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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Hate to say it, but hate
crime law pointlessI hate to say I told you so ... actually, hate's a pretty strong word ... let's just say that it is with extreme reticence that I gleefully point out that I warned legislators about the unintended consequences of enacting a so-called "hate crime" law.
"Hate crime" laws are laws that do for justice what bumper stickers do for automobiles: They let everyone know the owner's position on certain issues, but they don't make the car run any better.
Inspired mainly by crimes against racial minorities and gays, states across the country enacted hate crime laws to increase punishment against law breakers based on their motives, not merely on the criminal acts themselves.
While the hearts of those who enacted hate crime laws were in the right place (sort of in the middle of the chest), their brains were in the wrong place (in a jar in the cupboard). Why? Because if you ask any seasoned criminal prosecutor, it's hard enough to prove that some knucklehead committed a criminal offense without having to prove WHY he did it. And they don't have to. Or at least they don't unless they are prosecuting a hate crime.
UNDER HAWAII'S hate crime law, anyone who, say, kills a person because he hates that person's gender, sexual orientation, race and, I believe, hair color, mode of transportation or choice of house pet not only goes to prison for life, but can get an "enhanced" sentence of serving multiple life terms, a trick of genetic regeneration yet to be worked out by forensic penologists.
The other problem with this law is that it is so vague that instead of protecting the minorities it was mis-designed to do, it turns regular old dumb crimes needlessly into "super-offenses."
That's what's happening on the Big Island where a local non-Caucasian man with the disarmingly cute name of Henry "Puka" Bell is accused of attacking Caucasian beach campers while shouting the not-so-cute query, "Any f--ing haoles want to die?"
When the hate crime law was being discussed, I suggested, as an "effing haole" who was assaulted many times in high school, that prosecutors were going to have their hands full. Every time Caucasians were robbed, beaten and, in my case, tied to a chair in class, the mokes called us "effing haoles." (For definition of "effing," consult Vice President Dick Cheney.)
I don't think Puka Bell (note to Lee Cataluna: Please use this name in your next play) hates effing haoles, he just finds them handy to assault.
The public likely is more interested in seeing Puka Bell and the rest of his band of 11 Peter Pan-themed thugs prosecuted for mobbing innocent campers, not for being too dumb to keep their mouths shut during the assault. We might be stuck with an unnecessary hate crime law, but it shouldn't be used simply to increase punishment on the effing stupid.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' 2004 First Place Award winner for humor writing, appears Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com