The last paragraph of the original article make a good point about hate laws ghettoizing the hated and the perceived hating group, although with no evidence to prove the assertion.

First, "ghettoizing" is a judgment one can make, not an objective fact. No evidence that I can imagine could "prove" the assertion, though the statement seems persuasive.

But as to hate crimes, they are often group efforts, and it's worthwhile to look at some various levels of fault and/or guilt involved in a hate crime. This is by no means exhaustive.

Hate in itself is not a crime. To be disapproved of, of course, or at least regretted even if there is objective cause.

Making a speech of hate for a given group and the reasons therefor is not a crime (at least in the US); it's an exercise of free speech--however deplorable we see it as being.

Speaking of hate (as above) with, additionally, advocacy of criminal actions against the hated group is a different thing. Then it may fall into such a category as incitement to riot, a crime, and probably would be a hate crime. May fall into other categories than incitement to riot, too, for the too-literal-minded. And, depending upon circumstances and the details of the speech, it may make the speaker a member of a criminal conspiracy.

If a group is moved by that speech to riot or to some other crime, those who plan it, those who urge it, and obviously those who carry out actual acts toward commission of the crime (however trivial those acts may be) are co-conspirators, whether or not the intended crime ever actually takes place, and even if they do not know all the other conspirators. Thus, if the projected crime is to burn down a building, not only the planner(s) but say someone who buys a gallon of gasoline to be used in the arson, or who buys a package of matches for that purpose, are members of the conspiracy, and deemed guilty of any wrong that eventuates from that conspiracy, even if it's not the crime that was planned. So if the torch-man trips while carrying the can of gas to the building, fractures his skull and dies, every co-conspirator is guilty in his death! Even though no arson ever got carried out.

However, it's not clear whether a co-conspirator is chargeable with a hate crime based on his liability for the death under the conspiracy, where the death, "in the family" as it were, was not an effect to the hated target. I personally think not, and I doubt that a prosecutor would charge it that way even though it grew out of a hate-crime conspiracy.

Dave Oesterreich