A rchive Date
[ 21-02-2001 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Murder: The unforgivable sin
By HARTLEY STEWARD -- Toronto Sun
February 20, 2001
Try as I might, I cannot bring myself to abandon the belief the death penalty is right.
I have grown more forgiving of a whole range of sins as I've aged, but somehow the only thing that seems to make sense in the light of murder, is a death in return.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled last week that two Canadians - Sebastian Burns and Ahmad Rafay, accused of killing Rafay's parents and sister - cannot be extradited to face charges in the United States, unless American authorities agree not to seek the death penalty.
It was easily the most arrogant ruling in a long history of arrogant rulings by our courts at all levels.
And certainly it was a misrepresentation of Canadian views on the matter of capital punishment.
There are no degrees involved here. Any arguments about the price one should pay for killing - intentionally, for gain, or some other reason - seem to me to be meaningless.
The very debate acknowledges that the killer is to remain alive. The victim is dead.
Our justice system purports to base punishment on the nature of crime. Justice in the courts for theft over $200 may be 30 days in jail. Armed robbery, to even the accounts, 10 years.
For a home invasion with violence, say 15 years are extracted by the courts in the name of justice.
The equation breaks down completely when you offer life in prison with possible parole after 25 years to someone who has casually blown away a shopkeeper for $50 in the cash register.
Nowhere is injustice more evident than when a life is not forfeit for a life. There is no debate.
Basic principle
The debate is over guilt or innocence. Justice, in the sense our courts claim to offer it, can only be served by the death sentence. A basic principle of our justice system is being bastardized every time a murderer does not die for his crime.
On almost any grounds, I am in favour of the death penalty.
Retribution? Of course. Have you ever talked to a person who has had a loved one murdered? Almost always, in some fashion, they want the killer to pay. Only from his or her death, comes an evening of accounts. Death alone will even the score.
The media and the shrinks have taught us to call it closure, but it is pure and simple retribution. Out of the Old Testament.
Vengeance? There are few more natural instincts than our desire to wreak revenge on those who have done us harm.
Toddlers will strike back at those who strike them. Mostly in the exact same way. Punch me, I'll punch back. Throw a rock at me. I'll throw a rock at you. Take a knife to me ...
Deterrence? You can tell me all you want that a killer will kill whether or not the death penalty exists, but it sounds like denial to me. Wishful thinking. How would you know?
Did you ask a sample of killers scientifically large enough to make a determination? They wouldn't tell you even if they knew. Or would you ask a scientific sample of people who haven't killed. How would they know?
Protection? There is no logic or symmetry to an argument that says we put away B&E artists, at least in part to protect our property, yet, at some point, we let free someone who has killed one of our neighbours.
Murder is the absolute threat to society. We protect ourselves absolutely when the murderer pays the absolute price.
Opposition to the death penalty has become one of the favourite causes of liberal intellectuals. They like to, in the death penalty debate, pose on the side of reason and compassion and characterize the rest of us, as bloodthirsty barbarians unable to intellectually grasp their lofty arguments.
But the fact is, they are seduced by the liberal elements of the debate when they try to apply it to the realities in the world of killers and victims.
Their argument is prattle and they themselves look silly.
Compassion, anyone with a sense of justice can see, should be reserved for the victim and the families of the victim.
It does not belong to the killers among us.
If I were to be persuaded to oppose the death penalty by any argument, which I am not, it would be the fallibility of our legal system. There have been too many Morins, Marshalls and Milgaards for anyone's liking. Still, the solution is not to abandon our notion of pure justice because the system is imperfect.
The solution is to make more perfect the system.
Steward appears Tuesdays and Sundays. E-mail: hartleysteward@canoemail.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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