He's paying the ultimate price for what he feels is right. He's even more stubborn than the parole board in conviction and principle.
Robert Latimer
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Tracy, you are so right. A mercy killing is in no way the same as a random act of violence, or even an accidental murder such as manslaughter. It's a unique situation and there really should be specialized legislation to deal with it.
As for what that legislation should be, I would hate to be the one to draw the lines in the sand. There would be absolutely no way to please all the people on that. The possibilities for the 'slippery slope' scenarios to arise would surely cause a world of trouble in trying to figure out what does and doesn't constitute an act of mercy vs an act of murder.
When situations like Latimer's arise though, we should be compelled to grapple our way to a solution that works - so travesties of justice like this can become an archaic legal tradition that get relegated to the past where they belong.
The loss of hope for a healthy and happy future for their daughter was the first leg of this family's tragic journey. What has transpired since then finds us as a society culpable in compounding this family's pain.
As for what that legislation should be, I would hate to be the one to draw the lines in the sand. There would be absolutely no way to please all the people on that. The possibilities for the 'slippery slope' scenarios to arise would surely cause a world of trouble in trying to figure out what does and doesn't constitute an act of mercy vs an act of murder.
When situations like Latimer's arise though, we should be compelled to grapple our way to a solution that works - so travesties of justice like this can become an archaic legal tradition that get relegated to the past where they belong.
The loss of hope for a healthy and happy future for their daughter was the first leg of this family's tragic journey. What has transpired since then finds us as a society culpable in compounding this family's pain.
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That is an unfair use of the word selfish. I don't think he is being asked if he regrets feeling like he had to kill his child. I am sure he regrets having to do it, but he clearly thinks that doing it was right. How horrible to ask him to say that killing his child was unnecessary. If he felt that killing her was unnecessary why did he do it? Would you admit guilt for something you did not do, would you claim that just actions were unjust because someone demands it? What a horrible thing to ask of this man.
That is the very central issue here. Society won't decide who should live or die in these situations and is not willing to allow such a decision to be made by individuals. Who can make such decisions? Robert Latimer made such a decision and has stood by that decision. Society demanded Latimer to go to prison in the first place and the parole board is demanding one final humiliation of Latimer.
Mikey,
I have to disagree. This issue is most certainly not about "serving self-interest". If it were than there would be no problem with an individual commiting suicide. Society decides that it is in society's best interest (not individual self interest) that individuals not be allowed to make such decision for themselves. We are limiting individual's actions for the supposed benefit of society. Although these decisions may lead to an individual suffering unnecessarily it is preferrable to the potential damage to society (the slippery slope argument). The thing is that society has not really limited freedom of action, it just dictates that those that do this must be punished to discourage the act. A person who kills themself is dead and therefore cannot really be punished further, but someone who assists one to die can be punished and someone that kills in the way Latimer did is fully aware of the rules of society and the punishment for it.
I have to disagree. This issue is most certainly not about "serving self-interest". If it were than there would be no problem with an individual commiting suicide. Society decides that it is in society's best interest (not individual self interest) that individuals not be allowed to make such decision for themselves. We are limiting individual's actions for the supposed benefit of society. Although these decisions may lead to an individual suffering unnecessarily it is preferrable to the potential damage to society (the slippery slope argument). The thing is that society has not really limited freedom of action, it just dictates that those that do this must be punished to discourage the act. A person who kills themself is dead and therefore cannot really be punished further, but someone who assists one to die can be punished and someone that kills in the way Latimer did is fully aware of the rules of society and the punishment for it.
It isn't often you can talk about a convicted murderer on a messageboard and not get at least some people calling for his head. Here the support for keeping in prison, if support is the right description, is based more on legal principle than the cause for concern that he might actually be a danger, or for retribution for his actions.
Didn't Svend Robinson help orchestrate an assisted suicide? I don't remember his actions being legal but I also don't remember being charged with anything, even though he openly admitted his conduct at every step.
Didn't Svend Robinson help orchestrate an assisted suicide? I don't remember his actions being legal but I also don't remember being charged with anything, even though he openly admitted his conduct at every step.
He promoted her suicide like Don King a boxing match, then gave the post mortem interviews.
They couldn't prove that he actually, physically assisted in her suicide. They couldn't prove that he supplied her with anything for her to procure that suicide. Yes, he promoted her wish from one end of the country to the other both before and after, but, he managed to keep himself at arms length from the actual deed.
He certainly assisted. They could have dug something up to charge him but likely didn't have the will to do it.
That woman had the mental capacity to express her wishes for suicide. Tracy Latimer didn't. There is a HUGE difference in someone making that decision for themselves and someone making it for a person who is incapable of even contemplating such decisions.
It's a difficult thing, but it isn't any different of what we demand of any convicted criminal. No matter what his crime was or how sorry we all feel for him, he is a criminal and subject to the same rules unless some legislation changes things and mercy killings become recognized as a special class of killing. Of course he's in a horrible position. I feel for him, but he did have a role in getting to where he is today. He could do more to get himself out of it. People expecting the parole board to bend to him are being unrealistic. It won't do it any sooner than he'll bend to them.
Would I claim that just actions were unjust because someone demanded I do it? If it was the only thing that would help end my family's suffering? Probably. It may well be humiliation, but my pride isn't worth their suffering. I love them more than that.
I realize that (and it's a good thing she was healthy enough to even speak), but we do seem to bend our rules when we have to or want to. Svend Robinson conspired to assist her in an illegal act that resulted in her death, and he openly promoted and flaunted it. He didn't serve one day in jail. Of course he wasn't charged with anything. Latimer spent 7 years in prison and won't be let go until he demonstrates remorse for humanely euthanizing someone he loves and knows is in permanent chronic pain, and he won't be let go until he is humiliated in front of the justice system and his family. Yes, the two cases are different but the standards these people are held to are miles apart from that.
I guess I just don't see those two cases as being similar enough to warrant any comparison. Not charging someone with a crime because there was no way to get a conviction is just so different from a parole board applying the same rules they always apply to a convicted murderer. Has the parole board ever released a convicted murderer who won't express any regret or even simply promise not to do it again? I honestly don't know.
Has any innocent person in Canada been imprisoned illegally or perhaps sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit?
Sure, there's been lots of that going on for years. Canadians (sheep one and all) have allowed government to railroad people out of their rights and manipulate taxpayer funds to achieve the 'end' that satisfies some pre-ordained judgment. It's the Crown's responsibility to prove a person guilty, but in this country the Crown has a history of both failing to prove it's case to the degree of certainty required and has refused to proscecute a case when that case may uncover ineptitude and malfeseance in the ranks of the police and judiciary. Government in Canada is accepted by the sheeple as corrupt to begin with so the crap that gets built up around politicians to protect them from being proscecuted like any 'regular' citizen is flim-flam of the oldest vintage.
We have no "justice" in this country and the price that Latimer is paying is martyrdom by proxy because the real issues of euthanasia and death with dignity are mulled over by the substitute for common sense and considered judgment that we're told underpins our system of law and justice.
Well I suppose this is just another case of Canadian society getting what they deserve and watching as the circus they've allowed to take away their rights and freedoms continues its lurching stumble....
Sure, there's been lots of that going on for years. Canadians (sheep one and all) have allowed government to railroad people out of their rights and manipulate taxpayer funds to achieve the 'end' that satisfies some pre-ordained judgment. It's the Crown's responsibility to prove a person guilty, but in this country the Crown has a history of both failing to prove it's case to the degree of certainty required and has refused to proscecute a case when that case may uncover ineptitude and malfeseance in the ranks of the police and judiciary. Government in Canada is accepted by the sheeple as corrupt to begin with so the crap that gets built up around politicians to protect them from being proscecuted like any 'regular' citizen is flim-flam of the oldest vintage.
We have no "justice" in this country and the price that Latimer is paying is martyrdom by proxy because the real issues of euthanasia and death with dignity are mulled over by the substitute for common sense and considered judgment that we're told underpins our system of law and justice.
Well I suppose this is just another case of Canadian society getting what they deserve and watching as the circus they've allowed to take away their rights and freedoms continues its lurching stumble....
That's a good point tracy, especially since Latimer's not the only mercy killer to make it into the legal systems in North America. There are people in the legal system who have felt justified in killing, because they felt that they were doing a favor to the people they killed. They've killed patients or grandparents or parents or handicapped children.... it's not like this is a new phenomena to the legal system. And the killings weren't always warranted. They weren't always what society would deem necessary. Yet in these people's minds, they were right, and they were just, and there is no reason to feel remorse for them. Latimer fits the bill. I don't see why a parole board should treat one mercy killer differently from the rest of them based solely on who they've killed so far. The point of parole is to consider if they feel remorse and are risks for reoffending. A man who expresses no remorse for a mercy killing IS a risk for reoffending as far as a parole board is concerned.
They couldn't get a conviction because the political will wasn't there to charge him. He was the press secretary for her suicide. Pre and post event. He should be sitting in front of a parole board apologizing for his efforts to spare her from pain and suffering.
I just posted this in another forum, which some of you also visit, but it seems relevant to this discussion so I'll post it here as well. I've been doing some thinking and research about the various categories of killing people as Canadian law defines them, and how they might apply.
Homicide is the general term for any killing of another person. Murder is the killing of a person with intent and without justification. Killing someone in self-defense is thus a homicide, but not a murder, and in fact isn't even an offense. First degree murder is one that's planned and deliberate, or contracted, or committed during the course of some other criminal activity like a robbery, or committed against a peace officer. Second degree murder is any murder that isn't first degree murder, which I take to mean deliberate but not planned, and then manslaughter is defined as a homicide that isn't first or second degree murder.
By those categories, homicide in a moment of extreme anger, the old "crime of passion" thing, would be second degree murder, accidentally causing a death would be manslaughter. But there are other things people can be charged with in a homicide case, like "criminal negligence causing death," and I don't know where those fit into the homicide categories, or even if they do.
What really caught my attention was the phrase "without justification" in the definition of murder. That seems to me the core of the euthanasia issue: what constitutes justification, and who gets to decide? The law has always recognized certain justifications, like self defense and combat situations, and a few countries have gone some way toward trying to answer it more broadly. The Netherlands has some legislation about euthanasia, for instance. I don't know much about it (not yet anyway), but it seems to involve careful deliberations among doctors, legal authorities, next of kin, and the potential target of the euthanasia, assuming he or she is lucid enough to take part.
It's obvious from the discussion in here that some people think Tracy Latimer's condition justified what her father did, and some people don't. Perfectly understandable, it's not an easy question, and it's deeply complicated by religious values like the notion of playing God and the sanctity of any human life regardless of its quality. We put down animals for lesser reasons than what was wrong with Tracy Latimer though, and call it mercy. Surely human beings deserve at least the same respect and a chance at a dignified exit from this life that we give to our pets and livestock when things are hopeless.
But what really gripes me right now is that a psycho like Robert Pickton and a courageous, compassionate man like Robert Latimer, however misguided one might think he was, can be found guilty of the same offense, second degree murder.
Homicide is the general term for any killing of another person. Murder is the killing of a person with intent and without justification. Killing someone in self-defense is thus a homicide, but not a murder, and in fact isn't even an offense. First degree murder is one that's planned and deliberate, or contracted, or committed during the course of some other criminal activity like a robbery, or committed against a peace officer. Second degree murder is any murder that isn't first degree murder, which I take to mean deliberate but not planned, and then manslaughter is defined as a homicide that isn't first or second degree murder.
By those categories, homicide in a moment of extreme anger, the old "crime of passion" thing, would be second degree murder, accidentally causing a death would be manslaughter. But there are other things people can be charged with in a homicide case, like "criminal negligence causing death," and I don't know where those fit into the homicide categories, or even if they do.
What really caught my attention was the phrase "without justification" in the definition of murder. That seems to me the core of the euthanasia issue: what constitutes justification, and who gets to decide? The law has always recognized certain justifications, like self defense and combat situations, and a few countries have gone some way toward trying to answer it more broadly. The Netherlands has some legislation about euthanasia, for instance. I don't know much about it (not yet anyway), but it seems to involve careful deliberations among doctors, legal authorities, next of kin, and the potential target of the euthanasia, assuming he or she is lucid enough to take part.
It's obvious from the discussion in here that some people think Tracy Latimer's condition justified what her father did, and some people don't. Perfectly understandable, it's not an easy question, and it's deeply complicated by religious values like the notion of playing God and the sanctity of any human life regardless of its quality. We put down animals for lesser reasons than what was wrong with Tracy Latimer though, and call it mercy. Surely human beings deserve at least the same respect and a chance at a dignified exit from this life that we give to our pets and livestock when things are hopeless.
But what really gripes me right now is that a psycho like Robert Pickton and a courageous, compassionate man like Robert Latimer, however misguided one might think he was, can be found guilty of the same offense, second degree murder.
It isn't aiding and abetting to speak in support of someone's wishes. He didn't give her a gun, he didn't give her a lethal overdose of a medication, he didn't put her in a garage, close the doors and start the car. If he did what Robert Latimer did, he would be in jail with him.
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I've said that many times about pets, but one nurse stopped me cold by pointing out the obvious: children aren't pets. Sure you can euthanize a suffering animal without penalty, but you can also euthanize a healthy animal and you won't go to jail for it. You can even kill an animal cruelly and you likely won't go to jail. Do any of that to a child and the results are rightly different.
Not to mention that it reinforces the fears of the handicapped community when people start comparing them to dogs that deserve to be put down. As kindly as someone might mean it when they say it.