The case I have chosen for this assignment actually happened fairly recently. This hate crime case is United States v. Hougen. The proper way to start this paper off is with a little introduction to this case before we take a deeper look into it. Firstly, let's begin by saying this is a federal hate crime based on race/ethnicity. Both the hate crime and the case happened in California. The specific crime that was committed on a black man, according to a witness, was that Hougen slashed and stabbed at the victim’s head and chest approximately 10-20 times (California Man sentenced, 2021). According to evidence presented at trial, Hougen confronted a 29-year-old black man who was crossing the street in Santa Cruz (California Man sentenced, 2021).…show more content… The victim is still alive, despite being attacked multiple times with a knife. Now let's discuss what Hougen had to say about why he committed the crime. During Hougens trial, his explanation of why he committed the crime was what you would expect from someone, who doesn't believe they did anything wrong. He claims that he acted in self-defense and not on account of the victim's race, and that law enforcement did not properly investigate the incident (Gould, Ikuta, Korman, & Gould, n.d.). That's the closest to an explanation I can find, and all he’s saying is that his actions were made out of self-defense. Meaning that the “Black Man” attacked him first, and he just defended himself. His explanation is basically what we talked about in class with “blame the victim.” With all of that done, let's wrap this up by discussing his trial and sentencing. Like I wrote about when talking about his explanation of his actions, he did have a trial. He also wanted another trial because he believed that he was entitled to a new trial because the district court held his trial in violation of the public trial right(Gould, Ikuta, Korman, & Gould,
