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The federal government has used such laws to allow mutliple charges in
order to prevent more crimes than would nromally occur just from two people
being pissed off at each other. The federal government has an interest in
the intent of the perpetrators in the pursuit of preventing violations of
civil rights. It's the way they broke the back of the Klan, by putting a
lot of people away for a very long time for harrassing blacks specifically.
It is a principle that has been well recognized as constitutionally valid
since over 100 years ago. It has been used whenever a select group was
getting bashed or harrassed more than any other person would just for being
part of a minority. It is the only way we made the defeat of the south
stick after the Civil War. People who harrassed free blacks, when normally
they wouldn't find themselves harrassing just anyone walking around were
expeditiously tried and jailed for 5 to 8 years until nobody wanted to try
it anymore. Now with the 14th amendment guarantee of equal protection under
the law, the law can use multiple crime and severe penalty involving intent
as much as is needed to protect even one human that is a hated minority to
somebody. They can call out the national guard just for them, as they did
the school girls in Alabama during desegregation in the 1950's, and the
president can nationalize the state militia and turn the guns of the
militia that were being used to bar blacks right around to point at the
thousands in the crowd with an order to shoot that they would have to obey
or face possible death by firing squad under the Uniform Code of Military
Justice for failing to obey a direct order while under arms! And by god,
they did! Those southern boys turned right around an fixed bayonets! And
the governor was left standing and was arrested by the federal marshalls
that had brought the order to nationalize the guard. And that's why we need
such an ability in federal jurisdiction.
-RSW
