MmeGigs
Posts: 706
Joined: 1/26/2008
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Raechard
quote:
ORIGINAL: MmeGigs
Are a significant number of people being convicted unjustly of hate crimes? I looked and didn't find any.
They don't record such things so you'll never find the information for them it doesn't mean it doesn’t happen. Do I need a statistic to prove every logical assumption I make?
I don't think that your assumption is logical. You're saying that false accusations are a major problem with hate crime legislation because the legal system is taking the victim's word for it and people will be wrongly convicted. All of the examples you provided show the opposite - the "victims" in those stories weren't taken at their word. All of those "victims" are now charged with crimes, and there's no indication that any innocent person was wrongfully charged with their crimes.
You were able to find these cases without a lot of trouble, so it would seem logical that if there were some cases out there that supported your assumption that folks are being wrongfully convicted you would have found some examples. I've gone out and looked for these cases, and have tried all kinds of google searches. I didn't find any cases, but I did find this at http://site.pfaw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=rww_in_focus_false_alarm_on_hate_crimes-
quote:
Another section of the law makes it clear that federal courts could not rely on evidence of a person’s outlook or statements to convict someone of a hate crime unless those expressions were directly related to the commission of the violent crime in question:
“In a prosecution for an offense under this section, evidence of expression or association of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial, unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense. However, nothing in this section affects the rules of evidence governing the impeachment of a witness.".
This seems to set a fairly high bar for charging someone with a hate crime, and to give the accused a lot of latitude in disputing the charges. Can you provide some sites of cases where a person was convicted of a hate crime based solely on the victim's testimony?
quote:
quote:
As for people being unjustly suspected because someone lied or set them up, that was going on long before anyone was talking about hate-crime legislation.
The difference as stated previously is the witness statements don't affect sentencing.
If I were convicted of mudering your spouse/kid/parent, I'd have the opportunity to plead my case for leniency in the sentencing phase of my trial. Would you want the opportunity to tell the judge/jury what the loss has meant to you, or would you be satisfied to let me - the person who murdered your loved one - have the last word?
Regardless of your response to that, this really doesn't have anything to do with hate crimes. Victim impact statements in the sentencing phase didn't come about as a result of hate-crime legislation, but as part of the victims' rights movement, which came about because victims of crime were angry that they seemed to have fewer rights than the criminals, and because many victims felt as victimized by the legal system as they were by the crime.
quote:
quote:
To your point about the victim's testimony being the only evidence, I think that you're off base.
What other factors go into something being considered a hate crime because photographic evidence of graffiti etc. and other witness statements I can understand. What other evidence in the case where someone has hit someone and the only witnesses apart from the victim are those not in ear shot? If the victim says "He called me so and so before he hit me." Is the prosecution going to ignore that and say "sorry nobody else heard that so we can't consider this a hate crime"?
Yep, the prosecutor will probably ignore it unless there is some corroborating evidence - folks who've heard the alleged criminal make pertinent hateful statements, prior crimes of a similar nature, a hate blog, that kind of thing. The prosecutor can't just claim that the crime was a hate crime, they have to have evidence that they think might convince a judge/jury that this was the case. It's possible that some prosecutors will tack hate crime charges on with nothing other than the victim's statement to go on, but I imagine that most of them understand the whole "cry wolf" thing, and know that bringing frivilous charges will damage their credibility on the more substantive charges.
quote:
The problem is witness evidence alone is good enough to change the status of the crime at that point and beyond that point such scrutiny of details don't affect what the person is being charged with because beyond that point it is all about proving the crime was committed not what crime, the jury can decide a lesser charge but with the emotive statement for the prosecution good luck with that.
I don't see how hate crime legislation changes any of this. Either way, the prosecutor has to prove to the satisfaction of the judge/jury that the person committed a crime. Even if there was no such thing as hate crime legislation the prosecutor could bring up the hate stuff to establish motive and to encourage a judge/jury to impose a stiffer sentence - it could certainly be considered an aggravating factor.
That's really what hate crime legislation is all about - establishing that hate is an aggravating factor rather than a mitigating factor. This has not always been the case. We don't have to look too far back to find cases where folks got off easy because their victim was one of "them" and it was understandable that the perpetrator would react to "them" violently.
quote:
quote:
Before I can be convicted of a hate crime, I have to be found guilty of the underlying crime. If I am guilty of the crime, the prosecutor will have to convince a judge/jury that my crime was hate-motivated. They'll need more than a victim's statement to do that.
I'm sceptical of how that works in practice. If there is a sense of injustice no matter how invalid that view is it will only lead to resentment and do more harm than good in the long run. Something’s I think you can separate the hate or not hate issue out but other crimes are more difficult, random violence seems to happen all the time does it mean it is hate related? Is it just seen as hate related because of who the victim is?
You seem to think that everyone who is charged with a crime will be charged with a hate crime. It doesn't actually happen that often, and convictions for hate crimes are pretty rare. Why don't you take a look at some cases where folks were convicted of hate crimes and see how they worked in practice?
|
RE: Bigotry Takes Another Hit - 
Profile
....
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread