Intent, itself, is not a “fact,” yet it is weighed heavily in all cases in the American justice system. Intent is, by definition, “motivation.” And crimes will certainly be punished more or less in light of it. Hate Crimes are related to the intent of a crime, and the differentiation comes into play when sentencing these, which is based on intent.

Thus, you are wrong.

Preferential treatment should never be given to one group or individual over another.

Amen. But it is. Oh yes, it is. In the form of positive and negative preference. The very genesis of Hate Crimes legislation is to address this reality.

Preferential treatment should never be given to one group or individual over another. The presumption of equitable treatment under the law is one of the things that separates America from other countries. That principle should never be compromised, no matter how one feels about individual cases.

Latinos have become the latest targets of hate crimes because they are perceived to be new to the country even if their families have been here for generations, or simply because they are seen as different from the mainstream population. We can not deny Latinos are falling victim to anti-immigrant bias that includes a recurrent preoccupation with “nativism” or is that made up too. According to the FBI, there were 8,380 hate crime offenses (special class crimes) reported in 2005 (the most recent year for which figures are available):
1,144 offenses were motivated by bias based on ethnicity or national origins, of those 57.7% were anti-Hispanic and 42.3% were anti-other ethnicity/national origin. Hate crimes against African Americas is still remain the highest with 3,200 offenses motivated by by anti-black bias.

It really is hard to imagine why people somehow think the false perpetuation of a hate crime or the mistaken presumption of a hate crime somehow guts the necessity of preventing such crimes in the first place. Without hate-crimes legislation that makes such a connection between bias and intention explicit, many jurors might not equate a generalized racial/sexual/religious/disability intention to a specific hatred of an individual enemy. Such laws are necessary, not for biased thoughts or words but for criminal actions motivated by bias.

But neither is a justification for another useless, feel-good law. America already has laws against every aspect of this case that range from assault to sodomy to attempted murder. The only reason to add a so-called “hate crime” law to the books is to create a special class of crimes for minorities.

America – indeed, all nations – should strive to have as few laws as possible to enforce order and ensure justice. These laws should be clearly written, unambiguous, and rigorously enforced.

If there is a problem with one of these “should be’s”, the proper approach to changing outcomes is to fix that problem, not create new laws that only make the problems worse. This is one such.