I think you gotta look at the nature of the assault itself. How serious was it, what degree of violence was employed by the perps and what was the actual damage done to the victim? Those are the only considerations that should determine what charges are laid because no matter what kind of ass-hole racist pig the victim was, the assailants had no right to take the law into their own hands. Provocation IMHO is no defence at all because any of the assailants could have just walked away from the provocation - - there was no need to respond with violence because as I understand it, self-defence was not an issue.
However when the sentence is considered, I think provocation might be a mitigating factor. Personally in crimes of violence I don't much believe in provocation as a major mitigating factor, I think the state has a much bigger interest in punishing violent crime by setting examples of harsh punishment than it does in discouraging assholism or even racism. I think if the state wants to actively discourage racism (and recognizing the First Amendment factors in such a decision, I'm not even sure if the state should get into that business) I'd say that IF they are going to use the criminal law to discourage racism, they should think about introducing new criminal law to penalize racist comments that provoke violence - - that way the racist who is also a victim can be punished for his racism, discouraging others, while at the same time the power of the law to discourage ALL violence is not weakened so that no one is encouraged even marginally to commit violence on his own against racist provocateurs.
