Utah and Church Co. at their very best......reserving the right to discriminate according to the will of god.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/utah-apos-hate-crime-law-170117242.html

From the Article:

"Under Utah code, a case cannot be tried as a hate crime if the charge is more serious than a misdemeanor, rendering the legislation essentially useless, according to Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill."

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“The statute that we have is such an unworkable, unenforceable statute,” Gill told HuffPost on Tuesday. “It seems counterintuitive ... almost backward.”

“It’s not worth the paper it’s written on,” he added."

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“It really is an abdication of their moral, ethical and legal responsibility as elected officials,” Gill said. “It is a desire to not help these communities.”

"In early 2016, Utah state Sen. Steve Urquhart (R) sponsored a bill that would strengthen the state’s hate crime legislation. But the bill was “snuffed out” ― as he put it at the time ― by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had released a statement encouraging lawmakers not to pass laws that would “upset the balance between religious liberty and LGBT rights.”

You can't make this stuff up.

There is no hate in Utah right?

Especially towards LGBTQ people.

Right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_Mormon_suicides

Brother Berry, I need no illumination on that score. The way gay people are treated is one of the most important reasons I couldn't rationalize staying in the church. I have nightmares about what happened to Matthew Shepherd, Stuart Matis, and so many others.

Hate crimes in general are difficult since it means the prosecutor has to prove the motivation of the criminal, which means that a judge or a jury have to speculate on what's going on in the head of the person. That is pretty unenforceable. Beating someone with a tire iron should in and of itself be grounds for a long incarceration. The burden of proving more than whether they did it shouldn't be heaped on the prosecutor.

I actually agree with the sentiment that we should legislate actions and not feelings and beliefs.

Courts consider motive all the time. That's the difference between first and second degree murder, for instance, and usually between second and third degree murder. And hate crimes are often enforced.

In this case, the court would need to hear evidence that the assailant said he wanted to kill a Mexican, which is standard judicial fair. The reasonable doubt standard would apply, just as in any case in which intent is germane.

Standard fair for the judiciary--and hence prosecutors.

The difference between first degree murder and second degree is not motive but intent. The difference is between the intent to kill and the intent to commit the physical act that leads to death without intent to kill. So intent to shot is sufficient for conviction on second degree murder or the resulting death without the shooter having intent to kill.

Motive is different from intent and is never considered under the law except in hate crimes which is what makes them so insidious. (When prosecutors speculate about motive in a murder case, it's just a proposition, not an element of the crime they must prove or that the jury must agree was the reason.)

My view is that the state should not criminalize any of the feelings of the human heart. If they can criminalize hate, they can criminalize love. Fundamental freedoms should not be regulated and punished. Western law has always recognized this except when hate crimes legislation was invented. Only intentional voluntary actions that cause harm should be criminalized rather than the motivations behind those acts.

Yes, I recognize your use of the definitions from Black's Law Dictionary. Strictly, true. But in normal conversation the words motive and intent are very similar, and the former is almost always evidence of the latter.

So I disagree with your final paragraph, where you say that "western law has always recognized" that "the feelings of the human heart" should not be relevant in criminal court. Emotions, including racial prejudice, are routinely admitted as evidence regarding intent. Anger, rage, etc., can get one convicted of a crime or result in the reduction in the severity of a conviction from first to second degree murder or to manslaughter.

Moreover, hate crimes are common in western law. In the Anglo-American tradition, again, emotions frequently affect both determinations of intent and the level of charge leveled against a defendant (murder, manslaughter). That goes back 1,000 years or more. The post-Civil War amendments to the US constitution brought racial motives, racial prejudices, into jurisprudence. And many European countries have anti-hate crime legislation.

So your statement that "western law has always recognized [that emotion should not be relevant in court decisions] except when hate crimes legislation was invented" is tautological. It's like saying the sun never shines except during daytime.

Plenty of other laws that can be used - IF prosecutors would do so.

I wonder if it occurred to them that they (adherents of their religion) could become the targets of hate crime if they were to become a minority. Would they like to get treated the way they treat LGBTQ minorities?

Funny how the golden rule is selectively applied when it comes to convincing themselves that God sanctions them repressing others.