Friday Not-so-fun Fact
April 12, 2012
In Oklahoma, if you assault and kill someone and it’s a first conviction of the state’s hate crimes law, it’s a misdemeanor and carries up to a year in jail, the exact same penalty as unlawful possession of marijuana.
Crazy, eh? I don’t know what’s more nonsensical, the fact that you can plan out and murder someone, even multiple people, because of your perception of the color of their skin, their religion, or their disability and it’s considered a lesser crime, a not-minor but yet not-quite-major crime. Or the fact that carrying around some weeds is considered just as criminal. But it gets even crazier! ‘Cuz if you hatefully mess with any religious inanimate object, like a holy chair or a picture on a wall, or maybe you spray paint the side of a church, you’re facing a felony.
I’m not a lawyer, but for piss sake. File this under: learning can be infuriating.
April 12, 2012 at 4:14 pm
just realized it’s not friday yet. lord, help me.
April 12, 2012 at 6:18 pm
I’m not a lawyer either, but I read the law you cited a bit differently: “. Any person convicted of violating any provision of subsections A, B
or C of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor on a first
offense and a felony punishable by not more than ten (10) years
incarceration in the custody of the Department of Corrections for a
second or subsequent offense. The fine for a felony violation of this
section shall not exceed Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00).
Furthermore, said person shall be civilly liable for any damages
resulting from any violation of this section.”
It sounds like they can be charged with a felony conviction with a hate crime. Can’t they also face regular ol’ murder charges, too? (I’m thinking of it as murder plus hate crime charges.) I don’t know how it works, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I think the recent Rutgers case (Dharun Ravi) shows how hate crime legislation can work.