By Jim Spencer
SpencerSpeaks.com
As they raped her, tortured her, beat her and forced her to eat animal and human feces, Megan Williams says her captors told her: “This is what we do to niggers down here.â€
Why that is not a hate crime defies explanation.
The decision by
As director of the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, Garcia has been down this road too many times. Based on victims’ reports to CAVP, a lot more hate crimes take place than get charged, she said. The craziness in
Prosecutors in that state say defendants already face charges that could bring them life in prison. Adding hate crime charges, the
Garcia says that reading of hate crimes law ignores the reasons those laws were passed in the first place. Hurting someone merely because they come from a different race, religion or sexual orientation constitutes an act of malice that demands specific recognition.
Prosecutors, said Garcia, sometimes don’t get how important it is to send communities this message.
The people of
Two years ago, Garcia and her group battled unsuccessfully to have a hate crimes charge added to charges against two men who beat to death Kevin Hale, an openly gay man in Montrose. The fatal beating allegedly took place because Hale had made sexual advances toward one of his assailants in a bar. Those facts were in dispute when the two men pleaded guilty to manslaughter to avoid murder trials.
The failure to link the crime to a hatred of homosexuals avoided a badly needed teaching moment.
“The incident,†said Garcia, “was not acknowledged for what it was. After the Kevin Hale case, we saw continued episodes of harassment of the gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgendered community. We saw more hate crimes.â€
Tolerance and prevention often seem to get lost in the rush to punishment.
“We worked on a homicide case in
Hate crimes charges are unique. While Americans may legally harbor all the bigotry they choose, expressing that hatred as anything from harassment to homicide is not legal.
“Hate crimes prosecutions send a loud message to the community that that kind of behavior won’t be tolerated,†said Garcia.
Hate crimes laws usually make sentences stiffer. But in a nation where a black woman can be stabbed and sexually violated for nothing more than her skin color or a gay man can be beaten to death for nothing more than openly expressing homosexuality, hate crimes laws serve a dual purpose.
A special crime occurs where prejudice empowers a person to think he or she can attack another because the victim is an inferior human being.
Trouble is, it can be a difficult case to make.
“The ACLU is betwixt and between with hate crimes,†said Cathryn Hazouri, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. “Hate is still free speech. It’s hard to prove that it’s the hate that motivates the crime. There may be expressions of hate during the crime. But you can’t criminalize hate.â€
The law, said Hazouri, generally considers bigotry an “aggravator†to a crime, not a crime itself. This is why prosecutors hesitate to use the charge.
The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Colorado took a much harder line in the Kevin Hale case.
“The relevant statute … provides that a ‘bias-motivated crime,’ in the case of ‘bodily injury to another person’ is a felony,†the center’s legal director wrote to Montrose prosecutors. “It is clear that a bias-motivated crime in
A Nov. 3 march in
Bruce DeBoskey, director of the Mountain States regional office of the Anti-Defamation League explained it eloquently.
“Hate crimes,†he said, “are message crimes. The message goes far beyond the individual. It is sent to all people in that category, whether it is race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.â€
Community leaders must answer back, DeBoskey continued. They must say, “We will prosecute to a different level these hateful message crimes.â€
That’s because this debate is about more than laws. It is also about values.
Copyright 2007 by Jim Spencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
15 users commented in " Hate Crimes Demand a Special Response "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackNo Jim, ANY crime against people should be
dealt with SEVERELY!!!!!!!!!!!
Violent crime period, what’s the term?
Oh, yeah, NOT TOLERANCE.
To pick and chose WHICH violent crime deserves touch punishment is to minimize any
violent crime.
And whose soft on violent crime?
Liberals.
People deserve their just desert and their
must be a deterant factor. A few public
hangings down at Civic Center park and
violent crime would disapear (or at least
the perpetrators)
My heart went out to this poor child. They
need to throw away the key on these animals
Well, since public hangings in the park are illegal, perhaps we can make the perpetrators disppear into the bowels of prison forever.Particularly if they are put in close proximity with Crips or Bloods..let the punishment fit the crime. The courts need to make a strong statement on this case to thwart future cases of hate crimes. No matter what they do, it won’t be enough to make up for the torment this girl has gone through.
I have to hand it to you Dennis. You are single handedly driving me to the other side of these debates and my affiliations.
All I”m saying noidea is that we go
back to frontier justice. A speedy
trial and a speedy hanging. Look what
the Wildflower generation has gotten us.
RAMPANT violent crime. Face it, as a
nation we are soft on violent crime
meanwhile we lock people up for smoking
a joint. IT”S IDIOTIC
I guarantee you if we got tough on violent
offenders they’d think twice. What happens
to them now, prison with their friends
where they get free medical, dental
cable TV they can pump weights and confer
with other bad apples get out and do it
all over again. Our system of crime and
punishment has become a JOKE. There is
no DETERANT. If you call that enlighten-
ment I say it’s prety dark. Especially
for these victims.
So was it a hate crime based on race? Or on gender? They may have called her N—–, but they raped her. Is there a law to cover hate crimes against women? Shouldn’t rape be considered a hate crime (almost exclusively) against women? One of these people was a former boyfriend of hers. Are we perhaps overlooking the most prevalent hate crime of all in the U.S.?
Guys,
I just nuked a Dennis comment because he compared another commenter to an earth worm. I remind you all to stick to the issues. We can have a lively discussion WITHOUT PERSONAL ATTACKS. STOP CALLING EACH OTHER NAMES.
All I can say is I call them like I
see them. Someone who doesn’t have
the spine to allow society to dispense
justice (capital punishment) but would
rather defer to gang members in prison
(crips and bloods) to mete out “justice”
is indeed some sort or invertibrate.
Take your pick.
Editing that comment absolutely went
over the Liberal censorship line.
Especially
by someone who defended our President
to be defiled, very distastefully
and very disrespectfully in a public
newspaper. Typical Liberal hypocrisy.
You people are the censors, you people
are the deniers of civil rights.
Here’s the difference between Liberals
and Conservatives. Liberals are
concerned primarily
with words and ideas, intangibles.
Why, because they are “social engineers”
who’s main goal is to manipulate society,
to control what it THINKS.
For instance: What was the mindset of
these people torturing this poor girl
in Charleston? Did their thoughts
reflect on a societal belief which is
frowned upon by the Liberal
intelligencia? Does it reflect on
society in general? “Hatred” of
minorities, women? Some victim group?
Conservatives want law and order, people
to be safe and some kind of order in
society, the thinking and motivation of
lawbreakers is irrelevant. That’s their
business but punishment for those
responsible for crimes against people
is critical is society is to maintain
law and order. Hence, just
as Spencer said: SOME violence is WORSE
than other. Why? Because it attacks
sponsored societal beliefs imposed by
the Liberal elite. The individual
matters not, it’s the COLLECTIVE!
That is warped thinking. That is
I’m going to use another bad word here)
SOCIALISM You guys.
Just an idea Jim a BETTER title for
your column: Spencer Censors.
Rolls off the tongue better.
Here’s a recent quote from a major
closet Liberal and social engineer
who (ha) thinks she’s fit to be
president of the United States “It’s time
to put an end to “Society on your own”.
“It’s time for shared responsibility for
shared prosperity” This from Socialist
Hillary Clinton, one of the ELITE I spoke
of. These are rules which apply to YOU.
Shared responsibility for shared prosperity.
SOCIALISM. Which eventually (after the
First and Second Amendment are gone)
becomes COMMUNISM. The Clintons initial
platform was “We’re going to reinvent
government” what they really meant was
“We’re going to reinvent COMMUNISM”
Begging your pardon Dennis regarding this system of rampant crime you refer to:
What party has been in power for 7 years?
Certainly not the one I voted for.
What party has removed capable judges from office and put in their own? Not the one I voted for.
What party has fomented hatred and divisiveness and poverty across the country and let illegal drugs flow in like a sieve? Not the one I voted for.
I don’t know what party? Remember
Wildflower most of what the current
administration has been doing for
the last 7 years is fix the damage
of the prior 8 under Clinton.
Remember that party that went on
in Washington. Taxes were raised,
social engineering legislation passed,
our military was dismantled and decimated,
(the peace dividend) Terrorism went
unmonitored and unchecked,
A justice department was geared to
circumvent Congress (not that Congress
is much better) Everybody wants to
go to the part but nobody wants to
clean up. Is that the Party you’re
referring to?
By the way Wildflower I think Clinton
appointed more Federal judges than
any president in history like 1600
all activists and all appointed for
life if I’m not mistaken. There
the one’s making these half baked
decisions and legislating from the
bench. That’s part of the social
engineering.
You can delete all of Dennis Hammond’s rantings as far as I’m concerned. I no longer read them.
Let me raise the issue again: is rape a hate crime - against women? This is an important IDEA. Jim says, “A special crime occurs where prejudice empowers a person to think he or she can attack another because the victim is an inferior human being.” Would Bruce DeBoskey sign on to the idea that rape is a hate crime against women? Would Veronica Garcia allow that it was more germane that the victim is a woman than what her color is? This is not sexual orientation, as her orientation was irrelevant to the perpetrators; it was her sex, period. Yes? No? Discuss.
Sasha,
Now THAT hurt!
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