standpoint, the word "punishment" refers to an event that results in the removal of a behavior. It's a perfectly good word for that purpose, even though it does have the connotation of vengeance.
Next:
quote:Is it inconceivable that such actions can be undertaken as a result of drug use, peer pressure, mental instability, etc? Does it need to be an act of terror?
It might not. That's why some acts that are clearly driven by racial hatred wouldn't qualify as a hate crime. And if hate crime prosecution had been available when Shapard was killed the jury might have bought the killers' story that it was just a robbery, and ignored their girlfriend's testimony that they bragged about their plan to target a gay man.
In many cases like this, lynchings in the south for example, it wasn't possible to gain a conviction because simple murder is prosecuted at the local level, and you couldn't find local jurors that would convict the murderers. Creating a civil rights crime, at the federal level, allows for prosecution outside of the town, which bypasses that particular dead end.
And as far as there being laws against terrorism, apparently they weren't adequate to punish actual terrorists, so Bush and Co. had to label them "enemy combatants" in order to ensure that they could prosecute with impunity.
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OK, let's see. First of all, nothing I said indicates I want to innocence protected by our criminal justice system downplayed or weakened even the tiniest iota.
No, you just don't care about it as much, as you said. I think I'm pretty clear on where your priorities are.
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quote:The notion of law enforcement being "punishment" at all seems petty and vengeful to me.
From a behavioral psychology standpoint, the word "punishment" refers to an event that results in the removal of a behavior. It's a perfectly good word for that purpose, even though it does have the connotation of vengeance.
Since we are not all behavioral psychologists here, the Oxford English has this to say about punishment:
quote: punishment |ˈpəni sh mənt| noun the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense : crime demands just punishment.
Perhaps in certain fields it is used in a different way, but clearly there exists a widespread connotation of exacting retribution.
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quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: And as far as there being laws against terrorism, apparently they weren't adequate to punish actual terrorists, so Bush and Co. had to label them "enemy combatants" in order to ensure that they could prosecute with impunity.
The bush administration did that for complex reasons we can agree are difficult to apply to the matter at hand- and it is a matter of international law as well. That is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
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quote:No, you just don't care about it as much, as you said. I think I'm pretty clear on where your priorities are.
No, you're not. I said that bought verdicts and appeal victories, facilitated by politician judges, was more concerning to me personally than 'politicizing the criminal justice system'. I went on to explain how bought verdicts also tie in to concern for the innocent being punished.
So no, your clarity is mistaken.
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quote:Since we are not all behavioral psychologists here, the Oxford English has this to say about punishment:
quote:Perhaps in certain fields it is used in a different way, but clearly there exists a widespread connotation of exacting retribution.
Regardless, the cause and effect are the same. The only thing that changes is the motivation of the punisher. In that regard, those that support rehabilitation may be able to agree to the same actions as those who support retribution, as long as the result is the same: The removal of the offensive behavior.
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posted
I used to be against hate crime legislation when I thought it was meant to punish some crimes more harshly than others based on what the perpetrator was thinking or feeling about a class of people the victim belonged to. That was a misunderstanding on my part. "Hate crime" is really a very unfortunate label because it lends itself to that misunderstanding, which can be pretty difficult to dislodge (this thread has some excellent examples).
I think "terrorism" is a better label. If it's too complicated to reuse that label then we should go with something like "community intimidation." Either way it's far more clear that we're not trying to punish bigotry, but attach a penalty to deliberately intimidating a class of people (or everybody; I agree that such intimidation can happen even if there's not a specifically targeted class. In theory, anyway.)
There's certainly a risk that the concept of "hate crime" penalties could be extended to punish crimes more harshly simply because the perpetrator was a bigot, but I don't think that's the intent or effect of extant legislation. Heck, there are probably lots of people who think that's a good idea, but we haven't gone there yet and it's not an imminent risk. I don't think we should cross that line, but I'm fine with enhanced penalties for crimes that were also intended to terrorize a group of people. (When the intent can be proven to the normal standards of criminal trials, of course.)
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quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: Regardless, the cause and effect are the same. The only thing that changes is the motivation of the punisher. In that regard, those that support rehabilitation may be able to agree to the same actions as those who support retribution, as long as the result is the same: The removal of the offensive behavior.
The problem would of course come when the desire for retribution outweighs the desire for rehabilitation. I agree with punishment to the extent that it is effective in stopping a behavior, as you said, but there are plenty of people who are for punishment far beyond that point. If we air on the side of rehabilitation, and remember that retribution may be impossible, I think that would make our system more effective.
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: There's certainly a risk that the concept of "hate crime" penalties could be extended to punish crimes more harshly simply because the perpetrator was a bigot, but I don't think that's the intent or effect of extant legislation. Heck, there are probably lots of people who think that's a good idea, but we haven't gone there yet and it's not an imminent risk. I don't think we should cross that line, but I'm fine with enhanced penalties for crimes that were also intended to terrorize a group of people. (When the intent can be proven to the normal standards of criminal trials, of course.)
I'd also be concerned about the effects of searching for racial motivations in crimes where they may not exist, or where they may not be the most important element of the crime. I am not sure that prosecuting hate crimes in a special way would stabilize racially charged situations if they exist- doings so might calcify already existing tension, rather than relieve it. I also think that justice should be as blind to class and race and creed as possible, and taking into account the race, class, creed or orientation of the defendant in any given case does not seem appropriate to me at all. Perhaps as you say, we could have an extenuating circumstance added to a crime, such as "for the purpose of intimidation or harassment," which would allow many crimes to be prosecuted in a different way- not just those related to race.
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