The issue of hate crimes legislation is the latest debate in the U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania, with Republican Pat Toomey reiterating his 2004 position against such measures to a local news station this week.
"I think it's a bad idea for government to legislate on the basis of what they think people are thinking, what's in a person's mind or heart when they create a crime," Toomey told KDKA in Pennsylvania on Thursday. "Crime should be prosecuted for what's actually done, and it should be vigorously prosecuted... We shouldn't have a system that is designed to say now, what was so and so thinking at the time he committed his crime and let's punish him more or less depending of what we think the thought process was. That's ridiculous. People should be punished for the crime they commit."
How to prosecute hate crimes was also an issue in 2004, when Toomey ran in the GOP Senate primary against Arlen Specter. At the time, conservative judge Robert Bork endorsed Toomey in Pittsburgh and called hate crime measures "a discriminatory law enforcement device." Toomey agreed, stating, "This is an attempt to criminalize thought. It's an attempt to criminalize and add a dimension of punishment."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/10/p...
Posted By: Adam Fate
Wednesday, October 6th 2010 at 9:25AM
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