Hate crime

This week’s gruesome murder of transgender Jeffrey “Jennifer” Laude is juxtaposed against the breaking-tradition news of a preliminary document released by an ongoing Vatican synod calling for the Catholic Church to welcome back gay people into its fold.  The first event was cruel while the second development is unusual. Our column today will tackle the cruel portion.

Twenty-six-year-old Jennifer was found strangled in an Olongapo motel room with her head dunked in the toilet bowl.  The suspect is US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton.  The complication is that as a consequence of the Visiting Forces Agreement between the US and the Philippines, it may be difficult for our authorities to obtain custody (as distinguished from jurisdiction) over the American national. Protesters fear that another “Daniel Smith scenario” is in the making as Philippine authorities will need to seek the consent of their US counterparts before taking the suspect into custody.  If you will recall, in 2005, Smith was accused of raping a Filipina in Subic.  He was convicted by the Olongapo RTC but the Court of Appeals subsequently acquitted him after the victim recanted her statement. Smith immediately returned to the US. During the entire proceedings, he stayed within the confines of the posh US Embassy premises. Arguably, the fact that a person was murdered with impunity should differentiate Pemberton’s case from that of Smith.  For sure, there are several legal and practical issues that need to be sorted out, so for this column, let us first focus on the concept of a “hate crime.”

The concept is rarely used in the Philippines. Such crimes usually exist in multi-racial or multi-ethnic societies such as the United States.  The term was coined in the 1980s by US journalists who wished to describe a series of incidents against African-Americans, Jews and Asians. Also called a “bias crime,” it has been defined as a “criminal offense committed against a person or property that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against race, religion, ethnicity/national origin, sexual orientation or disability.”    

As tracked by the FBI pursuant to the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, there are 939 active hate groups in the US. The number increased after the election of President Barack Obama and the economic downturn during the latter part of the previous decade.  Over 70% of hate crime offenders are white. Among the prominent groups are the Ku Klux Klan, the Neo-Nazis, the White Nationalists and the Black Separatists.  Criminal acts motivated by race and ethnicity account for over 60% of hate crimes while those directed towards sexual orientation approximate 20%.

Hate crimes are predicated by an underlying offense (e.g., assault or vandalism) but the penalty is aggravated because of the bias motivation. The debate has centered on whether hate-crime laws punish thoughts rather than actions as it is difficult to determine with legally acceptable certainty the motive behind a person’s criminal acts. There have been various First Amendment challenges to hate-crime statutes primarily on the basis of vagueness and on the ground that its conceptual kin, hate speech, is generally protected by the US Constitution. But in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the US Supreme Court upheld the validity of a hate-crime penalty enhancement since “it was motivated by the desire to address a greater societal harm that is inflicted by bias-inspired conduct, not by an attempt to suppress free speech.”

Going back to the Laude murder case, there are those speculating that the assailant’s conduct was probably brought about by the discovery that Jennifer was not the “real Mccoy.” A similar situation has been depicted in two movies — the Crying Game and the Kiss of the Spider Woman. Although no amount of outrage or level of intoxication or both can justify the heinous act perpetrated. And there were two used prophylactics found in the crime scene so the assailant could not have been that dissatisfied.

Speaking of crimes, Criminal law will be one of the subjects tested in tomorrow’s 3rd Sunday bar examinations. The bar chairman is a long-time criminal law professor so I will not be surprised if he asks a question regarding hate crimes.    

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Greetings: The Donato-Rivero clan is celebrating today the birth anniversary of its undisputed capo, Raoul “Ray” Donato. A 1964 graduate of the five year Liberal Arts/Commerce (Liacom) course at DLSU, he was given a one-way ticket to the US by his father to nurse a broken heart and seek his fortune. He started as a mail-room clerk at Japanese mega-trading company Nissho-Iwai (now called Sojitz Corp.) in New York, rising from the ranks to become the first non-Japanese executive to head the company’s operations in the southeastern part of the United States. Based in Atlanta, Georgia since 1990, he was also appointed by President Cory Aquino as the first honorary consul-general of the Philippines for the southeastern US, probably our longest-serving Philippine honorary consul. From 1996 to 2006, he also served as trade counsel for the Jamaican government. He is now a consummate deal maker dabbling in power plants, hotels, iron and steel, nutriceuticals, animal vaccines, flowers, among others.  It will be the first time in 50 years that he will be celebrating his birth anniversary in Manila so friends and classmates who wish to greet “Le boom” and join the party tonight may text or call (0905)-3560050. 

Birth anniversary best wishes as well to Ateneo Law School sophomore student Alebeth de la Calzada.

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Congratulations:  Best of luck to Joane Verne Ypil who is graduating today from the De La Salle College of Saint Benilde with a degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management.  She is already gainfully employed with Makati Shangri-la and currently assigned at the Horizon Club.

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“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” – Marcus Aurelius

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