I can see why Tim Worstall has doubts about judges imposing longer sentences for racially motiviated offences. I used to have slight reservations as well, until my wife and I were involved in an "incident" on our doorstep soon after 9/11. I don't have time to go into details now, but what was interesting was that we weren't even aware at first that the thug we were dealing with was a racist. We thought at first that he was just a bit unhinged. Then the penny dropped, in a very obvious way. If we'd been white the dynamics of the whole thing would have been completely different - I'm absolutely convinced of that. Not to sound too melodramatic about it (no punches were thrown) but the sense of violation and hurt was very different. So, yes, he deserved a stiffer sentence, which is apparently what he got.
Sometimes, true, it's hard to gauge motivation. But not, as far as I can see, in the Anthony Walker case.
PS: Obviously, this ought to apply across the board. You don't have to be white to be a racist. (I can see there are complications in the Christopher Leonard case, but it's up to a jury to sift the evidence.)
BTW, I only just saw Tim's post on the business model being used at Pajamas Media. Very interesting.
There's a piece in today's Times.
The similarities between the two murder cases, and the differences in their outcomes, has left the Yates family feeling that it has been treated unequally. “I understand what Mrs Walker and her family are going through. We are going through exactly the same thing,” Rose Yates, Mr Yates’s mother, told The Times.
“But it appears to me that we have experienced a different measure of justice than they have experienced.”
Posted by: Laban | Saturday, December 03, 2005 at 10:17 PM