re: "Get out of my house with all that gay." man gets 40 years in prison

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. A hate crime is just a crime to me.

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I want to agree but there is zero defense for hate crimes cause they're mostly unsolicited or provoked. Just one race, gender or nationality hating another for no gains.

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there is zero defense for hate crimes cause they're mostly unsolicited or provoked

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But where in any other case is a motive remotely considered part of the severity of the crime?

If I shoot you, I go to jail for murder. If I shot you because you slept with my wife, if I shot you because I didn't like the way you looked at me, or if I shot you for the 5 bucks in your pocket..... no difference. You can use the motive to convict, no argument there. I'm just stating that for some reason, there is an additional severity added to crimes because of why they were done in these very select cases. There should be a stigma against the person (this guy is obviously a whack job who hates gays and should be remembered as such). I just don't think that is any cause to create a separate offense specifically for the crime.

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I don't know much about this story, so I'm picturing guys with burns covering their body. Not just a small splash or anything.

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Tolbert must now wear compression garments 23 hours a day for the next two years, Gray wrote in an email to The Post, and is attending weekly counseling and physical therapy sessions to deal with his emotional and physical scars. It’s difficult for him to go outside because sunlight exacerbates the pain of his burns.

Gooden, who was burned even more severely, was in a medically induced coma for several weeks, Gray said. According to his GoFundMe page, more than 60 percent of his body was burned, and he had to undergo skin graft surgery to repair damage to his face, neck, back, arms, chest and head.

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Quote from the convicted:

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“They were stuck together like two hot dogs … so I poured a little hot water on them and helped them out,”

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Sounds like a terrible person. I'm sure he's holding his bible tight, assuming he's in good with the lord though.

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So people hate 99% of the population?

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Not me. I hate 100%.

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People use mens rea as an element in determining sentencing all the time. That is why you have degrees of murder. Even within one category, has no one ever seen or heard of someone getting a lighter sentence for stealing necessities rather than luxury goods?

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It's one thing to determine the severity of the sentence (which is still borderline), it's another to define it as a different crime. A different crime that can have it's own separate minimum sentence if so chosen. To consider it a hate crime is completely different than just as a crime, then sentencing them differently because of the surrounding circumstance.

And degree of murder is not the same. That has nothing to do with the motive. It more has to do with the circumstances that lead to it. Me shooting you because we got into a random fight over a girl in the bar is a different degree of murder compared to me shooting you 2 days later because we got in a random fight over a girl in a bar. Same motive though.

Wow.

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You're forgetting there are two victims. 2 convictions of murder will not get you less than 40 years I believe.

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It's also premeditated. He got a pot, filled it with water, brought it to a boil and poured it onto two people. He had plenty of time to think about what he was doing.

Still, he had no desire to kill them, so a better lawyer should have been able to get him less time. I'm glad this did not happen, though.

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If I shot you because you slept with my wife,

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I think that's a mitigating circumstance in some states.