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19 year old charged with “hate crime” for….


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The teen, identified as 19-year-old Lauren Gibson, allegedly crumpled the sign in a "destructive manner" and started to smirk at Carter in "an intimidating manner," according to the officer's statement. 

Carter then arrested Gibson and charged her with "criminal mischief" with a hate-crime enhancement, which strengthens penalties toward hate crime offenses, the Post reported. 
 

Gibson's arrest comes after another Utah resident, Joseph Dawson, 32, was sentenced to two days in jail in December for pulling down a similar sign and spray-painting the word "bisexual" in pink letters on it, according to the Daily Beast. 

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This is why I don't like hate crimes as a general proposition.

It has always been fair game and effective to argue racial animus or other bias as a motivating factor for a crime to enhance a sentence.

Putting those subjective things into black letter statutory law I have always thought was bad idea jeans.  And if it applies to property crimes or general order crimes, then it's flat stupid.

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45 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

From the law:

Quote

"Intimidate or terrorize" means an act which causes the person to fear for his physical safety or damages the property of that person or another. The act must be accompanied with the intent to cause or has the effect of causing a person to reasonably fear to freely exercise or enjoy any right secured by the Constitution or laws of the state or by the Constitution or laws of the United States.

(1) I think they are going to have a hard time proving that a teenager stomping on a sign put the officer in reasonable fear of exercising his rights;

(2) I'm licensed in Utah and have found the Utah Supreme Court to be very reasonable (and, as an aside, fairly favorable to Plaintiffs given). I'm pretty sure it would have a hard time approving the use of this statute to ironically tread on the free speech rights of the teenager. 

That said, I don't practice criminal law and haven't bothered to look for any cases on this statute. 

 

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In general I find this to be foolishness to want to charge someone with a hate crime that protests against one of, if not the most, protected group of people on the planet outside of the uber-wealthy. Last summer I heard an extremely old man on the Upper East Side here tell me that "Blue Lives Matter Too!" I was on my way to a vigil and had a Black Lives Matter shirt on. I had to just ignore it and keep my focus on what mattered. 

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I got pissed at a cop who wouldn't let me merge onto Lamar from 15th in rush hour back when I was interning in the Capitol for the summer and lived off Lamar and 45th. I didn't flip him off directly, I just flipped off to the generic traffic God in the sky because the cop made me slam on my brakes to avoid plowing into him. 

He pulled me over and went full on Cartman (verbally) on my ass.  Luckily no ticket because I "accidentally" showed him my Texas House badge when I handed him my driver's license.  Still got read the riot act about respecting cops.

This was 12 years ago. 

Fuck cops. 

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25 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I assumed it was signs that are protected. Can we get clarification here?

Primary offense was destruction of private property (the sign).

Smirking at the cop as she tore up the blue lives matter was the "hate" enhancer.  

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2 hours ago, Js1 said:

I got pissed at a cop who wouldn't let me merge onto Lamar from 15th in rush hour back when I was interning in the Capitol for the summer and lived off Lamar and 45th. I didn't flip him off directly, I just flipped off to the generic traffic God in the sky because the cop made me slam on my brakes to avoid plowing into him. 

He pulled me over and went full on Cartman (verbally) on my ass.  Luckily no ticket because I "accidentally" showed him my Texas House badge when I handed him my driver's license.  Still got read the riot act about respecting cops.

This was 12 years ago. 

Fuck cops. 

I had a cop ragestop me once because he thought I was flipping him off. No, you blind motherfucker, I had my hand resting vertically in the window. Guilty conscience much?

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7 hours ago, Js1 said:

I got pissed at a cop who wouldn't let me merge onto Lamar from 15th in rush hour back when I was interning in the Capitol for the summer and lived off Lamar and 45th. I didn't flip him off directly, I just flipped off to the generic traffic God in the sky because the cop made me slam on my brakes to avoid plowing into him. 

He pulled me over and went full on Cartman (verbally) on my ass.  Luckily no ticket because I "accidentally" showed him my Texas House badge when I handed him my driver's license.  Still got read the riot act about respecting cops.

This was 12 years ago. 

Fuck cops. 

You flipped off the sky? That's a tad odd. 

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I once got pulled over and berated in Lubbock for having the temerity of turning left in on a game day with a Longhorn sticker on my car. Never asked for an ID, never told me what I did wrong besides being a big city driver in the little utopia that is Lubbock. I can confirm he knew how to scream though, fucker yelled and screamed for a good 10 minutes. The. Later that day Texas got beat by the tortilla tossers 33-9, so all in all the cop was a highlight of that particular trip to Lubbock. 

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14 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

From the law:

(1) I think they are going to have a hard time proving that a teenager stomping on a sign put the officer in reasonable fear of exercising his rights;

(2) I'm licensed in Utah and have found the Utah Supreme Court to be very reasonable (and, as an aside, fairly favorable to Plaintiffs given). I'm pretty sure it would have a hard time approving the use of this statute to ironically tread on the free speech rights of the teenager. 

That said, I don't practice criminal law and haven't bothered to look for any cases on this statute. 

 

Ultimately, it might play out ok and that particular law applies only to misdemeanors, so arguably no big deal.

I just have the sense that a lot of these "hate crimes" add very little to criminal jurisprudence and are rife with potential for unforeseen consequences and abuse.

Like a lot of recent criminal legislation, they are sophisticated pandering.

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11 hours ago, Hookah Horns said:

You flipped off the sky? That's a tad odd. 

I have a blanket policy of not antagonizing Texas drivers, because you do not know who is carrying in their car.  

So yes, I'd rather throw my head back and flip off the roof of my car than someone who might have a gun. 

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18 hours ago, Js1 said:

I got pissed at a cop who wouldn't let me merge onto Lamar from 15th in rush hour back when I was interning in the Capitol for the summer and lived off Lamar and 45th. I didn't flip him off directly, I just flipped off to the generic traffic God in the sky because the cop made me slam on my brakes to avoid plowing into him. 

He pulled me over and went full on Cartman (verbally) on my ass.  Luckily no ticket because I "accidentally" showed him my Texas House badge when I handed him my driver's license.  Still got read the riot act about respecting cops.

This was 12 years ago. 

Fuck cops. 

This story makes so much sense on how and why you are such a Stakhanov party man for the big tent, centrist Democratic party with nary a critical or negative word to say in all your breathless defenses the past year. You are an alumnus of the fraternity!

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On 7/15/2021 at 4:00 PM, washparkhorn said:

Professions are protected classes now in Utah?

Sounds like the dentists and chiropractors (and cops) got their snowflake wishes via the Utah legislature. 

 

I recall a guy from Utah who once said "corporations were people!"

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12 hours ago, Bullneck said:

I recall a guy from Utah who once said "corporations were people!"

That wasn’t a guy, that was a wooden figure that the Mormons had breathed into him the breath of life via a golem spell. 

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