Hate crime enhancements create thought crimes. I understand what purpose they are trying to serve, but my personal philosophy on the law is that it should always remain as subjective as possible. If you strike someone in the face you have committed the crime of striking someone in the face. If you strike someone in the face and the prosecutor can convince a group of 6-12 partially engaged citizens that you were thinking hateful thoughts about that person's race when you hit him, then the crime is worse? That doesn't make sense to me, and runs the risk of destabilizing the entire system. The most important asset the law has going for it is that it is accepted by all as inherently fair. When that is lost, the whole thing comes crashing down.
There have been many cases where people have been severely beaten or killed for no other reason than their sexual orientation or the colour of their skin. IMO, something like that needs to be taken into account.
How do you prove motivation? It's far easier to prove objective facts. Is it really a worse crime to have your teeth knocked in because you are gay, than to have your teeth knocked in because someone mistook you for someone who owes him money?
Yes, IMHO, because such things feed further hate crimes while the mistaken identity cases rarely cause further crimes.
The assumption here being that the criminal is already being prosecuted. If you take the stance that the prison sentence handed out for the actual crime is punitive in nature, and not rehabilitative, then I guess it makes sense that you want this criminal away from society for longer due to his motivation. I prefer to hope that incarceration serves a rehabilitative function, and as such the criminal is given the same chances to make positive changes whether or not he gets an extra year because he was thinking something non-PC when he committed the crime. I know this is fantasy in my country, but this conversation is theoretical anyway.
By the same stance, do you think that certain motivations warrant life sentences without parole? The pedophile who is arrested for loitering around a playground? His crime is minor, but his motivation is never going to go away, and will only lead to greater crimes. Does the citizen have the presumption of innocence until he commits a crime, or should we preemptively incarcerate?