From: Scott.Maxwell@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Scott Maxwell)
Subject: Re: [UPI] High court strikes down ethnic intimidation law
Summary: Intent != Motivation
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 22:24:55 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.131307.8755@gdstech.grumman.com> david@gdstech.UUCP (David Nettles) writes:
>In article <1992Aug27.194232.18207@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>>Copyright 1992 by UPI.  Reposted with permission from the ClariNet
>>Electronic Newspaper newsgroup clari.clari.local.ohio and
>>clari.news.groups.jews.  For more info on ClariNet, write to
>>info@clarinet.com or phone 1-800-USE-NETS.
>>
>>	COLUMBUS, Ohio (UPI) -- The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled the state's
>>ethnic intimidation law is unconstitutional because it is an
>>infringement of the right of free speech.

[ Article text elided. ]

>>	The Ohio Supreme Court, in its decision, apparently disagreed.
>>	``Enhancing a penalty because of the motive ... punishes a person's
>>thought, rather than the person's act or criminal intent,'' the court
>>said in an opinion written by sssociate justice Herbert Brown.
>
>Someone here at my job made the same assertion, and therefore
>concluded that burning a cross on a Black person's lawn should not be
>considered a hate crime, but an act of free speech protected by the
>constitution and further the perpetrators should not be charged with
>anything more than property damage.
>
>So I asked him, "Do you see a difference between property damage and
>this expression of free speech."
>
>"No."
>
>"What is the difference between manslaughter and murder?", I asked.
>
>"I don't know?"
>
>"Intent.  It is the intent that decides whether or not the accused
>will spend ten years in prison or fifty or even further receive the
>death penalty.  It is the intent that makes all the difference.  There
>is a difference between scrawling ''Joanie loves Chachi'' on a
>deli-owners wall and scrawling ''Niggers Go Home!''."

You are correct that the difference between manslaughter and murder is
intent. However, if I correctly understand your larger position, you have
improperly conflated intent and motivation.

If I kill my brother accidentally but negligently, that's manslaughter (no
intent to commit murder). If I plan his murder in advance (intent to
commit crime), that's first-degree murder. My *reasons* for killing him
are motivation -- but if I kill him because I hate him, it's first-degree
murder, and if I kill him because I love him, it's first-degree murder.
Motivation is irrelevant to the law, and it is motivation that "hate
crime" statutes seek to punish.

>I sincerely wish that these poor fools would at least pick a book,
>read it, understand it, and feel its content before they go out there
>picking up opinions.

I think I'll just say that I know the feeling.

[ Remainder of Nettles's post elided. ]

>   David E. Nettles
>   Internet: david@gdstech.grumman.com

--
Scott Maxwell (Scott.Maxwell@bbs.oit.unc.edu)
--
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