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Prosectors Say the Kansas Shooting of Garmin Engineers Was a Hate Crime (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Federal prosecutors have filed a hate crime charge against 51-year-old Kansas resident Adam Purinton, according to the Department of Justice. Purinton, who is accused of shooting three people in an Olathe bar, reportedly told a local Garmin engineer to "get out of my country" before opening fire. Purinton is currently being held on first-degree murder charges filed by local prosecutors. Today's indictment accuses Purinton of committing murder "because of Kuchibhotla's actual and perceived race, color, religion and national origin," with additional charges for the attempted murder of Madasani and violations of federal firearm statutes. The Justice Department declined to say whether it will pursue the death penalty, although it is authorized by the hate crime statute.
No. Federal offenses may be capital offenses, e.g. treason or terrorism. If it's being prosecuted by the federal government because the crime is federal, the punishment is obviously going to be federal - e.g. the death penalty for a race-driven multiple murder.
Murder is murder, I'm really a lot less interested in why than what he did. The concept of "hate crimes" is a completely broken one, but at least the guy is getting prosecuted. Hope there is a fair trial and justice is served.
For most crimes, the reason that you did a thing matters. The classic example is where you accidentally take the wrong laptop instead of deliberately taking someone else's laptop. In most jurisdictions you didn't commit a crime if you didn't intend to take someone else's laptop. Your mistake of fact (your belief that it was your laptop) negates an element of the crime: intent.
On the other hand, for murder, the whole "malice aforethought" or "premeditation" idea is really watered down. It can be premeditated murder even if it's a split-second decision, for example. Although in some jurisdictions you were traditionally excused a little bit if you caught the person in bed with your spouse before that happens. (I.e. voluntary manslaughter instead of murder.) (There are several types of homicide and the details vary a lot.)
There's also the point that there is definitely a significant moral divide between people who care about WHY someone did something harmful, and people who only care that it was done. Your position is absolutely valid, but there's plenty of room to disagree and there isn't a consensus about what the result should be. So we leave it to the legislature and courts, as a terrible way to decide the answer that's better than all of the other ways of deciding the answer. :)
Real lawyers write in C++
The reason Federal hate crimes were created to begin with so that where a state's law enforcement, prosecution or courts would refuse to charge, prosecute or convict some mouth-breathing KKKer for lynching someone, they would still see justice. Do you have a problem with that?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
When the crime is committed on the basis of victim's group identity, the other members of the group have reason to fear being targeted for the same reason and there are more victims. More victims = more punishment.
These laws are intended in part to prevent civil unrest (in the form of race riots) that can occur when one community perceives they are being targeted and law enforcement is not adequately protecting them. They (understandably) may take law into their own hands through mob violence and then we're in for full scale civil unrest (because mob justice is rarely so.... "just" and is more likely to create the same kind of racial hostility in return.
The motive matters because when that motive is animus towards a large group of people, the consequences of group-level retaliation are bad for all of society.