Love Crimes

Today’s post will center on a recent trial that made headlines for being… what’s the word… ah yes. Insane.

As is typical of reading a news article about an ongoing trial, the facts reported seem selected to prevent the readers from having the slightest clue what happened, let alone why. If you’re so inclined, plow through the following article as it trips over itself trying to settle on a topic: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/10/04/hatecrime.trial.ap/index.html

As near as I can tell, four guys were sitting around one day with nothing to do. Suddenly, one of them sat bolt upright and declared, “Hey! Let’s rob somebody!” A murmer of assent and a round of nods followed, as none of the other three could come up with any reason that might be a bad idea.

One of the others followed this up with, “We should rob a gay guy! There must be hundreds of weak, vulnerable, ripe, sensuous male bodies in one of the dozens of chat rooms bookmarked on my computer here. Chat rooms which I, a straight male, bookmarked expressly for the purpose of selecting someone to rob -- which I have never done before!”

This outburst was similarly greeted with nods and murmurs of, “Well that makes sense!”

With that rock solid premise, our chat rooming defendant easily cruised the gay sex forum and selected a gay black man. Apparently because, as a black man, he would obviously have lots of pot and drug money to steal.

Later that night, one of the remaining two buddies got a little confused as to what “robbery” meant, and decided to chase their unfortunate victim into traffic, ultimately killing him. This act of idiocy earned him the privilege of his own trial.

But let’s return to our chat room friend. Having ever-so-wisely selected a black homosexual to target for criminal victimization well in advance of the crime -- on the grounds that as a black man he’d have lots of pot and drug money to steal and as a gay man he'd be too weak to defend himself -- he is now confused that the term “hate crime” has come up at his trial.

In a move calculated to confuse everyone and help his case none, he takes the bold stance of admitting to possibly having some homosexual tendencies which he has not before chosen to make a part of his identity. Except for all the men he met up with and had sex with.

His lawyer, realizing that his client was obviously confused, the jury was now confused also, the judge would be up all night confused and deciding what to define “hate crime” as, and that his client’s retarded friends were the most confused of all, came up with a brilliant course of action. He subpoenaed a bunch of gay men whom his client had seduced via said chat rooms.

Think of the subtle genius of it. Imagine a subpoena implying something along the lines of, “You are hereby summoned to court at the following date and time to give witness as to whether or not you meet men on the internet and then have mad-style lifestyle-affirming gay sex with them.”

The defense lawyer thus accomplishes the following:
1) Client = confused and stupid
2) Client’s friends = confused and upset
3) Judge = confused and annoyed
4) Jury = confused and amazed
5) Prosecution = confused and bewildered
6) Witnesses = confused, scared, and embarrassed beyond all reason

The end result of this move? It attracts national media attention and raises the question of, “Can you really commit a hate crime if you’re just… this… stupid?”

It’s a question for the philosophers all right.