Hate crime justification is in the eye of the beholders

Pam Adams tries to explain why the attack on Peoria City Council member Robert Manning wasn’t a hate crime.

The timing of the article seems sort of odd to me, considering that assault happened on Sunday, May 6, two months ago. The idea that Michael Little should have been charged with a hate crime (in addition to two counts of aggravated assault) was bandied about in the Blogosphere at the time, including on this site.

To bolster her argument, Adams brings up the case of Larry Bright:

In all the outrage, expressed at all the public meetings, never once did black citizens mention adding “hate crime” to Bright’s list of charges. And he’s a white man who pleaded guilty to murdering and incinerating eight black women. There was no great outcry for Bright to get the death penalty, either. Many people, however, wondered why a serial killer preying on black women did not merit national media attention.

I have to agree. Bright targeted black women for murder. It would seem to me that a skilled prosecutor could easily make the case Bright committed hate crimes. But he’s going away for life, and taking a few years onto his sentence won’t matter. I would have had no problems with this confessed killer getting the death penalty.

As I recall, talk about this being a hate crime didn’t start until Little’s quote about “the white councilman hitting the little black girl with his car” appeared in the paper. Perhaps a jury would have bought a hater crime charge. This loser might be going to be jail for a few years more had he been charged with a hate crime. Still, I have a libertarian distaste for hate crime legislation. It comes too close to asking courts and judges to read the minds of defendants and to punish them for their thoughts.

And I would like to point out a fact that generally that while Manning attacker was black, so were the people who came to his aid.

Robert Manning,Larry Bright,Michael Little,hate crimes