Kathleen Parker Takes A Whack At It
Here we go again.
Above: Parker at the Strom Thurmond Center
Hate Crimes and Special Victims: An Un-American Story
The fallacy of hate crime laws — the prosecution of which requires a degree of mind-reading not yet available to most Earthlings — has been cast into stark relief the past few weeks.
Prosecutors regularly assign motive in cases they try.
The spark that caused the firestorm was the brutal rape-murder of a young white couple, Channon Christian and Chris Newsom, who were carjacked last January in Knoxville, Tenn. Five blacks — four men and a woman — have been charged in connection with the slayings. [… Some commentators] point out that when a black stripper charged three white members of the Duke University lacrosse team with rape, the national media grabbed the story by the ankle and wouldn’t let go. Not so Knoxville.
I live 217 miles from Knoxville. I’ve been following this case since I read about it on a national news Web site a couple of days after the victims’ bodies were found. I’m not sure why it didn’t get saturation coverage, but I can tick off a few stories in my local market that could’ve provided months of salacious speculation and didn’t. There are lots of variables for why some stories get that kind of attention and others don’t, but you could argue that the facts of this particular story were so grotesque that producers and editors were afraid of repulsing viewers or readers. That’s a reasonable, if not entirely justifiable, editorial judgment.
The perception of media bias is understandable — and a credible case can be made that the media rushed to condemn the Duke athletes because it fit a recognizable racial narrative, especially in the South.
The media love stories with built-in emotional dynamics; that’s why missing-child stories and pregnant-women-in-peril stories are so popular: They don’t have to explain why you should care. I don’t think it would have mattered if the stripper had been white or black. The real dynamic was determining whether these were good boys or bad boys and whether the accuser was a victim or a whore. Anyone could draw on their existing prejudices and hazard a guess.
If there was any media bias at work in coverage of the Duke rape case, it’s that most people hate Duke. As a UK fan, I know I do (fuckin’ Christian Laettner…). They’re rich and successful, and people often resent that. Remember the Minnesota Vikings ‘Love Boat’ incident from a couple years ago? It was a fairly big story, I guess, but imagine if the players had been Dallas Cowboys or Oakland Raiders. I’ll bet it would have gotten even more coverage, because people love to hate those teams but are generally indifferent toward the Vikings.
Nevertheless, the media’s largely unskeptical embrace of the charges in the absence of due process, coincident with the horrible events in Knoxville, have stoked passions among some whites who contend that black-on-white crime is underreported.
I’m not sure that neglecting to mention the suspect’s race in a headline or on-screen font qualifies as ‘underreporting.’ And if the media ran with the allegations, it’s simply because all of those met their attribution standard of ‘authorities said,’ ‘investigators said,’ ‘officials said,’ or ‘prosecutors said.’
Adding to the current heat is the decision that the Knoxville blacks won’t be charged for hate crimes. Officials say that because the accused have had white friends, they weren’t driven by racial hatred.
Prosecutors don’t typically pursue charges they know they can’t prove. It wastes taxpayer money and their own time. That’s why the malpractice of the Duke rape prosecutor was so exceptional, and that’s also why he’s been disbarred and will likely get sued. But neither of those things would be likely to happen to the Knoxville prosecutors if they were to pursue unsubstantiated hate crime charges against these defendants because — let’s face it — the defendants aren’t rich, white Duke undergrads. Even Mike Nifong’s staunchest critics would agree that authorities shouldn’t bow to the wishes of a howling mob.
That seems a flimsy argument, but it does serve to underscore the potential errancy and misapplication of laws that rely on the subjective judgment of others’ psychological motives. As the mother of one of the victims said: “If this wasn’t a hate crime, then I don’t know how you would define a hate crime.”
This is why victims’ families are not responsible for prosecuting crimes. Besides, subjective judgments are a key component of our criminal justice system. For example, convictions on first- or second-degree murder charges often rely on a prosecutor’s ability to convince jurors that a particular motive existed.
Hate crimes are not defined only by motive, but by their effect on other members of the same group. The argument for hate crime laws is that crimes motivated by animus toward an individual because of race, sex, gender identity or disability victimize all members of that group by causing fear and intimidation.
Above: A pair of teenage hoods risk prosecution on charges of trespassing or possibly vandalism
Adding still more fuel to the media bias claim is a group of white supremacists on one side and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts on the other. Pitts drew fire when he pointed out that the Knoxville incident wasn’t considered a hate crime and refuted claims that black crime is underreported. He ended his column with four words for whites who feel oppressed: “Cry me a river.”
Leonard Pitts kind of kicks ass.
That’s pure columnist flare, but decidedly, um, gutsy considering the likely reaction from people who are not widely known for tolerance.
Wow, is she implying that Pitts got uppity? Also, fuck those people and their likely reactions. Life is too short to worry about what assholes think.
A neo-Nazi group has posted Pitts’ address, phone number and his wife’s name on its Web site, Overthrow.com. Pitts has received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls, including several death threats that are being investigated by the FBI. Obviously, Overthrow’s editor and the 280 contributors to his American National Socialist Workers Party are the definition of a fringe group that doesn’t deserve so much attention.
Oh, they deserve attention, all right. Encouraging violence against people whose views you disagree with is possibly illegal and undoubtedly repugnant (but not all that uncommon among Parker’s own colleagues). Frankly, I’d like to see more unvarnished coverage of people like Overthrow editor Bill White, their tactics and their views. White certainly doesn’t hide them, but editors are reluctant to give him space to air them out. I can appreciate their hesitance — most of White’s press releases, of which I’ve read dozens, could reasonably be classified as slur-riddled fighting words — but holding these statements back allows readers and viewers to conclude he’s just a white guy with politically incorrect beliefs, instead of a virulent racist who encourages other people to break laws.
Groups such as the Anti-Defamation League have insisted that hate crime laws are necessary because crimes that make minority communities fearful “damage the fabric of our society and fragment communities.”
You know who else likes hate crimes legislation? Cops do, and so do prosecutors. They understand that bashing someone in the head with a baseball bat because you think he’s walking into a gay bar represents an aggravating component to simple assault — just as bashing someone in the head with a baseball bat does to a robbery.
The Duke and Knoxville cases cast serious doubts on that premise.
Funny, I don’t recall anyone calling for the Duke students to be charged with a hate crime.
It is human nature to resent groups and individuals deemed more special than others. Signaling through laws (or media treatment) that one group’s suffering is more grievous than another’s — or that one person’s murder is worse than another’s — is also likely to fragment communities, as well as to engender the very animosities such laws are meant to deter.
No one argues that robbery laws promote resentment of people who have money in their wallets by people who don’t and therefore should be abolished. That’s ridiculous. Similarly, people don’t argue that rape crimes promote resentment toward women, who tend disproportionately to be the victims of rape, and should therefore be … Well, maybe that last one wasn’t the best example.
It’s not like I expect syndicated columnists to stick together or anything, but I hope Kathleen Parker realizes that she spent several hundred words justifying the harassment of one who always seemed like a pretty nice guy by a dude who signs off his press releases with “Heil Hitler.” I mean, honestly.
“Prosecutors regularly assign motive in cases they try.”
Yes, but “motive” is not an element of a crime, which is what hate crime legislation seeks to change. Prosecutors assign motive as a persuasive means of convincing the trier of fact that the defendant possessed the requisite mens rea (state of mind), which along with the criminal act, is the second element that needs to pe proved – not motive. In other words, because the defendant hates gays, it is more likely that he intended to kill the victim (who was gay) when he beat him up.
Personally I’m not a big fan of hate crime legislation because it shouldn’t matter what the motive is behind the commission of X crime. It is thought-punishment. The perpetrator should be appropriately punished no matter who he is, and no matter who the victim is. However, I do think that in the sentencing phase it might be appropriate to consider motive.
How is motive not an element of the crime in murder (unless we’re talking about some odd legal definition of “motive)? If X’s motive in fatally wounding Y was to kill Y, X has committed murder … if the motive was something else (self-defense, e.g.), the “crime” charged would be something else …
I misspoke before. In most juridictions the elements of murder are (1) the premeditated, and (2) unlawful (3) killing (4) of a person. X’s motive for killing Y is irrelevant to the question, of *did X INTEND to kill Y, with “malice aforethought”*
If X kills Y in self defense it is unlikely that he did so in a premeditated manner, and it is likely that he did so without malice aforethought. Further, it is not unlawful to kill another in self-defense. Thus, the crime of murder has not been completed.
How is motive not an element of the crime in murder (unless we’re talking about some odd legal definition of “motive)? If X’s motive in fatally wounding Y was to kill Y, X has committed murder … if the motive was something else (self-defense, e.g.), the “crime� charged would be something else …
That’s not motive, that’s mens rea. I.e. the murderer intended to bring about the death of the victim.
Notice that in the case of self defense, the defendent still intends to kill the victim (i.e. the same “motive” you cited in the first instance) but the homicide is justified by self-defense.
Motive is “she killed her husband for the insurance money” and would be used by the prosecution, for instance, to negate the wife’s contention that she killed her husband in self defense.
Granted, I have no law experience whatsoever, but it’s my general understanding that pre-meditation is included as an element of 1st Degree Murder.
Also, I think motive is considered all the time when trials come to the sentencing phase. Which is pretty much what Hate Crimes legislation does as well, isn’t it? Just adds extra penalties available at the sentencing phase?
Intent is mens rea not motive. In fact, every crime has both a mens rea and an actus reas or some act aspect. Or so criminal law theory goes. Every prosecution of a crime requires that the intent of the accused be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In practice, most intent is proven by the action itself. If a white person shoots a black person, you prove the intent by showing that the shooter pointed the gun and pulled the trigger, i.e. he intended to shoot the black person. There is no proposal to make it a separate crime to shoot a person because he is black. Yes, it is a crime is certain circumstances to deny a person’s civil rights but that’s not at all what they’re taking about here.
Hate crime laws don’t make it more criminal to commit a crime based on the motivation of racial hatred (or gender, religion, national origin). What it does is required that crimes be classified and reported as hate crime if they fit certain criteria. It’s not a new crime. The results are data about where hate crimes are a problem and allocation of funds to address it.
The reason Kathleen Parker and her lot hate the idea is not because it could possibly result in injustice, it’s that knowing how much violence is perpetrated against minorities, women, gays, Muslims is going to kill all their arguments about the persecution of the wealthy, men, Christians and anyone else their trying to raise money from.
If you don’t mind I need to quit this straightforward prose and get back to my shortercraft. ‘ta
Dumber than a box of rocks, but slings it with a sophist’s slickness: That’s today’s Kathleen Parker.
Nevertheless, the media’s largely unskeptical embrace of the charges in the absence of due process
…something the media does ALL THE TIME, in all sorts of situations (Richard Jewell, anyone?)…
coincident with the horrible events in Knoxville
…this is actually beside the point, except insofar as it’s the latest convenient excuse for the …
stoked passions among some whites who contend that black-on-white crime is underreported
…ahem, the Turner Diaries crowd to squawk and strut. Really, who else would formulate such a complaint? It generally takes a racist to fret over the racial ratio of criminals and victims, and then assert that the coverage is slanting perceptions of the ratio. I mean, really, when you hear about a crime, is the first thing in your mind to ask the race(s) of those involved?
It’s not germane to anything about a crime, unless hate crimes charges are brought. And, on an abstract level, the essential information is really that X attacked Y because of the bigotry of X towards Y-types. The precise types don’t matter–unless you’re obsessed with one type or other.
Plus, as one can make a case about hate crimes laws being not-so-good (as thought patrol, whatever, etc), but what in heck does that have to do with the contention that “black on white crime is underreported”? Nothing… unless you think that a liberal media cabal are ignoring a rampage of criminal by nature black man-savages pillaging our women and dry goods while using hate crimes laws to beat up on good old boys firing the first shots of the great race war for Amerikkka’ pure and eugenic soul.
It sounds like quibbling over bias and statistics, but it’s really just racist mud-flinging (in an “of course there’s more crime than you hear about, you know how it is whisper ). It’s pathological in these folks.
It’s like drug-seeking behavior: all sorts of increasingly sophisticated bullshit that tries to look like aboveboard behavior but is really all about scoring more junk. I guess it counts for something that they have to resort to silly and mockable circumlocution instead of flat-out, bumper-sticker-ready, 28%-percenter-comprehensible slogan like, say, “white supremacy!!11!1!”
Dear Kathleen Parker,
Fucking read orcinus, you moron. It’s only one of the most important blogs out there. You would very certainly learn something.
OT, but OMG the latest of a string of incredibly impossibly makes-ya-wanaa-emigrately shitty things the Supremes have done: things are going to get a LOT more expensive: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19482358/
Mmm, corporate America’s gonna luuuuuurve them some price fixin’.
Motive is an element in a number of crimes. Conspiracy is a good example. Motive is also a backdoor for evidence – evidence about motive is usually admissible, even if there is no other rule of evidence that would allow it to be brought in.
You have to actually look at the hate crimes statute to make sense of it – it applies to civil rights violations. So if a person of one group (race, religion, political affiliation) commits a crime in order to discourage the exercise of civil rights then you get the hate crime thrown in to the mix.
Deciding that after robbing some-one you want to have some ultra-violent fun is pretty sickening and horrible, but that does not make it a hate crime. It may be a closer case where a stripper is invited in, abused about race, and then raped in good measure (not that this is what happened, I am talking about what was alleged.) There, a minority was singled out for abuse on the basis of race. That fits the definition better than the Knoxville case, where the racial issue appears to be incidental.
Maybe evidence will come to light in the Knoxville case that will indicate it was a hate crime after all (ie., evidence they planned to rob, rape and murder a/k/a “lynching” some white folks).
You know, in a way you could argue that NOT playing up the race of the perps is racist – in a “well, more black criminals, that’s not news” kind of way, rather than Kathleen’s contention of reverse racism.
“OT, but OMG the latest of a string of incredibly impossibly makes-ya-wanaa-emigrately shitty things the Supremes have done: things are going to get a LOT more expensive: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19482358/”
This is bad news for consumers, and well, the antitrust plaintiffs’ bar. 🙁
Well, I think in a way rape is a hate crime, so there’s something to that. Parker gives off the distinct impression that she mostly thinks rape should be legal, because the only real difference between it and sex is the inconsequential consent of the victim.
Jeez,I know Parker’s photos are
airbrushed(oops, it’s the 21st century) Photoshopped™, but isn’t that a picture of Peggy Noonan up @ the top there?“Black on white crime?” How ’bout the white on black crime of slavery, which, 140 years after the end of the “War of Northern Aggression,” is still having a detremental, to put it mildly, effect on many,if not most of America’s citizens of African descent.
And Overthrow was recently berated by some guy in Ohio on his blog or whatever, somehow w/in hours or days of this his neighborhood was plastered w/ fliers calling him a “Red & a rapist.” Once again, too lazy to look it up, but it happened. Think I found it in refernece to the Leonard Pitts story.
Jeez,I know Parker’s photos are
airbrushed(oops, it’s the 21st century) Photoshoppedâ„¢, but isn’t that a picture of Peggy Noonan up @ the top there?“Black on white crime?” How ’bout the white on black crime of slavery, which, 140 years after the end of the “War of Northern Aggression,” is still having a detremental, to put it mildly, effect on many,if not most of America’s citizens of African descent.
And Overthrow was recently berated by some guy in Ohio on his blog or whatever, somehow w/in hours or days of this his neighborhood was plastered w/ fliers calling him a “Red & a rapist.” Once again, too lazy to look it up, but it happened. Think I found it in refernece to the Leonard Pitts story.
To restate less antagonistically, I wish everyone would read orcinus.
Hate crimes are about addressing the elements of certain crimes that make them more heinous than similar deeds. It’s not creating thought crimes, it’s saying that if you lynch a black man you’re doing more violence to more people than just that poor man, and your punishment should reflect that.
But Dave Neiwert explains it much better than I can here.
Please, read orcinus.
But diff, here’s the thing. WE get it. THEY are racists. There is no real reason to be opposed to Hate Crime Legislation, any more than Affirmative Action, unless you are terrified of this “progress” and have racial motivations. To me, it all looks like code words. And you can’t explain it, you can’t sell it, you can’t make them GET it when their worldview is driven by fear and hatred.
They are not resistant to the concept for any high-minded reason. They WANT people to be able to lynch blacks and mexicans, they want more dead gays and abortion doctors, and they are doing nothing more than providing political cover for encouraging those actions. The fact that they won’t do the violence themselves is more supportive of my point than not…
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I wonder if the folks whining about “hate crimes” think that KKK members burning a cross on a black family’s lawn ought to be charged only with burning without a permit?
I mean, Charles Murray did it.
Parker gives off the distinct impression that she mostly thinks rape should be legal, because the only real difference between it and sex is the inconsequential consent of the victim.
Unfair. Parker thinks rape should be legal because MEN are SUPER SPECIAL, and men have to be MANLY. Requiring men to behave like civilized humans is just like cutting their balls off. She knows, because she has a son. (There, I just saved you reading months of Parker columns.)
actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea
Zachriel–
Brilliant: the basis of criminal prosecution is a judgment about the mental state of the criminal, yet every winger who argues against hate crime calls it “mind reading.” Their argument is pure sophistry.
Classy!
No, really. Classy!
Tiger Woods Naked?
Really?
Yuck
Tiger’s Wood. Ha! Ha!
So, this guy started this spam in June 2007 and then stopped…only to start up again a year and a half later? Whooza-whatsit?
Okay, come on now, Ataris are off limits.
I believe this is a Matt Furey video.
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