Maybe not, if the theory put forward in this prosecution prevails. The argument being made is that choosing gay victims to rob because they are perceived as easy targets is sufficient basis to convict of a hate crime -- even though the only "bias" shown is the belief that they won't fight back.

In her courtroom on the 21st floor of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn yesterday, Justice Jill Konviser-Levine sat and pondered the question of hate.

“Bottom line,” Justice Konviser-Levine ruminated aloud, “is animus an element of the crime?”

The crime in question was the killing of Michael J. Sandy, 29, a gay man who was lured to a parking area in Sheepshead Bay last October, beaten and chased into traffic. He later died in the hospital.

Prosecutors have said a group of young men contacted Mr. Sandy through an online gay chat room, selecting him as a robbery victim in the belief that a gay man would be unwilling or unable to put up a fight and unlikely to report the crime.

The defendants — John Fox, 20; Ilya Shurov, 21; and Anthony Fortunato, 21 — have been charged not just with murder, but with murder under the state Hate Crimes Act of 2000, which provides longer prison sentences for crimes motivated “in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person.”

Now let's be honest here -- these guys are creeps and deserve to be dealt with harshly. Indeed, I think the most appropriate punishment for them involves a needle in their veins -- or being drawn and quartered by city buses. However, to apply the law in this manner is to prove what many of us have always said about hate crime laws, namely that they constitute unequal treatment of the law by enhancing penalties for the same crime based upon membership in specially protected classes.

Posted by: Greg at 12:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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