enthalpy

Saturday, June 26, 2010


I've never liked the notion of a "hate crime." Aside from the fact there is no such thing (is there ever an assault because someone really, really likes their victim?), there's really no way to determine what "protected class" of victim warrants the additional punishment after the crime was committed because that person "hated" the victim. Here's the latest rampant inflation of hate class victim status: old people.
But in Queens since 2005, at least five people have been convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, committing a very different kind of hate crime — singling out elderly victims for nonviolent crimes like mortgage fraud because they believed older people would be easy to deceive and might have substantial savings or home equity.

And this month, Queens prosecutors charged two women with stealing more than $31,000 from three elderly men they had befriended separately. The women, Gina L. Miller, 39, and Sylvia Johns, 23, of Flushing, were charged with grand larceny as a hate crime.
Other than an overzealous D.A. that's trying to make a name for himself, who on earth would think that this is a good idea?



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