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Join the conversation! There are now 10 comments on this chapter's page 13. Hate Crime: An Extra Level of Mens Rea. What are your thoughts?
  1. You can read this entire chapter in its original single-page scroll on the comic’s old Tumblr site here.

  2. Michael says

    Yeah, those Canadians, always apologizing and stuff!

  3. Robert Montrose says

    Of course, the prosecutor may have simply decided to drop the hate crime charge for the sake of expediency, but that does not mean unequivocally that Fred did not commit a hate crime.

  4. Misha says

    When you say “Your mileage may vary,” do you mean that a prosecutor may be able to charge Fred with a hate crime, even if Al’s ethnicity was not the reason behind the assault? How would the prosecutor be able to charge Fred with a hate crime?

    • The only thing he has to go on that it wasn’t a hate crime is Fred afterwards saying he would’ve hit Al regardless of his ethnicity. The only thing he has to go on that it was a hate crime was that he thought Al was Mexican and said he was sick Mexicans as he hit him. This prosecutor has weighed Fred’s statement after the fact more heavily than his outburst in the heat of the moment. A prosecutor who weighs the heat of the moment outburst more might have tried to prosecute for a hate crime and made the case to a jury that the outburst was important enough to be all the evidence he needed (he could’ve also used Fred’s admission that he “may be the biggest bigot in the universe” as further evidence that the crime was motivated by hate — Fred really fucked up by saying that to a prosecutor, honestly, at least, he did if that’s on record).

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