You seem to think motivations are actionable. Treading very near the edge of thought crimes don. Perhaps you should reconsider since Scalia agrees with me that motivation, absent action, is dispositive of nothing.
I, of course, neither think nor said any such thing. No amount of desire to put a false label on a science textbook, and than lie about its supporting material in court is actionable. Only doing so is actionable. Motivation however, is, and ought to be dispositive in the law. Or, to re-iterate my example, do you think a child who kills his playmate accidently ought to be punished for the same crime in the same manner as a mob killer?
Motive IS peculiarly ill-placed here. It is the result that counts. In fact motive is rather ill placed in the civil law in general. It is a criminal law concept. But motivation crept in, in the civil rights cases because SCOTUS say a pressing need, and has expanded since like topsy. In the wrong hands, it can be a very pernicious concept. Identical results, but not identical legal outcomes. That is indeed the recipe for a jurisprudential mess. The judge at hand was just gilding the lily, as a self indulgence, per the example of his betters perhaps, but indulging nevertheless.