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.
I see. I guess the kid who downloads an mp3 file without realizing it's illegal is just as quilty as the guy whose been repackaging and reselling mp3 files for years. I guess the grandmother who tries to landscape what used to be her new backyard before it became a wildlife preserve, is just as guilty as the corporate polluter whose been backhoeing the same site for years.
If it's a slippery slope in civil law, it's a slippery slope in tort law. Apparently, some of think that has to be lived with, because intention is important in assessing guilt, and many people, myself included, would consider it somewhere between morally derelict, and monsterous for the law to ignore that.