Murder most foul!

Were I to bump off a government tax inspector (don't tempt me!) whilst shouting "Take that, you snivelling, Brownite leech" I would probably get 8 - 10 years.  However, were I to bump off a Paki shop-keeper shouting, "Take that you snivelling, brown leech" I would probably draw an extra 5 years for aggravated murder because my motive was deemed to be racial.  Why?  I mean what makes a murder more heinous because its motivation is racial hatred?  And were I to bash a Polish bricklayer over the head with a cudgel on account of his 'footie' side knocking our very decent British chaps out of some competition whilst shouting, "Take that, you Polish swine" should I not expect the extra 5-year bonus on my sentence which in this case, the race laws being inherently ridiculous, I will not get?  I will go further and ask, why should motive play any part at all in sentencing?  After all, motive can be exceedingly difficult to pin down, even for the perpetrator.  One thinks of Iago whose inherent malignancy far exceeds the slights and insults that he puts forward as his motivation.  Any attempt to dig deep for real motive puts us all in the hands of those pox-doctor's clerks, psychiatrists, whose arrogance and ignorance is mutual. Murder is murder and motivation is speculation, so just hang them all!  Oooops, sorry, we covered that one a few months ago, I mean, just let the sentence match the crime - and hating people because of their ethnicity might be stupid, or unpleasant but it is not a crime.

Comments

[N.I.B.]

More importantly, why should you get extra for killing a Copper?

[Planeshift]

"And were I to bash a Polish bricklayer over the head with a cudgel on account of his 'footie' side knocking our very decent British chaps out of some competition whilst shouting, "Take that, you Polish swine" should I not expect the extra 5-year bonus on my sentence which in this case, the race laws being inherently ridiculous, I will not get?"

Actually you would get it if it was decided in court the murder was motivated by hatred of the polish people.

As for whether motive should play a part - consider this: I get burgled, I find out who did it, I go around to their house and kill them. Do I deserve the same punishment as someone who abducts a stranger, rapes them, kills them and rapes them again?

[David Duff]

In my view, yes; but, if both crimes were deemed to be murder (and not man-slaughter) then *my* sentence would be death by hanging in both cases so no differential is required.

However, to return to the racial element, could the words "Polish/Paki swine" be taken as an indication of hatred of *all" Poles and *all* Pakistanis? or might they not be construed as simply an accurate, ethnic classification?

[Larry Teabag]

True Planeshift. But lurking beneath David's post, and no doubt inaccessible to him, is an interesting question.

I take it for granted that murderers who act out of motivation by their violent hatred of (e.g) Poles should get a more severe sentence than those who act out of (e.g) a desire for revenge for some other crime. But why should violent hatred of (e.g) Poles be more of a exacerbating factor than violent hatred of (e.g) second-hand-car salesmen?

[Larry Teabag]

"...*my* sentence would be death by hanging in both cases so no differential is required..."

Can we consider a violent assault then, instead of a murder, to avoid this obstacle?

[N.I.B.]

I find it telling that David has even *mentioned* manslaughter here, when Planeshift's question plainly didn't.

[Planeshift]

Well in my example I'd have to find a very good barrister to get that down from murder, as it involves pre-meditation (I plan to kill the thief).

[David Duff]

Well done, 'NIB' and Larry, you spotted my shiftiness, an attribute not unconnected to my former trade of shifting second-hand 'shrapnel', an honourable profession which Larry chooses to treat with contempt (I wonder who stitched him up in the past? It probably wasn't that difficult because I always found that the more educated the punter was the more dumb he was!) Anyway, to answer 'PS's' question more directly, the punishment should match the ferocity of the crime and the helplessness of the victim. In other words it should be, if you like, the forensic details of the *action* not some supposed *motivation*.

Larry sums up better than me: "I take it for granted that murderers who act out of motivation by their violent hatred of (e.g) Poles should get a more severe sentence than those who act out of (e.g) a desire for revenge for some other crime." My question is why does he "take it for granted"? What is the justification?

[David Duff]

Larry, I may well have need of you in the near future. Book II of the Dawkinci Code is in gestation and it will take a mathematical turn - for the worst or the better I know not!

[Snotty McShot]

If Son of Duff was raped in the colon and murdered by an Asian man and you hunted down his killer and beat him within an inch of his life, should your motive be considered in sentencing you? Would you consider it reasonable to expect a more lenient sentence than if your victim was innocent of any crime and you had simply beat him comatose because you hate Asian people?

Also: "...it will take a mathematical turn - for the worst or the better I know not!"

Anybody else care to take a guess here?

[dearieme]

So if you kill a black man, shouting "you phat bastard", that's a hate crime since you're accusing him of being dressed like a black pimp, but if you shout "you fat bastard", that's much less serious. Good to know.

[Lawrence Duff]

I thought the reason why Lefties put a “progressive tax” on racially-motivated crimes was a social-engineering attempt to prevent a recurrence of the collective racist behaviour that murdered 6 million people i.e. punish the individual more strongly for the motive in the hope that the mass will desist.

While a Liberal may or may not disagree with that, we can all say that if it is to be good law it should be applied consistently.

So, on the basis that class hatred murdered 120 million people, why does our Social Democracy not punish class motivated crimes equally consistently? Exhortations to destroy the middle class, backed up with assault and destruction of property, are an ever present feature of the hard-Left. Yet for the 20-fold magnitude of their historical crime over that of the racists they are not punished excessively, even actually more lightly, for class-hatred crimes in our Social Democracy.

This was the point I was making in the Muslim “fun” day – or a clash of civilisations? post that some folks seemed to miss. Our Social Democracy, like all others, always struggles to implement authoritarian social-engineering laws consistently because they either come into conflict with harsher side of SD’s own doctrine or into conflict with other social-engineering objectives.

Consistently application of such laws would see Lenin, Meaders and BioNoc in the nick - very un-comradely!

Inconsistent application of those laws allows Alton Towers to have a “Muslim fun day”, where women and men are banned from mixing on the same rides, but does not allow Fascists to have a “National Socialist fun day”, where Aryans and other races are banned from mixing on the same rides, thereby making a mockery of consistent law.

Son of Duff