CKNW Editorial
for November 13, 2000

The thought of capital punishment returning to the political scene sends chills down my spine. If the Alliance forms a government, perhaps there will be a referendum and if there is I will plead against it.

I’m old enough to well remember when men hanged. One of them, a man named Ducharme, died because a woman choked on his enormous penis. I raise this distasteful case because that’s what it was back in the early fifties – a distasteful case where the evidence of force by Ducharme was in doubt but revulsion at the sex act – as common privately then as it is today I’m sure – sent the man to the gallows.

I oppose the death penalty on several grounds but first let me say that if we could draft a law where only grinning, cruel, evil people like Clifford Olson would be killed by the state I might reluctantly agree.

I don’t believe that the state should be in the killing business unless we believe in two things – we will kill if the cost of not killing is too great and as a society we believe in a vengeful justice system. For I quickly agree that if those are the main motives for consideration I must concede that it’s cheaper to kill than incarcerate and that a hanging certainly satisfies the community lust for vengeance. But why stop with murder? Aren’t there other crimes where society feels a need for vengeance? Sex offenders, for example. Those who prey upon the sick and the elderly and ruin lives. Drug pedlars. There are, I’m sure other forms of crime that revolt us and make us feel vengeful. Why not execute them as well?

But my principal arguments against the death penalty are three in number.

First, there is no evidence whatever that the death penalty deters most murders. Perhaps it might have deterred Colin Thatcher but because of my third reason I doubt it.

Second, there is the very real chance of injustice. I accept that DNA evidence reduces that risk but it certainly doesn’t eliminate it. One must understand the mood of a community when, for example, a sex murder of a child occurs. The Mindy Tran case is a good example. Community outrage places enormous pressure on a police force which, after all, is still operating with the same limited resources it had the day before the murder. There is a huge incentive to find the killer which means that when a suspect is found all effort now goes towards proving his guilt and none towards eliminating him as a suspect. This is not, I repeat not an indictment of the police but simply a recitation of what happens. Take the recent tragic case in Surrey, Heather Thomas, where what was little less than a lynch mob of citizens gathered at the courthouse for the preliminary hearing of the accused. This is the sort of pressure that policemen who, after all live, work and play in the community undergo.

We in Canada surely need no reminding of the shortcomings of the justice system. Marshall, Milgaard and Morin are but three names that should always remind us that our justice system is quite capable of making tragic mistakes in what would be capital offences and that there are from time to time rotten apples in the police forces who will bend the evidence to suit.

Then there is the question of who gets executed. It’s not the society killer, you can be sure of that. The evidence is strong no matter where you go that the more disadvantaged the accused, the more likely he is to be executed. It is, alas, true that much violence is associated with poverty but doesn’t that tell us in the more affluent part of society something? The plain fact is that the vast majority of accused persons in murder cases will be defended by legal aid lawyers. They will, of course, often do a very good job but any of us, given a fight for our lives would choose the very best lawyer to defend us, period. Justice and money often, sadly, go hand in hand. Perhaps I should have said that acquittals and money go hand in hand.

Finally, as an addendum, you will find that as happened when we had capital punishment, juries will be very reluctant to find guilt where there is the death penalty.

No … I don’t want a society that kills for whatever reason if there is any chance at all that the wrong person will be killed. But even more I want a society that collectively suppresses my natural desire for revenge if only because revenge is a lousy emotion to have when you’re seeking justice.