Michael Cassidy, the former Mississippi candidate for Congress who destroyed the Christmas seasonal display put up by Satanists at the Iowa State Capitol building , was ultimately charged not just with criminal mischief, which is a misdemeanor and what such vandalism would usually draw as an offense, but felony third-degree criminal mischief. The enhanced charge was justified, according to the prosecutor, because the act was committed “in violation of individual rights” under Iowa’s hate crime statute.
The statue Cassidy attacked was of Baphomet, who isn’t exactly Satan but close enough for horseshoes, or goatshoes. The ancient pagan deity is used as a symbolic trademark by the Satanic Temple, a largely satirical pro-atheism and anti-religion organization. He’s a little like Mickey Mouse is to Disney. Understandably, however, serious Christians regard using Ol’ Baphy’s image to “celebrate” the Christian holiday of Christmas as blasphemy, which it is, because that’s how the Satanic Temple rolls. It think blasphemy is a joke. To that group, all religion is a joke.
Michael Cassidy is one of millions who don’t get it.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Should a hateful act against a statue that mocks Christianity be treated as a hate crime?
“Evidence shows the defendant made statements to law enforcement and the public indicating he destroyed the property because of the victim’s religion,” triggering the violation of individual rights enhancement, said Lynn Hicks, a spokesman for the Polk County Attorney’s Office.
Wow, an entire office of assholes! The man committed a crime and an act of civil disobedience, protesting what he views as the absurdity of the state having to give a supposed Satanic organization equal representation with other religions in a holiday display. I have no idea what is gained by over-charging and taking the apparent position that it’s illegal to hate the personification of evil. Some legal commentators have climbed into the high weeds about whether atheism or Satanism are legitimate religions; the same weeds are available for debates over Pastafarians (The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) and Scientologists. It’s an unnecessary issue here.
Hate crimes are thought crimes and, at Ethics Alarms, unethical to charge whatever they involve. Michael Cassidy should be allowed to hate Satan, Baphomet, their followers real or satirical, those who mock Christianity and Christmas and anyone or anything else he chooses, as long as he doesn’t also destroy property.
I, for example, hate grandstanding prosecutors.
Ethics Alarms 
Do you mean should hate crimes exist at all?
Or should this instance be a hate crime?
Because…yes, a hate crime can be a hateful act against a religious statue (that “mocks”Christianity/religion)
When that “hateful act” is
a public offense against a person or their property… (like a statue, that according to you, mocks Christianity [irrelevant what purpose the property serves]
…and because of that persons religion/race/etc
Since this idiot admitted he committed a crime against a group because of their religion, then yes it’s a hate crime.
Bob: the entire concept of “Hate Crime” is bad law, bad jurisprudence and bad ethics, as well as an official endorsement of WrongThink, Big Brother style. If Y kills X because he’s robbing him, and W kills Z because he’s a racist and doesn’t like Z’s color, they both have committed exactly the same crime, and what W was thinking while doing the murder should be irrelevant. In a similar vein, whether someone vandalizes a statue because the figure portrayed was a Confederate general, or whether he does it because he think the thing is ugly, or whether he does it because he “hates” a so-called religion that the statue represents is, or should be, irrelevant.
But the quiz begins with the assumption that there is a hate crime statute, and the question is, does it apply in this case. which, in my view exemplifies how idiotic such laws are.
But of course you’d like them…
To be fair, mens rea is a core concept in U.S. criminal law. We punish people who intended to commit their crimes, but we don’t punish people who took innocent actions that happened to cause the result of a crime. (Unless they’re criminally negligent.)
For similar reasons, people have more respect for those who commit crimes for practical reasons rather than out of vindictive bigotry. I think it’s pointless to try and codify that into legal punishments, though, because people could always claim to have a practical reason for profitable crimes, and profitless crimes like vandalism are assumed to be motivated by spite anyway. This is the “its not personal” rationalization.
Besides, if we want to discourage bigotry, we need to actually engage with bigoted people and deconstruct their paradigms. Making bigoted thinking illegal (even only when it’s paired with illegal actions) complicates trials without helping at all.
Mens rea doesn’t usually involve the requirement of “bad emotions while committing a crime,” however. It is true that matters like cruelty are entered into evidence to show why a particular charge was justified, as well as benign motives as mitigating circumstances—killing a spouse suffering from excruciating end-stage cancer is charged a “love crime” sometimes, or not charged at all.
Your two murders are actually differentiated in law, with or with a Hate enhancement.
If you murder someone while committing another felony (armed robbery) it’s treated differently than you murdering someone because you hated them.
Before coming here, I had developed a deep hatred for Hate enhancements. How does anyone prove beyond a reasonable doubt what someone else’s motives are? Elon’s new brain implant might answer that question someday. Until then, it’s irresponsible hubris.
Presumably, we punished racist murderers before Hate enhancements became a thing, but you cannot prove that the sole purpose of the crime is based upon my Hatred of blacks, homosexuals, Trump supporters, etcetera.
The victim may also been an asshole, and had he not been an asshole, the crime would not have happened.
Back to the quiz, The Satanic Temple people don’t regard themselves as a religion. (Do they claim non-profit on their tax forms?) In polite terms, TST is a parody of a religion that doesn’t exist. This is the left’s equivalent of “owning the Libs” & a genuine case of “Republicans Pounce!”
The charge should be limited to vandalism. If I had been in Cassidy’s shoes and compelled to respond, I would’ve disassembled, not damaged or destroyed the display and hid it in a closet.
Bad example on my part—forgot about the felony murder wrinkle. Glad you flagged it.
I admit to a strong bias here. As a Catholic, I have seen a huge amount of vandalism against Catholic stuff go largely unnoticed or unaddressed by the police. Over the last five years, I can think of five separate instances of theft/vandalism against the church. This last year, as one such example, a church had signs on the property that were destroyed or defaced daily. Each day, church personnel would find all of the pro-life signs on their property missing, destroyed and a mess, or defaced. Every day, they would clean it up. Every day, they would put up new ones (at reasonable cost to the church). Now, I don’t know the full details as most of what I have heard comes from irate ranting, but it seems that police interest in this vandalism is limited and prosecution chances if the police catch these vandals is non-existent. After all, this is a highly contested topic and they have a right to free speech.
In addition to this, there has been a marked uptick in attacks on Catholic Parishes over the last few years. Unfortunately, this value is hard to track down as the only groups who really track it are Catholic groups who are devoted to getting attention to Catholic problems, so their data is considered biased by many who outright state that these data points are made up. One of the points that they brought up was a death this year by those who wanted to harm a priest because he was Catholic. Of course, the man got a murder charge, but a hate crime one? No, of course not.
I disagree with the idea that we should even have the term “hate crime”, because intentional crime is intentional crime. In addition, people decide what a hate crime is based on factors that aren’t valid. I know a guy from my high school who got convicted of a hate crime against Indians. However, he outright stated that his murderous rampage was based on a hate against drunks. He shot and harmed almost everyone at the drunk tank after yet ANOTHER incident where drunks caused him problems. Now Roy is undeniably guilty of killing and wounding multiple people. But he didn’t hate Indians. It is just that every single person at the local drunk tank was Indian at the time he shot it up. Roy said exactly what his motive was when he turned himself in, but no one believed him.
However, something like this once again shows not only the inherent bias in the hate crime statutes, but the two tiers of the justice system. If you vandalize a Satanic statue on one occasion, you are considered guilty of a hate crime. If you vandalize a Catholic Church every day for months, you are considered, at worst, a vandal, it’s a slap on the wrist…maybe.
I disagree that any crime should get a “hate crime” designation, but this? Definitely not. Either prosecute the people who hurt attack things from every church equally, or don’t prosecute them at all and just agree that this is his “right to free speech”.
Seven years ago, I was called to jury duty in Des Moines – home of the headless statue – and was selected for what turned out to be a fourth-degree criminal-mischief trial. The gist of a case involved a young man that slashed the car tires of the woman who had just ended their relationship. They argued in the parking lot of her apartment, she walked inside, and when she was out of sight, he did the deed. See the parallels already to this case with Mr. Cassidy?
The judge did not call this a “hate crime”, the defense did not defend against that claim, the prosecutor did not argue for it, and it never came up in our jury deliberations. There was an implicit understanding that the young man was angry at his ex-girlfriend, that his anger turned to rage (and I would suggest “hate”) at his rejection, and he acted out of that hatred, even if it was just momentary hatred. Was slashing those tires a “hate crime”? Absolutely.
Inherent in all crimes – beginning with Cain’s crime against his younger brother – is an element of hatred. I steal because I hate the fact that I don’t have the money to buy something I want…or I steal because I have the money, but I’m raging against “the man” who is merchandising the item. I lie because I hate the consequences of telling the truth even more. I fly my airplane into the World Trade Center out of hate. I behead Jewish babies out of hatred. If one peruses the Bible’s Ten Commandments, one can quickly figure out that breaking each one involves hatred at some level. Scanning our laws yields much the same result.
The real problem with “hate crime” legislation – and this won’t be ground-breaking to you in any way, because you’re all smart – is that it is often used selectively to increase the overall victimhood of an “oppressed” group. This has the added result of making “hate crimes”, in many cases, discriminatory. All victims of crime are, by definition, “oppressed” people. Hate crime legislation effectively labels some victims as lesser victims than others.
Mr. Cassidy’s action is a hate crime under current law, but it’s a completely unnecessary and redundant enhancement. It’s a worn-out saying, but it’s true: all crimes are hate crimes.
Bingo Joel
Yes, ‘hate crime’ legislation is very often selectively applied. Look at all the anti-semitic attacks in New York City. They are overwhelmingly black suspects who are never charged with hate crimes. Attacks on Christian churches are almost never charged as hate crimes. If a Christian church insisted on installing a pork sausage statue of Jesus in the capitol to celebrate Ramadan and a Muslim destroyed it, do you think hate crime statues would be invoked? Do you think the perpetrator would even be charged? I mean, if you shoot someone canvassing to oppose a statute expanding abortion legality, you don’t get ANY prison time.
https://www.lifenews.com/2023/05/24/leftist-only-gets-communist-service-for-shooting-pro-life-grandma/
(I do like that the link states ‘communist’ service instead of community service.)
We used to have this idea of ‘equal protection under the law’. Now, the law is blatantly used to punish groups the government has singled out for disapproval.
The hate crime push came after the dragging death of James Byrd, a black man whose head was pulled off while being dragged to death by a couple of proto-Klanners. Such laws are and were just virtue-signaling by the Left. The re is no way to make the punishment for a crime like that harsher, but never mind, we were told that it was important to show it was somehow worse than a typical murder even though it was obvious. Hate crime legislation means , “We really, really, really feel this is terrible” because we’re sensitive to the harm done by hate in the world.” And indeed, hate aimed in the other direction doesn’t count, because, for example, blacks “can’t” be racists.