Posted on 07/12/2006 4:39:15 PM PDT by Jameison
A black man who confessed to fatally knifing a White Plains woman because she was white was convicted yesterday of murder as a hate crime. A Westchester jury took just 4 1/2 - including 45 minutes spent re-watching his videotaped confession - to find Phillip Grant guilty of murder and possession of a weapon.
"As long as she had blond hair and blue eyes, she had to die," Grant said on the video.
Grant, 44, had admitted killing Concetta Russo-Carriero, 56, in the parking garage of the Galleria shopping mall, a block from the courthouse in downtown White Plains. He used a knife stolen from a box of cutlery at a Sears store in the mall.
Grant had served the maximum term for a rape conviction, and from the time of his arrest the killing spurred calls for a civil-commitment law that could keep violent sex offenders off the streets after their prison time is served.
After the verdict, Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore said, "Phillip Grant was released into our community from state prison as a ticking time bomb. He exemplifies why civil-commitment laws are needed."
The victim's son Jonathan Russo also backed such a measure, though he said it would be "too late for my mom."
He called Grant "a vicious animal" and thanked cops and prosecutors for putting him away "so he will never be able to commit such a heinous crime again."
Russo-Carriero's father, Ted Granata, said, "When that animal stuck a knife in my daughter's heart, he stuck it in our heart, too."
Outside the courthouse, Russo confronted defense lawyers Eugene Traynor and Mary Patricia Long, telling Traynor he was "a disaster of a person."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
"Where is "hate crime" chief hustler, Al Sharpton in all this then?"
Uh, wrong color my friend, wrong color.
What murder is not a "hate crime"? Is the penalty enhanced because it's a "hate crime"?
It's only a "hate crime" if the victim isn't white and heterosexual.
Capital punishment is a great concept but liberals hate it because it works.
Wonder if the families of his previous victims said the same thing when he was "put away"........
Hate crime laws are useful for petty crimes like simple assault, harassment and vandalism -- spray-painting swastikas on a synagogue is a different crime from spray-painting "jimmy loves suzie" on a highway overpass, even if the physical act is the same.
For violent felonies, they're pretty much irrelevant in terms of sentencing. They do provide for reporting to the FBI and statistical tracking, which may or may not be useful.
Murder is murder.
All this hairslpitting simply complicates law
That's a point.
OTOH, if someone spray-painted "jimmy loves suzi" on the side of my house, I'd be just as ticked as if they painted a swastika.
Interestingly, it seems, like the ADA, this one has boomeranged.
I used to think only white heteo males could be convicted of Hate Crimes, but it turns out more People of Color have been convicted (or had enhanced sentencing) that whites.
Liberals, gotta love 'em: their complete inability to reason leads to them screwing the very people they are trying to help.
ah .... the thought police tack on some years to a minority,
expect 4-5 more cases like this until the hate crime component is rightfully removed from sentencing
Hehe, When I lived in So Cal we had chicano gangs "tagging" with spray paint.
I had a neighbor 2 blocks down who was getting his fence tagged constantly. Well he caught the little turd 15-16 yr old punk.
He pulled the kids drawers down and spray painted the punks stuff.
You know who did the jail time dont ya?
Personnally I thought it was pretty funny till they prosecuted the home owner
There are morons running this country. They are just really stupid people. If the powers that be made it a point to refrain from picking on the people who want to be left alone when they retaliate but come down doubly hard on the perps with the pink or blue or whatever peckers, all of us would be better off including the perps who would eventually get it their skulls that it doesn't pay to be aholes.
But that's not going to happen. Why? Because there are morons running this country.
You probably would have been better off with a baseball bat swing.
Protecting your property is OK. A premeditated assault is a bigger problem.
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