Not enough.

That's it? He killed a defenseless man for sport and the most he'll serve is 25? He is an animal and does not deserve to live in our society.

That's what happens when you try to legislate thought. If there were no such thing as manslaughter or hate crimes, this PoS would be serving a life sentence.

It appears that the concept of manslaughter in US law goes back to 1957. Good luck trying to overturn that.

The good news is actually that the hate crime law increased his possible sentence, not decreased it.

If there were no such thing as manslaughter or hate crimes, this PoS would be serving a life sentence.

So, if we did it your way, everybody who killed somebody in a fight would get life.

and, I'll add - without manslaughter many people would actually kill and get off completely, because the potential sentence would be perceived as too harsh.

It IS sad that they couldn't get this kid for murder, since he is a terrible piece of shit. But, it's not like they didn't try.

I'll answer both of your posts with this: The hate crime law increased this guy's sentence because the laws we have on the books are not applied as they should be (pussy public perception of supposedly 'too harsh' sentencing, as you alluded to). This brings me to your next thought, which is that if those laws we do have were applied correctly, this guy would be sentenced to die for his crime.

Also, just like Saturnus, you add or subtract a factor that completely changes the discussion. In a fight, there are those who are just trying to defend themselves. If you kill someone in self-defense, that is just your survival instincts kicking in. You can't be punished for trying to save your own skin. Now, if you were the one who started the fight, that's a different story. You started something intending to harm someone. If that's the case, you must pay the price for your stupid decision to hurt someone because you're not man enough to deal with it non-violently.

Hey, sorry, I didn't get a chance to respond to your earlier comment on the same topic.

So, are you saying that someone who accidentally runs over a pedestrian with their car should be as culpable as someone who plans out a murder?

No, but then you're comparing apples and oranges. The person who hit someone with their car was probably not intending to cause harm. Accidents happen and that's a TOTALLY different topic and discussion.

Hey, I totally agree with your statement:

"The person who hit someone with their car was probably not intending to cause harm."

But notice that you have just made my point. You are validating the view that there IS a difference between manslaughter and murder. Your beef with the concept "manslaughter" is that we cannot tell what someone's intentions are (i.e. we cannot know what is going on in someone's head when they act), yet that is precisely what you have to know in order to be able to distinguish between accidents and non-accidents (as you do).

This also applies to your response to handsomedevil: you claim that the act of self-defense is justifiable, yet in order to determine that the person was acting in self-defense, we would have to refer to the intentions of the person throwing the punch.

The difference between intentional and unintentional is what allows us to give this mongrel a harsher sentence. handsomedevil is right on two counts:

"Without manslaughter many people would actually kill and get off completely, because the potential sentence would be perceived as too harsh"

and

"The good news is actually that the hate crime law increased his possible sentence, not decreased it"

That you perceive the sentence to be insufficient should not be blamed on the conceptual distinction. Like you say, it's a problem of the application of existing laws.

[I'm not sure why you talk of "survival instincts" (whatever those might be). Surely we cannot justify (though we might be able to explain) our actions by citing our instincts. We might have all sorts of instincts, but moral and legal behavior largely consists of suppressing those instincts (just compare with non-human animals).]

I think your real beef is not with those who assert a difference between unintentional (involuntary) and intentional (voluntary and premeditated) acts, but rather with those who discriminate between various kinds of intentional acts. Am I right? If so, why?

I think your real beef is not with those who assert a difference between unintentional (involuntary) and intentional (voluntary and premeditated) acts, but rather with those who discriminate between various kinds of intentional acts. Am I right? If so, why?

That's pretty much it, but I have a problem with your wording. Voluntary and premeditated are the same thing. Whether you thought of it a week ago or two seconds ago, you decided to act violently. Also, although I agree that there are various kinds of intentional acts, they are still intentional, meaning that harm was exactly the outcome envisioned by the perpetrator. What does it matter why they did what they did? They knew it was something that shouldn't be done, and yet, they did it anyway. Does it truly matter if the perpetrator loved or hated the victim? Does it matter if they felt complete indifference towards the vicitim? In my mind, it doesn't. If a husband kills his wife, it doesn't matter that he loved her or did it in a fit of rage (or came to hate her because they were an interracial couple and he just found out he hates that ethnicity). All of us rage at some point, but not all of us kill or cause bodily harm to another. It's called having control, and being responsible for your actions, no matter what drove you to them.

I also disagree that handsomedevil is right at all. Manslaughter is something thought up by lawyers trying to save the skin of their violent clients. Hate crime is something lawyers thought up to cover their ass for screwing up the law in the first place. What I'll never understand about our judicial system is its unwillingness to set things right by admitting it fucked up. They're still fighting over whether DNA should be allowed to set free those people wrongly convicted of a crime.

fucking scumbags. i wish i could see this kid to spit on him. he and his friends took the life of an INNOCENT and DEFENSELESS WORKING man. i hope he and his friends spends more than the minimums in jail.