Can you define a Hate Crime and why is the Hate Crime not applied in a uniform manner?

Question

The law is not applied in every instance and used selectively.

Answer 1

It is a sentence enhancement that says if a crime was motivated because of a desire to cause harm to members of another race, the person who committed the crime should be punished more severely.

Like all sentence enhancements, it's based on the principle that the same criminal action can be committed in different ways, and that some ways are more deserving of punishment than others. For example, people who think they go and kill other people based solely on the victim's skin color are potentially more dangerous to society than a person who killed their spouse because they hated their spouse. Both are murder, but the murderous spouse is less likely to go on an indiscriminate killing spree.

As to inconsistent application, it can only be applied when there is clear evidence (beyond a reasonable doubt) that the hate motivation was present and was a cause of the crime. That's a basic due process requirement for any sentence enhancement.

Where that's difficult to prove, a prosecutor may not seek the sentence enhancement because everything that they try and prove (but fail to prove) weakens their overall case.

Let's say you are a prosecutor, and someone committed a hate-based crime. The defendant acted in a state of rage to kill someone. You know you can convict the defendant for premeditated murder, with a sentence of 25 years to life. But adding in the hate-crime enhancement puts their mental state at issue, and there is a chance the defense could successfully argue provocation, which would reduce the crime to voluntary manslaughter (10 year sentence). Why risk adding 5 years to 25, when there is an even chance of the defendant being out in 10 if the jury believes the provocation? Sometimes trial strategy depends on not taking such risks.

Or say the sentence is already life without parole. There is no incentive to add the extra hate enhancement because it wouldn't change the overall sentence. There are many possible reasons.

The bottom line is that it's not always possible or beneficial to prove the hate enhancement, which is why it's not always sought.

Answer 2

Hate Crime is a ridiculous waste of time and energy. The simple fact is that all crimes are due to hate of some form.

Answer 3

Hate crimes are crimes that are motivated by feelings of hostility against any identifiable group of people within a society, such as violent crime, hate speech or vandalism. If systematic, rather than spontaneous, instigators of such crimes are sometimes organized into hate groups.

Just as any crime...the punishment fits the crime...or so they say.