In August, 1982, a Canadian citizen named Ronald Smith abducted and murdered two Aboriginal men in Montana. He wanted their car, see, and I guess the only way to get it was to march Thomas Running Rabbit and Harvey Mad Man into the woods and shoot both of them in the back of the head.
He was sentenced to death for his crimes. Some people view the death penalty as a mockery of justice. As far as I'm concerned, in this man's case the real mockery is that he's still alive today, and his case is making headlines here in Canada.
It has long been the policy of the Canadian government to request clemency on behalf of Canadian citizens on death row in foreign countries. This policy has recently been firmly reversed. In the case of Smith, and other Canadians sentenced to death after due process in democratic countries, our government will no longer intervene.
I will repeat that. Canadians sentenced to death after due process, in democratic countries, can no longer expect our government to go to bat for them.
Before I consider capital punishment itself, I'd like to make a point. This is yet another example of Canadian over-reliance on government. No wonder so few people vote any more, when it's expected the government work miracles on an hourly basis. How many times have you heard, in the aftermath of any "tragedy" at all, some variant of "the government should..."? Gunplay in the streets of Toronto..."the government should outlaw guns". Somebody killed on the roads..."they should lower the speed limit". Some people aren't as fortunate as others..."in Canada, we are all equal". A Canadian citizen has murdered two people on foreign soil..."our government must demand the commutation of his death sentence and/or his extradition to Canada."
Guess what, folks? What a democratic country does with its convicted murderers--again, provided due process has been served--is no business of ours, no matter where said murderers were born.
When you deplane at Changi International Airport in Singapore, you are given a card to sign. The back of the card states, in bold red letters, "The penalty for drug smuggling is death." And they mean it: even if you're just passing through, if you're caught with drugs on you, you'll be hanged.
And so, if you've got the intelligence Nature gave a gnat, you don't smuggle drugs through Singapore. If you've got some drugs you just gotta smuggle someplace, you pick a different route. You may think drug smuggling's not too serious...just supplyin' a need, dude...but what you think is irrelevant. The Singaporean government thinks otherwise.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you commit a crime (a) in a foreign country and you (b) are convicted (c) after a fair trial...well, then you (d)eserve to be punished by whatever form that country's justice takes. If that's death, so be it. Shoulda thought of that before you committed the crime.
There has been something of an uproar in the editorial pages over the last few days. The general consensus seems to be that our government is trying to bring capital punishment back, "through the back door", as it were. These are accompanied by lamentations: oh, the poor murderer.
I recognize that capital punishment is a contentious issue. Those who are against it call it state-sanctioned murder. And it is, albeit considerably more humane than most of the murders committed by its victims. Ronald Smith, for example, can expect not a shot in the head but rather a painless, quick-acting injection.
The argument that capital punishment is abhorrent on humanitarian grounds--that it violates the first fundamental right of personhood, the right to life--cuts zero ice with me. As far as I am concerned, the thought of murdering a human being in cold blood is dehumanizing. To actually do it is to abdicate any claim on being human yourself. To deprive another of their right to life, and then insist on your own, is barbarity and hypocrisy writ large.
The irony in this particular case is that Ronald Smith would almost certainly be a free man today if he had only murdered a couple of aboriginals in Canada instead of Montana. In this country, we sentence people to "life" in prison..."with no chance of parole for 25 years". In practice, this usually means a maximum 25 year sentence. Parole hearings start after 15 years, regardless of the sentence. Even "dangerous offenders" (e.g. Paul Bernardo) have parole hearings every seven years, with no legislated guarantee some parole judge won't take pity on them.
I feel for Ronald Smith. Truly, I do. Nobody should have to be punished twice for the same crime. This guy's served a Canadian life sentence, and now he'll be executed?
It is said that capital punishment doesn't deter crime. Little wonder, since most criminals don't think a quarter-century ahead. If a death sentence meant a trial, one quick appeal, and then immediate execution in a chamber just off the courtroom...well, I bet you'd see people thinking twice. And as I have said before, of course capital punishment deters crime. I challenge you to name one person who's committed a crime after they're dead.
What I don't understand is the need to keep them alive indefinately, either by design (as in Canada) or by delay (as in the U.S.) In Canada, the average cost per diem for incarcerating a federal prisoner is $189, and that's in 2001 dollars. Doing a little quick math, we find a 25-year sentence, without even adjusting for inflation, costs an average of $1,724,625.00. Your tax dollars at work, people. Subsidizing the lives of murderers. How many of them are gloating behind bars, probably masturbating to endless reruns of their crimes?
We now have the technology to establish once and for all a person's guilt or innocence in matters of murder. The chances of another Guy Paul Morin or David Milgaard being wrongfully convicted grow smaller by the day. Provided correct forensic procedure is followed, there's no reason we should ever sentence an innocent person to death. This removes one crutch those against the death penalty lean on. I'd start with cases where the accused has admitted to commiting the crime--as Ronald Smith did. Or cases where the crime is videotaped, a la Bernardo. Tell me again why we're keeping that pond scum alive.
In the meantime, our government has enough on its plate with our own so-called justice system to even think about sticking its nose into another country's. And that's all I have to say about that.
4 comments:
I am against capital punishment, simply because I don't think anyone actually LEARNS anything from it--not potential perpetrators of the same crime, not society, and certainly not the convicted. It's simply an eye for an eye, and ultimately, that attitude does not work.
However, I think our government's decision to no longer intervene in cases like this is a good one.
I remember in the late 80s or something, when that American teenager was found spraying graffiti in Singapore and was sentenced with a caning. The press went crazy about how caning was such an extreme form of punishment, and how "they" (the Singaporean government) can't possibly do that to an American citizen! The kid was 16, in some cultures, he would have been seen as an adult already. Furthermore, this is the punishment for his crime in Singapore, where he committed it. I remember thinking, "you don't go into someone else's country and break their laws without paying for it."
And this Ronald Smith...well, I have no sympathy for him at all.
As for a painless injection, if they don't get the dose of the anaesthetic right, not only does the person feel the chemical of the second shot coursing through their body and shutting down their organs, they feel it for a lot longer. The brain is the last to die in this type of execution. I'd rather have a shot in the head.
I respect your views, and respectfully disagree with them. I guess first of all I'd ask you, what is Paul Bernardo learning, right now? As far as I can see, all that most convicted criminals get out of prison is more criminality. So I'd say that where there is some hope of rehabilitation, by all means take that route; but where you have someone who has progressed up the criminal scale to murder, I don't see any benefit to society in keeping him around. Nor to the murderer, to be honest.
I will reiterate: the reason the death penalty isn't a deterrent is because of cases like Smith's, where it takes a full quarter century (or more, who knows?) to arrive. How many appeals are strictly necessary--in any case? To my mind, the word "appeal" is shorthand for "that judge (or that jury) was stupid". By all means, one appeal should be every convicted person's right...but beyond that s/he's a waste of time and money. Lawyers wouldn't be happy with this line of reasoning, but there you are.
As for method of execution...
Let's use Mr. Paul Bernardo as an example, as he is exhibit A in most people's arguments for the death penalty...sure, there's a chance that they might get the dose wrong. I'd cheer if they did, myself: it'd mean he might experience, accidentally, some tiny scrap of the pain he inflicted deliberately.
I'm sorry, perhaps it's a defect of character, but I don't believe Bernardo and his ilk are human beings. I look with incredulity on those who do.
Locking them up until they "learn" something or their time is up doesn't work, nor does just executing them. There must be some middle ground.
I am against an extended parole process, also, and I don't think our views are all that dissimilar.
Personally, I would also like to respectfully point out (as many others have done) that Bernardo didn't start killing people until he hooked up with Karla Homolka. I think a lot could have been done with and for him if he had been arrested for one of his rape crimes. That SHE is a free woman is a real miscarriage of justice.
Isn't the dealth penalty supposed to be the ultimate deterrant? Meaning, the threat of the state killing you is supposed to stop you before you kill someone else. The problem is that the states in the U.S. who kill people also have the highest murder rates - it doesn't deter anything. It just perpetuates the killing in this case state-sanctioned killing.
And I disagree with you re: Bernardo. He is a human being. Flesh and blood just like you and me the difference being that he is a sociopath. Should we kill him for what he did? That's a tough question. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind right?
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