slavekate80
Posts: 362
Joined: 7/4/2013 Status: offline
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There's plenty of precedent in American law, and I imagine many other places, for the motive of a crime to matter when it comes to what the person is charged with. In the case of murder, motive and whether or not there was planning ahead of time are the usual determinating factors in whether the crime was first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or voluntary manslaughter. There's some variance by jurisdiction, but that's the general situation. I'm not sure why a crime based on bias only counts if it's against one of a few specific groups, though. Attacking someone because you hate his/her career doesn't seem fundamentally different from an attack because you hate his/her religion, but the first case wouldn't typically be classified as a hate crime.
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