I'm no legal historian, but I wager that once we opened the precedent with "crimes of passion" as a legal defense that it was all downhill from there. Because its a real quick turnaround from "charges lowered because of intent" to increasing them too.
Which never made sense to me because someone who commits a crime of passion is just as likely, maybe more likely to reoffend because they lack self-control. If it's not the same crime it will be something else.
A common exception is the "guy catching his wife in bed with another man". In that case you can argue that any reasonable person would react the same way, but that's just a legal hack because we think it was justified then.
I mean, I've never heard it not used in the scenario you just described. Where a guy is in a situation where his emotions can overload so suddenly from such a level of disrespect that his actions are not indicative of his overall normal nature.
Which I don't disagree with either. There are some situations where reasonable men can be expected to act unreasonable and their actions therein shouldn't be held as heavy. Everybody's favorite dad Gary Plauche committed clear murder, but we can all see the "passion" that lead to it and don't want him to be truly punished for it. I'd even say the legal system was broken if it tried to be so rigid.
But the problem with laws is always that the moment you make them, they will be abused to the worst ways by the worst people. Suddenly "a man committing violence after being cheated on" is on equal legal footing as "he heard the word nigger, he couldn't stop himself."
Good judgement, now just remove the whole category of hate crime when standard laws should be enough for targeted assault and harassment.
This - is it a crime? Yes? Then why does the parituclar motivation matter? No? Then fuck off, opinions can't be illegal.
Hate crime is nothing more than a vehicle for thought crime.
I'm no legal historian, but I wager that once we opened the precedent with "crimes of passion" as a legal defense that it was all downhill from there. Because its a real quick turnaround from "charges lowered because of intent" to increasing them too.
Which never made sense to me because someone who commits a crime of passion is just as likely, maybe more likely to reoffend because they lack self-control. If it's not the same crime it will be something else.
A common exception is the "guy catching his wife in bed with another man". In that case you can argue that any reasonable person would react the same way, but that's just a legal hack because we think it was justified then.
I mean, I've never heard it not used in the scenario you just described. Where a guy is in a situation where his emotions can overload so suddenly from such a level of disrespect that his actions are not indicative of his overall normal nature.
Which I don't disagree with either. There are some situations where reasonable men can be expected to act unreasonable and their actions therein shouldn't be held as heavy. Everybody's favorite dad Gary Plauche committed clear murder, but we can all see the "passion" that lead to it and don't want him to be truly punished for it. I'd even say the legal system was broken if it tried to be so rigid.
But the problem with laws is always that the moment you make them, they will be abused to the worst ways by the worst people. Suddenly "a man committing violence after being cheated on" is on equal legal footing as "he heard the word nigger, he couldn't stop himself."