

In order of your questions, I oppose it, I oppose it, I oppose it and
(Huh?  Wha?  Where did _that_ topic come from and what's it got to do
with the discussion at hand? :-)

When I was discussing the concept of different criminal laws for crimes
against different classes of people (and yes, I do consider laws which
allow/mandate enhanced penalties following conviction based upon the
convict's attitudes towards the class membership of the victim to fit
into that category), the category of classes I had in mind was that of
the standard civil rights discussion -- classes based upon race, gender,
ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc.  Having you ask about
classes based upon one's _profession_ rather than one's personal
characteristics caught me off guard, and I had to think out the question
from scratch.

What I finally decided was that the law should not recognize such
classes because to do so would be to formally and officially declare
some people to be of more worth than others, and that would be anathema
to the underlying American concept of equal treatment under the law.

Last year, when a federal crime bill was under consideration which would
have expanded the federal death penalty to an additional fifty-plus
crimes, including the murder of various federal officers hitherto not
protected by that "aura of deterrence," critics pointed out the
absurdity of having laws which made the death penalty available for the
murder of a federal postal inspector but not for ther murder of a
civilian teacher, when the latter [arguably] provided a much more
valueable service and therefore would be the greater loss to society.
This was an emotionally compelling argument, but even the proponents of
that viewpoint appeared to tacitly assume that the state should judge
some lives as being more valuable than others on the basis of their
"contribution to society."  I view that doctrine as being both (a)
personally repugnant and (b) repugnant to the Equal Protection clause of
the 14th Amendment.

Accordingly, I believe that there should be no laws which give any
profession-based class of people special protection (via the mechanism
of supplying stronger statutory deterrence of crimes against members of
that class), not even police officers, federal officers or high-ranking
members of the Executive Branch of the federal government.