re hate crimes laws thf kimbark uchicago edu ted frank writes in article apr news acns nwu edu dmeier casbah acns nwu edu douglas meier writes in article apr isc br isc br com steveh thor isc br com steve hendricks writes in article apr news acns nwu edu dmeier casbah acns nwu edu douglas meier writes if someone beats up a homosexual he should get charged for assault and battery why must we add gay bashing to the list isn t this a sort of double jeopardy or am i just being a fascist again to deter an epidemic of gay bashing that has not been deterred by assault laws so we ought to make beating up a homosexual more illegal than beating up a straight and who s advocating that hate crimes laws are aimed at the motivations of the acts just like premeditated homicide is treated stricter than heat of passion homicide but you still get into trouble for example how often are crimes of violence not hate crimes the question is then who are you hating if its another gang member then its better than if the person you hate is of a differnt color also is it realistic to declare that crimes of hate are worse than crimes of gross negligence like random drive by shootings where they can t be hate crimes because the shooter doesn t know who he is going to hit he just shoots into the crowd no it is not double jeopardy a single act may lead to multiple charges and multiple crimes i think what you meant to say here was with the current mutation of the us constitution under the current police state someone may be charged multiple times for one act if the victim in question is of the right shade a single act should never merit more than on charge so if i set off a bomb in the world trade center i can only be charged with more than one murder and not the other five deaths and extensive property damage after all the bomb was a single act first i heard today that there is a good chance that the u s instead of new york is going after the bombers this means no capital punishment secondly double jepardy does help keep the government from going after you for first one murder then the next etc a sovereign has essentially one chance with a single fact pattern such as the world trade center bombing that is why the bombers will in all probability be tried for all the deaths as well as the property damages as well as conspiracy at once of course as we discovered in the rodney king case there are two sovereigns neither of which can try you twice for the same crime bruce e hayden bhayden csn org
