Monday, September 04, 2006

Is a criminal act worse when the criminal hates?

Robert Kelly comments:

"The U.S. Supreme Court in 1992 and in 1993 ruled that state laws establishing hate crimes could be constitutional. Because of these rulings, a crime of murder, for example, becomes worse if the murderer hates the victim. The ruling apparently assumes that some murderers are friendly chaps.

And the law can also be applied against a person who is found innocent of the alleged crime, but is found guilty of the hate that motivated the non-crime. Duh?

In other words, thoughts can be illegal -- you can be sent to the pokey because you hate me even though you have not been found guilty of hurting me.

Source

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