Capital Punishment Debate on the Horizon?
Over the weekend I found myself wondering who would be the first to start baying for Luka Magnotta’s blood. Now I have my answer: Toronto councillor Giorgio Mammoliti and National Post columnist Joe O’Connor. Both of these men are eminent legal sages that we should take very seriously. Mammoliti is an amateur lesbian film-maker, and O’Connor used to be what he calls “a bully, although never the bully-in-chief.” More worrying to me is that other people are no doubt thinking the same thing, and maybe even that the government thinks this tragedy may be a useful opportunity.
First of all, for their own sakes, these clowns need to shut up. If we start saying that Magnotta will be killed, then Germany won’t extradite him back here. Like all civilized countries, they have laws banning extradition to face the death penalty. My country used to care deeply about its own laws on this subject, back when it was civilized. So either way, we wouldn’t get to kill Magnotta.
The more interesting question, though, is why we ought to kill him in the first place. It’s interesting how self-proclaimed conservatives (and Mammoliti is one now, even though he used to be an NDP politician) forget their whole “big government is bad” mantra as soon as they decide they want something they can’t pay for in their much-beloved market using their own private funds. Government should only be large enough to snoop on people’s cell phones, kill prisoners, bomb foreigners, and outlaw protests. Anything larger than that would be a moral travesty!
Judging from the situation to our south, capital punishment doesn’t really have any significant effect on murder rates. Judging from our situation here, we’re far safer than Americans are, despite the fact that in America you can not only execute prisoners, but stock your very own armoury and even, in some states, shoot to kill whenever you feel threatened. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t think I’d feel a great deal safer in such circumstances. And knowing that my murderer may be executed later isn’t going to of much comfort to me, either. Since, you know, I’ll be dead.
Killing a murderer won’t bring his or her victims back and it won’t make the rest of us any safer.
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P. D. Carswell
This response may sway some people now, while emotions are running high and revenge is in the air. But this is why we have a rational court system to deal with such outrages.
I think people will calm down when the shock of this terrible crime has diminished.
(I hope!)
Sixth Estate
Me too.
I wandered back to the Post and see that the general theme in the comments section has switched from the need to exterminate pure evil to the need to reduce costs by killing murderers rather than putting them in prison for life.
LDP
It really feels that the conservatives have managed to unlock the seething hatred and fear in Canadians that I thought didn’t exist. I used to look at how irrational Americans appeared to be and chuckle at how enlightened I thought Canadians were. Turns out they were just too busy drinking beer to be bothered until Harper came along to lead and bring that out of them.
Sixth Estate
Well, yes and no. Have you seen the polls? They’re not exactly winnig over large chunks of the electorate at the moment. Not that it matters, of course. But it’s worth bearing in mind that only around one-quarter of Canadians have ever been motivated enoguh to vote for Harper, and that that doesn’t appear to be changing in response to recent developments.
Beijing York
We’re more than happy to dismember and kill Afghans and Libyans but hey, that’s just collateral damage in an ‘honourable’ war against some kind of loosely defined enemy.
Harper is definitely trying to ramp up the reactionary inclination for revenge that dwells in many souls. That’s how he has managed to transform our criminal system with his omnibus crime bills. It wouldn’t take that much more for his government to notch it up and open a debate on re-introducing capital punishment.
Sad thing is that the Robert Pickton trial didn’t garner this kind of response because the victims were predominantly East-side Vancouver sex workers, many with addictions and/or Aboriginal.
Sixth Estate
Not to worry! Pickton is on O’Connor’s hit list too, along with a few others.
Purple Library Guy
I quite like revenge myself. I’m just not willing to give that part of me control over what policy I favour.
It can be kind of a vicious cycle. I’m far from the first to point this out although usually it’s more specifically about government, but the right goes around making things worse, making people’s lives harder and scarier, and then uses people’s fear and anger about that to get them to favour right wing approaches–which will in turn make their lives harder and scarier.
Alison S
Murder is murder. It doesn’t matter who does it, an individual or a government. I, for one, do not want our problem prisoners dispatched in such a barbaric way. Life in prison, especially Harper’s version, is a pretty miserable existence and it will likely be a very frightening experience for a bi-sexual porn worker. I can’t imagine the other inmates will be gentle. As for the costs, the US example should show us that the monetary costs are huge due multiple appeals which keep the court system occupied and keep prisoners on death row for years. The human costs of those who have to carry out the execution are also high. And then there is the major problem of wrongful conviction. That alone, should stop us from regressing to medieval times.
jrkrideau
And another good argument against the death penalty http://www.aidwyc.org/all_cases.html