From: orson@bluemoon.rn.com (Craig Smith)
Subject: Re: [UPI] High court strikes down ethnic intimidation law
Organization: Blue Moon BBS ((614) 868-998[024])
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 92 21:06:24 EDT

david@gdstech.grumman.com (David Nettles) writes:

> In article <1992Aug27.194232.18207@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu
> >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.
> >	The ethnic-intimidation statute is a type of statute that enhances a
> >charge such as menancing or criminal damaging to a felony level, says
> >Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters.
> >	He pointed out that felony charges carry heavier fines and jail
> >sentences.
> >	``The Legislature thought racially motivated crimes deserved a
> >stiffer penalty,'' said Deters.
> >	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!''."
> 
> 
> 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 that its that last requirement that is always missing, 'feeling
> the content', that people just don't do.  They get the words into
> their heads, but never think of the consequences expressed by those
> words.
> 
> 
> Enough said.
> 
> David    -- Love      | My parents gave me the nane.
> Edward   -- Protector | It's my job to live up to it.
> Nettles  -- Tenacity  | ------------------------------
> 
> --
> 
> -- 
> ****************************************************************************
>    David E. Nettles
>    Internet: david@gdstech.grumman.com
>    Grumman Data Systems

Okay, but then the question comes down to, "what is the intent of
a cross burner?" To intimidate, yes? Are their laws against intimidation?
Yes, there are. Existing laws will suffice.

It seems extremely odd to me that those who write and support these
"hate crime" laws are the same people who say that you cannot 
legislate morality.  Is not racism a moral question?

Double standard, is it not?

Craig E. Smith              "Life is a fulltime occupation."--Gene Kalman
orson@bluemoon                    "It's just one .sig after another."--me
Newsgroups: alt.censorship