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Texas Shows What Real Prosecution of “Hate” Crime Looks Like: Death Penalty
This is what real “hate crimes” legislation and prosecution looks like: “A second man convicted in the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr. is set to be executed this week.” A second man convicted of dragging a black man to death is set to be executed by Texas this week. This monster would be spending the rest of his life, maybe, as a ward of the state in California, or Washington State, or New York, or fill in your Democrat-controlled state here.
But see what CNN and the left prioritizes:
Barring a last-minute stay, John William King, 44, will be the second person executed in Byrd’s 1998 death. Lawrence Russell Brewer died by lethal injection in 2011. A third man, Shawn Berry, was sentenced to life in prison.
While most murders are brutal, the viciousness of Byrd’s killing shocked the world. NBA star Dennis Rodman came forward to pay for Byrd’s funeral. Filmmakers produced multiple documentaries. Artists including Geto Boys, Drive-By Truckers and Will Smith referenced the violent saga in their songs. Maryland poet laureate Lucille Clifton penned an ode to Byrd.
Now for the important result, from the left’s perspective:
Most importantly, the 49-year-old’s slaying spurred Texas and Congress to push through hate crime legislation. The federal act is often associated with the killing of Matthew Shepard, a gay student beaten to death in Wyoming, but the full name of the law is the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Mind you, “hate crime legislation” had nothing to do with this set of successful prosecutions. The men conspired to commit murder and to carry out the murder in such a way as to max out the sentencing phase with the worst sort of aggravating factors. All the childhood bed-wetting and “depraved on account of I’m deprived” stories in the world couldn’t move the needle back from fry until extra crispy for the two men most responsible.
The third man received the maximum sentence any of the leftist-controlled states would allow, even with “hate crime” legislation. Indeed, Texas is also far more likely to actually ensure that “life” really means the convict will never draw another breath outside of prison. This points to the real motivation of “hate crime” laws being to pick favored victims and to score political points against straw men.
Getting into a bar fight and killing another man is bad, and likely deserves prison time. Tying a man up with chains and dragging him behind a vehicle until the road beats and mutilates him to death is a special level of evil. Every state in the nation already had the criminal statutes in place to make those distinctions, and already was prosecuted accordingly. Indeed, if you shoot your neighbor’s dog in her yard, or drag her dog to death, every state has the laws in place to distinguish between the first as “bad” and the second as “depraved.” Such laws regard all victims as equal under the law, not marking off some identities as more or less worthy of special solicitude by the courts.
Published in Law
From the Beaumont Enterprise [emphasis added]:
All the usual tropes:
society made this crime happen
“a modern day lynching”, well not a lynching really because no one was accusing Byrd of a crime, and there was no mob rule.
And Matthew Sheppard, hate crime victim, though he was a meth addict/dealer killed for drugs.
Not odd. It’s their modus operandi. Encourage millions of foreigners to cross our borders, overwhelming our capacity to handle them, sue to prevent efforts to try to handle them, and then claim we are mistreating those poor folks because we are unable to adequately handle them.
Or to go back farther, file lawsuits over prisoners held at Gitmo, sue over every proposed process to bring them to trial, delay ever attempt to start trials, and then complain that they are being held too long without trial.
Yep, “lawfare”.
It just occurs to me that the supposed prevention of hate crimes from some super-special law contradicts the non-deterrence argument against the death penalty.
The relevant joke is the second one, Cartman on a talk show trying to be more outrageous than the girl:
As I have explained before, very much a lynching in the long understood sense of the vile torture murders inflicted on black men by white supremacists, starting in Reconstruction, for domestic terrorism purposes.
The family statement did not mention Matthew Shepard. That name came into the CNN report, naming the federal legislation. I understand that the murder was most likely not about his sexuality, but rather about problems with a drug dealer, according to The Book of Matt.
Nor did Clara Taylor blame society, but I note your dismissal of her statement and its claim that only God, not laws, can bring a permanent healing of human hearts, and that we should all seek to know people outside of our own group.
She was clearly unhappy that justice had been so long delayed, and ascribed the guilt to the three convicted conspirators.
I think the tone of your reaction does not help the case of those of us who want to argue for even enforcement of criminal law.
From Dictionary.com:
verb (used with object)
to put to death, especially by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority.
I was commenting on the article, not the quotes inside it. Admittedly, without reading all of it.
Yeah, but they’re dead.
I really don’t care if it deters one more crime or not.
Is theft an avarice crime?
No, it is a Cloward Piven strategy for Death Penalty actions.
For the condemned and the families of the victims, I agree. You can thank liberal lawyers for that . . .
I’m thinking along the lines of the distinctions we make between premeditated first- and second-degree murder and manslaughter. Accidental arson caused by criminal negligence versus arson with an intent to burn a building down for the insurance money. That type of motivation or intent.
Since the introduction of hate crime legislation we have had widespread blocking of hate speech on the internet. Even some conservatives now assume that hate speech is bad speech. We need a reset–a do-over with more precise language.
Ya think?