Mitigation Pleas: You're Doing It Wrong

[Lord Revan]

And in the end it's shouldn't be "This argument should be banned" but "We should get rid of the sensibilities that allow this argument to be valid". Basically stop thinking that transsexuals are something less then human or stop believing that finding out that person you were with wasn't born a woman is something worth retribution on your part.

[Alyrium Denryle]

That's the same sort of situation Scarpa is giving support to. It doesn't matter if the prosecution sends their own counterargument; it's being given publicly and listened to by many and being given credence by many.

Here is the problem. An attorney has an absolute duty to fight tooth and nail using any and all legal means for their clients. It does not matter what the client has done. It is one of those things where Professional Ethics and... Human Ethics... are not actually the same thing and in fact radically diverge. And there is no other option, because an adversarial system cannot function if the defense is hamstrung. Remember, the defendants are literally the people who may or may not be the scum of humanity, up against the full might and power of the state. There have been exceptions to this in the past--but it has always come through legislation. Laws prohibiting the dredging up up a rape victim's sexual history for example--however, this particular exception exists because such things have no probative value.

The problem here, is that... frankly... mitigation defenses and aggravating circumstances often rely on some people being better than others. If you kill a police officer, you get charged with a higher degree of murder. If, on the other hand, you go kill a meth dealer because he is scum and peddled drugs to your now-dead little sister, you are likely to not get as long a sentence (compared to a Hum-Drum 2nd degree murder over a monetary dispute or something), because you are unlikely to ever re-offend and everyone thinks the dude should die anyway. Mitigation arguments at sentencing are not the sort of thing that can be coded into law, because they are very very context specific.

Now, the argument in question IS repugnant, so if you can think of a way to code a prohibition on that sort of argument into law in a way that does not break the legal system, I would love to read it.

[Metahive]

Simple, equality before the law anyone? Are we back to giving credence to that "3/5ths of a person" kind of BS? See, here in Germany killing/harming someone out of bigotry, hatred or spite is considered an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one called "niedere Bewegründe / abject motives", so there's no way a lawyer would even dream of invoking this shit. It's really not that much of a bummer, guys!

[Thanas]

True, but this is not Germany.

I agree what Spekio said. Having worked as an intern in the US while getting my law degree you have to do everything to help your client simply because that is the way the system is set up. Not doing so would expose you to consequences and would help not a single person in this case.

Now, I would probably just have selected another line of argument but if there is not another one available...

[Metahive]

True, but this is not Germany.

Just mentioned it because Alyrium wondered if it could be done at all. And anyway, what kind of precedent would it have set had the judge allowed this argument to fly? I don't even...

[LaCroix]

Thing is, the only thing he did wrong was being too vague, hoping for a sexist sentiment to help his case. Had the defense outright argued that he deems her less worth by the fact of being a long-time criminal (illegal prostitute), instead of a smack-down, his argument might simply get ignored or even have worked.

[Spekio]

Maybe defense attorneys should have arguments they can't make.

You just went full retard. If that would be the case, there would not be a fair trial, ever.

I always recommend people to read Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments. Not all crimes are equal, and even the same crimes (i.e. murder) have peculiar circunstances. Pennology is more complicated than we think.

And metahive, here in Brazil, killing/harming someone out of bigotry, hatred or spite is also considered an aggravating factor.

But you see, society is at fault here. The prejudice ingrained in our society to gender roles and sexuality was in part responsible for the murder. He killed because he felt his sexuality threatened. It's even in the article.

"...Everett, 32, was convicted of strangling Gonzalez-Andujar last month. They had met through an ad, and he was allegedly shocked to find she had male genitalia...."

He was no homo. How dare this homo try to deceive him? He was a Man. A manly Man! He's gonna show this dirty homo!

And yes, this is preposterous, but it is how some people perceive society and their role in it. This is why some people use "gay" as an insult even when they don't despise gays or homosexuality. Because being "gay" somehow makes you less.

Would he have killed she if he did not felt "deceived"?

Actually, that would be the line of argument I would pursue in a mitigation plea. And if I were the judge, and this argument were presented to me, I would shave some time out of the sentence. I would give the maximum sentence for people who kill transexuals (or blacks, etc.) for no reason at all.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I'm sure the client you're working for to help with bathroom access would love to know that, were you a judge, you'd lower the sentence for someone because of trans panic defense. Really, run that by them and see how much they appreciate it.

You're from Brazil? Are you paying attention to how much murder of trans women there is going on in there at the moment? And you dare think this sort of thinking is ok to push in the law?

[Lagmonster]

I'm sure the client you're working for to help with bathroom access would love to know that, were you a judge, you'd lower the sentence for someone because of trans panic defense. Really, run that by them and see how much they appreciate it.

If I'm understanding Spekio correctly, you're not thinking about what he's saying. The criminal would be penalized for murdering out of an irrational, bigoted panic, but not as harshly as someone who coldly stalked and hunted down the subjects of his bigotry to murder them in their sleep. It makes sense to assign criminal penalties based on factors such as the risk to society rather than how you or other people feel about the crime, bigotry, or the plight of transgendered people.

[Spekio]

I'm sure the client you're working for to help with bathroom access would love to know that, were you a judge, you'd lower the sentence for someone because of trans panic defense. Really, run that by them and see how much they appreciate it.

She (she is a male to female transexual, pre-op) would have the same gut reaction you did. But the law is not a science of emotion.

And yes I am aware of the situation. Don't think I don't understand where you are coming from.

If I'm understanding Spekio correctly, you're not thinking about what he's saying. The criminal would be penalized for murdering out of an irrational, bigoted panic, but not as harshly as someone who coldly stalked and hunted down the subjects of his bigotry to murder them in their sleep. It makes sense to assign criminal penalties based on factors such as the risk to society rather than how you or other people feel about the crime, bigotry, or the plight of transgendered people.

Yes you are. We call this the principle of proportionality. If we just dole all maximum sentences all the time, again, we are making a tyrant out of the State.

Let me give you an example, Jogurt:

John murders Kevin because he parked in his spot at work.
Lyle murders Jack because Jack was blackmailing him.

Are those crimes? Yes. Are those crimes deserving of the same sentence?

[Borgholio]

I see it as the same thing as the difference between 1st and 2nd degree murder. Both are murder, but 1st degree means you INTENDED to kill from the outset, whereas 2nd degree means you did something violent that inadvertently resulted in murder. Same end result, different degrees of punishment.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, but even within each degree of murder there are different degrees of punishment. Premeditated murder of your blackmailer and premeditated murder of the guy who keeps taking "your" parking space at work are not the same thing, and should not be punished equally.

"Gay panic" and "trans panic" should impact the sentencing, because they represent the motives for the murder. My own personal opinion is that they should be classed as "hate, bigotry, or spite" and be one of the motives that makes the sentence worse, along the lines of the German system.

I think we'd profit from at least a bit more codification of the broad classes of mitigating defenses and aggravating circumstances.

[Spekio]

Yes, but even within each degree of murder there are different degrees of punishment. Premeditated murder of your blackmailer and premeditated murder of the guy who keeps taking "your" parking space at work are not the same thing, and should not be punished equally.

"Gay panic" and "trans panic" should impact the sentencing, because they represent the motives for the murder. My own personal opinion is that they should be classed as "hate, bigotry, or spite" and be one of the motives that makes the sentence worse, along the lines of the German system.

I think we'd profit from at least a bit more codification of the broad classes of mitigating defenses and aggravating circumstances.

Why? That is not how you treat a issue like this. The society creates it's criminals. It is with educative measures that one tackles this issue.

[Patroklos]

Put this way.

There's doing your best to defend your client, and then there's saying utter filth that is likely to backfire. I think the stereotypical "sleazy defense lawyer" has problems with this, because their sleaziness shows and may actually bias juries against them. Few jurors are going to appreciate being lectured on how the plaintiff should be awarded an obviously disproportionate amount of money, or told that some people are more equal than others.

This. If anything this gives the defendant grounds to claim undue bias in his sentencing do to people reacting to the ugliness of his defense lawyer. I am not sure if there is legal recourse on those grounds, but if there is I would consider it (unless you can prove the client demanded this defense).

Does anyone know if this was a public defender? If so and the client did not direct this line of defense could you claim you did not receive competent representation of something like this?

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

We call this the principle of proportionality. If we just dole all maximum sentences all the time, again, we are making a tyrant out of the State.?

You're missing the example of people murdered, both in the 1st and 2nd degrees, because they are seen as unperson predators. People who are murdered at tremendously higher rates than the rest of society.

And you seriously think this shouldn't be taken into consideration and increase sentencing? And that's just being the absolute most charitable to a dishonest degree. With what you've said already you think murdering someone like that should give overall less punishment due to how broad and easy to use the trans panic defense is.

Why? That is not how you treat a issue like this. The society creates it's criminals. It is with educative measures that one tackles this issue.

Why to yourself? The currently seen adversarial justice system is quite demonstrably failing many of society's most vulnerable. Can't it be adjusted to work better in the society we find ourselves in rather than setting it up for a utopic setting and then waiting for society to catch up?

[Ralin]

I like how Jogurt thinks she wouldn't be first in line to be censored if we started banning certain arguments and ideas from being made in public.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Are you not familiar with hate speech laws and how they don't make a country descend into total censorship when applied despite restricting free speech for the protection of vulnerable populations?

[Alyrium Denryle]

"Gay panic" and "trans panic" should impact the sentencing, because they represent the motives for the murder. My own personal opinion is that they should be classed as "hate, bigotry, or spite" and be one of the motives that makes the sentence worse, along the lines of the German system.

Actually, it is not about the motives. That is a talking point, but it is not the reason we want these laws as a rule. It is because a hate crime creates a lot of extra victims due to the fear and intimidation they create.

More on that momentarily.

Simple, equality before the law anyone? Are we back to giving credence to that "3/5ths of a person" kind of BS? See, here in Germany killing/harming someone out of bigotry, hatred or spite is considered an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one called "niedere Bewegründe / abject motives", so there's no way a lawyer would even dream of invoking this shit. It's really not that much of a bummer, guys!

Germany does not use an Adversarial system. The US does. That is the point. In Germany, as I recall, an Inquisitorial system is used. I tend to think it is better, but a complete overhaul of the US judicial system is not a viable option at this time. Adversarial systems operate completely differently from Inquisitorial systems. They achieve substantive due process of law by radically different means, and restricting the arguments a defense attorney can make in an inquisitorial system does not have the same impact that it does in an adversarial court.

In much of the US, we have Hate Crime legislation as well, but an argument similar to this would still have been tried.

Just mentioned it because Alyrium wondered if it could be done at all. And anyway, what kind of precedent would it have set had the judge allowed this argument to fly? I don't even...

It wouldn't have. Jury decisions in a criminal court dont have the force of precedent in other courts. The "Gay/Trans Panic" defense has been used for decades (by lawyers desperately trying to defend clients who the state has Dead to Rights). It almost never works, and when it does it is a legal fluke, and even then never gets someone an acquittal, but reduces the sentence by a couple of years (because freaking out and killing a gay or trans person is a bit different from stalking and killing them with malicious forethought. In the same way that losing one's temper and beating someone to death is not the same thing as sneaking into their house and cutting their throat at night). It NEVER, to my knowledge, reduces the charge to Manslaughter or anything like that. When it does work, it does not make it more likely to work in a future case.

The same thing goes for sentencing, in point of fact. The sentence handed down by Judge A does not affect the sentence handed down by Judge B for an otherwise identical crime.

I'm sure the client you're working for to help with bathroom access would love to know that, were you a judge, you'd lower the sentence for someone because of trans panic defense. Really, run that by them and see how much they appreciate it.

You're from Brazil? Are you paying attention to how much murder of trans women there is going on in there at the moment? And you dare think this sort of thinking is ok to push in the law?

Ok. This is coming from someone who has been the victim of numerous hate crimes (I have chipped teeth because someone tried to make Leviticus a reality).

Think about what he is saying and the professional context in which he is saying it.

Defense attorneys in an adversarial system are professionally barred from considering broader social implications of the arguments they make. Their duty to defend their client is absolute. If they don't pull out ALL the metaphorical knives, their license to practice law can be in danger. The only things they are not permitted to do is knowingly suborn outright perjury (if their defendant told them he is guilty, they cannot put the defendant on the stand to say they were in another state at the time of the murder. They CAN put someone on the stand who honestly thinks the defendant was in another state at the time of the murder), tamper with the jurors, engage in bribery, and a few other miscellaneous things broadly classified as legal irrelevancies like dredging up the sexual history of a rape victim.

They will do things that, quite often, make them vomit into their mouths. Because it is their job.

The end result? Everyone hates a defense attorney, until they need one.

Now, lets take Spekio's hypothetical "were he a judge" scenario.

Say you have two crimes. Both against transwomen.

Crime 1: Person A sees person B walking down the street, obviously trans and obviously a sex worker. Decides that transpeople dont get to exist on their streets, and kills Person B.

Crime 2: Person A picks up a sex worker Person B. Learns there are male genitals, freaks the hell out, kills Person B.

In either case, a person is dead. However the crimes are not the same. To demonstrate, imagine you have a euclidian space with three axes.

X: Culpability, or "how intentional was this act?" going from "complete accident" at 0 to "with full premeditation" at 10. So, down at the 0 end you might have someone who's kid died as a result of exposure to an unknown allergen that was not at all forseeable. In the middle you might have someone who killed someone through negligence (like putting out rat-poison in an area children might have access to), and at the far end you have full premeditation (sneaking into someone's house at night and cutting their throat).

Y: Depravity, or "how fucked up and wrong is this act?" going from "barely wrong" at 0 to "Holocaust" at 10. This is pretty self-explanatory. Hate crimes are generally considered more depraved than other equivalent crimes, because they have secondary victims.

Z: Responsibility, or "how liable is someone for the harm done?" with "not actually responsible" at 0, and "very responsible" at 10. On the low end, you might have a case involving a child who could not know what they were doing was wrong/could not appreciate the consequences. Or a person who is batshit crazy with command delusions. In the middle you might have someone overcome by emotions who, in the heat of those emotions, kills someone else. On the high end, you have someone in full command of their faculties who rationally decides to commit a criminal act.

In simple terms, the position in three dimensional space of the given case determines what punishment a person should receive. If any of the three axes are at Zero, there is no crime that anyone can or should be punished for.

The difference between Crime 1 and Crime 2 is in the responsibility.

The depravity is equal because the murder itself is identical (beating to death, in this case) and the victim is identical (transgender sex worker).

Culpability is identical because both individuals knew they were killing Person B.

Responsibility is different, because in Crime 1, Person A rationally considered his hatred and placed it above the life of Person B. While in Crime 2, Person A reacted in the heat of an emotional shock, and may not ever have known that they had a hatred and fear of transpeople until that moment. Now, the difference is only Slight in this case, because a legally reasonable person (a specific legal definition I will leave to the lawyers to unpack) would not have reacted that way.

However, it might warrant a small sentence reduction. Say, 1-2 years. If it works. And it usually does not, not because the defense itself is bad, but because it is usually bullshit. I say this because Gay/Trans panic defenses are usually brought up by attorney's desperately trying to mitigate the charge or sentence of people who have ACTUALLY committed something more similar to Crime 1 than Crime 2, where the State has them cold on the hate crime.

Take the Matthew Shepherd case. The defense tried a Gay Panic defense, and it failed miserably because the murderers flirted with the victim, isolated him, then beat him to death. A real Panic Defense that is not legal bullshit would actually be most akin to any other Extreme Emotional Disturbance/Diminished Capacity defense. Like a wife coming home from work to find her stay-at-home husband in bed with the housekeeper, being overcome by rage and proceeding to beat the housekeeper to death.

It is not about the worth of the victim at all. But the state of mind of the accused at the time of the murder. Any sentence reduction is not even a reflection of whether or not the judge in a case views that state of mind as being ACTUALLY justified. The legal standard is based on the subjective internal mental state of the accused.

What the attorney in THIS CASE tried to do was combine such a panic defense (which rarely works and given the behavior of the defendant was Legal Bullshit as mentioned above) with an attempt to show that the crime was not as depraved. This can take the form of showing that either (A) the murder was not as horrific as the prosecution makes it out to be, or (B) that the victim was scum and had it coming.

He went for Option B by way of the victim's occupation.

And this defense sometimes DOES work. Generally, because the murder victim really was the scum of the earth. Known drug dealers, the dude who raped your sister etc. It works because everyone secretly wants to kill assholes like that, and EVERYONE at the very least understands why someone might stalk and kill the local meth dealer.

This defense also often backfires hilariously, particularly when the victim is in fact not scum of the earth, or when the criminal defendant is also equally scum. Which is probably most of the time given crime in the US (most murders in the US are between family members. Of the rest, it is mostly criminals killing eachother), and is, again, usually an act of desperation on the part of the defense. Once you restrict those cases it usually IS in the best interests of justice when it works, and only rarely do injustices occur (see how it backfires most of the time).

Which leaves us with a question. How would you go about encoding a way to reduce instances of this defense that we all consider to be repugnant, without ALSO hitting the uses of this defense that serve the interests of justice? You might say the Adversarial System is shit, and I would agree with you. But it is the system we have, and barring a rehaul after a civil war, it is vanishingly unlikely to change.

So, to summarize, there are three problems that need to be addressed before the problem of lawyers making these sorts of repugnant arguments can be addressed.

1) How do you restrict the arguments a defense attorney can make in such a way that they are not hamstrung into trials being unfair?

and more specifically

2) How do you restrict X-Panic defenses so that other defenses based on diminished capacity that have high degrees of probative value are not restricted? Keep in mind that any formal legal restriction is going to set a precedent for the restriction of other diminished capacity defenses. Are you just going to enumerate protected classes so that the defense does not apply for some arbitrary value of victim characteristics, and accept the consequences of the inevitable Due Process/Equal Protection challenges? What?

3) How do you restrict "they had it coming" defenses in such a way as to restrict ones we consider repugnant, without also restricting those that have actual probative value and apply in the interests of justice? Start enumerating particular protected occupations?

[Ralin]

Are you not familiar with hate speech laws and how they don't make a country descend into total censorship when applied despite restricting free speech for the protection of vulnerable populations?

Are you not familiar with the United States of America and how large segments of the country would leap at the chance to use the law to punish people who say bad things about their religion or political party if they could? I think that's a hell of a lot more likely that that would happen than that the general population suddenly giving a fuck about trans people. Or were you under the impression that there's a way you can force those laws on people who've repeatedly rejected most other protections for the transgendered?

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

To: Alyrium

The fact that there are, apparently (according to your post at least), restrictions in what arguments can be made about rape cases shows that we can limit arguments due to social consequences. I mean, you list it as a "legal irrelevancy", which it is, but I highly doubt that's the reason that stuff isn't allowed or else a lot more would be. Rather, it's because of the effects it has, on the victim, on the crime being reported at all, on the perception of what the crime entails publicly, and all that.

Similar restrictions could be applied to things mentioned here. It's a legal irrelevancy who the victim of a murder is and what their "societal worth" is. There's also obvious knock-off effects where that argument supports a stratification of society where people are judged more expendable and more ok to murder than others depending on certain criteria. Bigotry panic defenses I would be perfectly ok banning (as in anyone who is a protected class for hate crimes or such cannot have their status used for a panic defense. this isn't perfect but it's a start), or if you don't want to ban it, just tie it in that that defense makes the accused liable for punishment via hate crimes because it's gone from an assault or murder to an assault or murder because of bigotry.

Overall, though, I'm not a legal expert so asking me to fix the system myself seems kinda silly? I'm just pointing out how this case is disgusting, shows deep flaws in how our system is set up that need to be fixed, and that people who shrug and say "he did the right thing" are supporting a system that kills people.

[Gaidin]

I think the point, in summary, is that we have judges to knock down the arguments that don't have probative value so that lawyers can keep making similar arguments that do have probative value. While legislators and/or precedent actually can knock out arguments that actually has no probative value whatsoever whenever its used.

[Thanas]

Overall, though, I'm not a legal expert so asking me to fix the system myself seems kinda silly? I'm just pointing out how this case is disgusting, shows deep flaws in how our system is set up that need to be fixed, and that people who shrug and say "he did the right thing" are supporting a system that kills people.

Come the fuck on. Neither Spekio nor myself are doing that. What we are saying, with us having law degrees and all, is that given the way the US system is set up, the attorney had to do everything to defend the scumbag. Blame the system. Don't go around and accuse a lawyer - who is just doing his job - of supporting hate crimes. I mean, unless you can show the guy in question is regularly seeking out bigots to defend or has donated to homphobic groups.

This entire thread is basically you not getting how the law works in the US. You got Alyrium, who probably has at least as much if not more reasons to hate bigots than you explaining it to you over and over again and you not getting any of it.

[Simon_Jester]

Why? That is not how you treat a issue like this. The society creates it's criminals. It is with educative measures that one tackles this issue.

Sentencing guidelines are within the purvey of a law.

For example, suppose a white man murders a black man. Suppose evidence comes to life that this white man has hated blacks all his life, and thinks they are devilish mud-beings created by Satan.

Do we give this man less time in prison, because he committed his murder in a fit of irrational revulsion, which is a pretty close parallel to the "gay panic" defense? Or do we give this man more time in prison, because it is in society's interest to punish hate crimes harshly?

Likewise, is trans panic a mitigating defense, or an aggravating circumstance? It is not unreasonable for such questions to be a matter of law, in my opinion.

Actually, it is not about the motives. That is a talking point, but it is not the reason we want these laws as a rule. It is because a hate crime creates a lot of extra victims due to the fear and intimidation they create.

More on that momentarily.

Well, my point is that I consider the "gay panic" and "trans panic" arguments to indicate that the crime was lower on the "premeditation" axis you use, but higher on the "depravity" axis, because it indicates that the act was committed out of especially evil motives. Perhaps less evil than murder-for-hire, but considerably more evil than, say, avenging an injured loved one, which is on the low end of the "depravity" scale.

This is in my opinion totally separate from the idea of calling it a "hate crime" because it acts to terrorize a vulnerable minority. Killing a redhead because you hate redheads would be equally depraved, even if no one would seriously call it a hate crime because there is no external context of otherization and oppression hurting redheads.

So basically, a hate crime gets a double whammy of extra punishment in my book. One whammy is because it is (all else being equal) more depraved- an act that is more at odds with the values of civilized society. The second whammy is because it is an act of terrorism, in the literal sense of the term. But even without the intent to commit terrorism against the minority, it is still more depraved.

In either case, a person is dead. However the crimes are not the same. To demonstrate, imagine you have a euclidian space with three axes.

X: Culpability, or "how intentional was this act?" going from "complete accident" at 0 to "with full premeditation" at 10...

Y: Depravity, or "how fucked up and wrong is this act?" going from "barely wrong" at 0 to "Holocaust" at 10. This is pretty self-explanatory. Hate crimes are generally considered more depraved than other equivalent crimes, because they have secondary victims...

Z: Responsibility, or "how liable is someone for the harm done?" with "not actually responsible" at 0, and "very responsible" at 10...

The difference between Crime 1 and Crime 2 is in the responsibility.

The depravity is equal because the murder itself is identical (beating to death, in this case) and the victim is identical (transgender sex worker).

Doing something for more evil reasons can make it more depraved, even if the physical act is unchanged. For instance, committing cannibalism for pleasure is highly depraved; committing cannibalism for survival under famine conditions is only slightly depraved, and perhaps not depraved at all.

In your example, the depravity is only identical because in both cases, the victim was targeted for being a transsexual. If in one case the murderer had acted because the victim was transsexual, and in the other case the murderer had acted for reasons that had nothing to do with the victim's sexuality, minority status, or group identity... then there would be a difference.

2) How do you restrict X-Panic defenses so that other defenses based on diminished capacity that have high degrees of probative value are not restricted? Keep in mind that any formal legal restriction is going to set a precedent for the restriction of other diminished capacity defenses. Are you just going to enumerate protected classes so that the defense does not apply for some arbitrary value of victim characteristics, and accept the consequences of the inevitable Due Process/Equal Protection challenges? What?

Couldn't you simply say that the victim's identity as a black/white/green/male/female/straight/gay/trans/cis/whatever person is not an acceptable reason to kill them? That legally a person's capacity to take responsibility for their actions cannot be decreased by "but he was an X," even though it can be decreased by other forms of distress?

[Mr. Coffee]

Sentencing guidelines are within the purvey of a law.

For example, suppose a white man murders a black man. Suppose evidence comes to life that this white man has hated blacks all his life, and thinks they are devilish mud-beings created by Satan.

Do we give this man less time in prison, because he committed his murder in a fit of irrational revulsion, which is a pretty close parallel to the "gay panic" defense? Or do we give this man more time in prison, because it is in society's interest to punish hate crimes harshly?

Depends on the circumstances of the murder, I'd imagine. Is it a case of a racist white man going out his way to find a black man to kill or did he walk in on the black guy sleeping with his wife? Either way the racism would play a factor, but for mitigation purposes it's two entirely different cases. Turns out context is important, who knew.

Still doesn't have anything to do with a defense lawyer under the US legal system having a duty to defend their clients to the best of their ability (even if that includes making retarded and/or repugnant arguments to do so).

[Alyrium Denryle]

The fact that there are, apparently (according to your post at least), restrictions in what arguments can be made about rape cases shows that we can limit arguments due to social consequences. I mean, you list it as a "legal irrelevancy", which it is, but I highly doubt that's the reason that stuff isn't allowed or else a lot more would be. Rather, it's because of the effects it has, on the victim, on the crime being reported at all, on the perception of what the crime entails publicly, and all that.

It is a legal irrelevancy that does nothing but harm the victim and discourage reporting. It is a particular case where there is no redeeming value to the argument, and no similar argument in other instances exists that does have probative value, that is jeapardized by the restriction. Another legal irrelevancy is actually Prior Bad Acts. In a murder case (for instance) a prosecutor cannot mention that this dude has been charged or convicted of murder before, lest the jury convict on the past murder. The only exceptions I can remember are in cases where the MO shows a pattern (like a serial killer. We have 14 counts of murder, all with the same pattern of torture and victim profile. We have him dead to rights on this murder, but we can conclude he committed all of them), or when the defense opens the door (by saying that the defendant is a kind decent law abiding citizen. The prosecution can then pull out the O'Rlly owl). In rape cases, the reason sexual history is irrelevant is because someone who has had sex with 15 other people does not give consent to just anyone. The prior sexual history has no bearing on consent. Thus, in that veeeerrrry particular instance, the restriction can be narrowly construed to only affect victim sexual history in rape cases.

Similar restrictions could be applied to things mentioned here. It's a legal irrelevancy who the victim of a murder is and what their "societal worth" is.

Except it really isn't. It bears on Depravity. It is More Evil to kill a police officer who was acting in his/her duty as an officer than a standard citizen because the police officer is a civil servant and killing them represents not just an attack on them personally, but an attack on society itself. Similar reasoning to hate crime statutes, actually.

You can think of Depravity as itself being two axes collapsed into 1.

How Horrible Was The Act Itself? A clean kill via administration of WAY too much morphine vs torturing someone to death. Violation of some special relationship like a doctor killing patients or parents killing their children vs killing a stranger for cutting you off in traffic.

Does the Crime Have Secondary Knockdown Effects? Killing someone who no one will miss because they ran a slaver syndicate in Houston (yes, that is a thing) and killing them is (vigilantism being bad aside) sort of a public service vs killing a single mother who has dependents who are also victimized vs killing a judge in retaliation for legal rulings in your brother's trial and thus attacking the judiciary itself.

It is not as if such arguments are usually made on the basis of socio-economic status or "societal value" in that sense. Rather, they are based on the extent of the crime in terms of secondary victims, particular relationships that are "sacred", particular societal functions that are considered sacrosanct and lastly... whether the person deserved to die for other shit they did (though this is... unofficial. Most of the others are actually coded into law).

Bigotry panic defenses I would be perfectly ok banning (as in anyone who is a protected class for hate crimes or such cannot have their status used for a panic defense. this isn't perfect but it's a start)

The legal problem with this is that the defense is never about the status of the victim. They never say the panic was justified, in much the same way that no defense attorney is going to make the claim that killing the person you find in bed with your spouse is actually justified. The defense is a diminished capacity defense. The person is less responsible because they were emotionally impaired at the time. Still guilty, but less responsible than someone who stalked and killed their victim. The status of the victim is not actually legally relevant, only the mental state of the accused at the time.

This becomes a problem when someone charged who has that defense restricted appeals their conviction on Due Process and Equal Protection grounds, because the exact same defense can be used to protect the person who kills their husband's lover, and this defense is being restricted on the basis of something that is not actually legally relevant. So you either end up back where you started, or you end up having to scrap Diminished Capacity defenses, which would result in massive system wide miscarriages of justice.

just tie it in that that defense makes the accused liable for punishment via hate crimes because it's gone from an assault or murder to an assault or murder because of bigotry.

That is actually not unreasonable. In general, the state is going to have you dead to rights on a hate crimes charge in an X-Panic defense anyway. You (we really need more pronouns) would basically be stipulating "Yes, but I dont normally go around hunting X-people, and was not in complete control of my actions due to freak-out". So, say the punishment for an assault would normally be 5 years in prison, Hate Crime bump it to 10. Mitigation shaves off like... 2 years, so you spend 8 years in prison.

Overall, though, I'm not a legal expert so asking me to fix the system myself seems kinda silly?

I am in socratic teacher mode. The world is fucked up in general. So whenever you point out that something is fucked up, you do need to consider how fucked up the alternatives are, and how fucked up the secondary consequences would be.

Like... Mosquitoes spreading diseases are fucked up. But if I eradicate mosquitoes, I cause the collapse of aquatic food webs, and that will probably be a great deal worse.