Justice Contrasts
There we have it, the verdict brought down in the trial of Vincent Li whose horrendous attack, murder and dismembering of an innocent 22-year-old passenger on a Greyhound bus electrified Canadians in the ferocity of its gruesome details. That Mr. Li committed the disturbing acts he stood accused of is without question.
The question was whether he was in control of his psychotic impulses. He has testified that he was not, that God commanded him to kill a stranger.
His monstrous acts in murdering, dismembering and cannibalising a young man previously unknown to him was seen by Justice John Scurfield who delivered his verdict of non-accountability as due to mental illness. Validating and upholding the testimony given by several psychiatrists who gave expert testimony that the man suffers from mental illness.
There is no prison in his future, rather treatment in a mental institution.
Uncharitably, Tim McLean's mother, mourning the horrible death of her son, feels that the murderer has been permitted to 'get away' with murder. There will be quite a few people who wholeheartedly agree with her. He has been enabled through the kindly auspices of medical corroboration to successfully claim that he is not responsible for the monstrous acts he committed. It was God's fault.
The judge's finding was most certainly based on the opinions of expert medical witnesses. And, he said, although the attack was "grotesque" and "barbaric", it was also "strongly suggestive of a mental disorder". That it most certainly was. "He did not appreciate the actions he committed were morally wrong. He believed he was acting in self-defence", helpfully explained the judge.
As for Mr. Li, he admitted his act of murder, pleading not guilty. For, as the court heard, God had instructed him to kill Mr. McLean. And who, in their right mind would deny God?
There is another trial ongoing at the present time, where the accused on trial for first-degree murder (Mr. Li was on trial for second-degree murder; but he murdered a civilian, Curtis Dagenais shot two RCMP officers to death, meriting the first-degree murder designation) testified that he shot the two officers because he "felt like I was going to die. It was a matter of self-preservation."
To the uninitiated in court proceedings, witness accounts and defence techniques that sounds awfully like the testimony given in self-defence by Mr. Li. Mr. Dagenais explained the RCMP officers rammed his vehicle, behaved violently, and fired the first shot in that deadly 2006 shootout. He merely responded, in dread fear for his life.
That deadly incident occurred near the accused mother's home in Spiritwood, Saskatchewan. He had initially gone to the RCMP detachment to ask for assistance in a dispute with his sister. Matters escalated from there. Mr. Dagenais is additionally charged with the attempted murder of another RCMP constable, one who came on the deadly scene and who has testified, giving her account of the situation as she experienced it.
It's disputable whether any medical experts are prepared to step forward to attest to their belief that Mr. Dagenais suffered a momentary psychosis based on his immediate experience that led him to believe his life was in present danger, causing him to react as he did. He killed two RCMP officers, and almost killed another, while they were actively discharging their duty as peace officers.
And then there is the intensely sad and unbelievable case of someone who really did suffer from mental illness, a young woman hardly removed from childhood who was imprisoned for the crime of throwing crab apples at a postal worker. Her heartsick and inconsolable mother is demanding justice. To expose and to hold to account those in the criminal justice system in Canada who so miserably failed her daughter.
"It's very difficult to be here this morning. As a family, we feel that Ashley died because no one in Canada really cared. No one cared - not the guards who watched her asphyxiate; not the managers who ordered the guards not to intervene in her case; not the nameless bureaucrats who knew that my daughter needed help, but did nothing but transfer her 17 times in 11 months. We are heartbroken", Coralee Smith said at a news conference in Ottawa.
She wants those who shirked their responsibility as justice officials, down to the guards who were warned not to resuscitate the 19-year-old Ashley Smith, if she attempted once again to commit suicide, and who stood watching as her daughter turned blue from lack of oxygen as she finally succeeded in taking her life.
From the time of her original incarceration, when she suffered from mild mental illness, to the last days of her life, as her mental disease progressed, and she became increasingly more difficult to control, resulting in additional prison time being allocated to her, no one stepped in to console, befriend, or assist this child.
"Can you imagine throwing apples at postal workers and stealing a CD landed her in that hole in a suicide smock on a tileless floor getting food through a slot?" the family lawyer asked at the news conference. "That's for throwing apples. And the people [who were] breaking the law that led to her death - a form of tortuous death - they're not identified at all."
"We took a 15-year-old girl and we put her in a segregation cell with nothing but a suicide gown", Ashley's mother said. "She didn't have a pen, she didn't have a piece of paper, she didn't have a book. She didn't have anybody to speak to, other than a telephone call home."
A federal prison guard is facing assault charges with respect to an incident occurring before the young woman died. But although the ombudsman of the federal prison system concluded in a report that the girl's death was preventable, and identified a series of law and policy violations, along with poor mental-health and correctional services co-ordinates, no one has been identified as being responsible.
Miscarriages of justice? The victim suffering and no attention given to her plight. The criminal apportioned his due of humane treatment. Finding exculpatory conditions for one criminal, most certainly not the other. A child languishing in the hell of unforgivingly inhumane bureaucracy, desperate to remove herself from life.
The question was whether he was in control of his psychotic impulses. He has testified that he was not, that God commanded him to kill a stranger.
His monstrous acts in murdering, dismembering and cannibalising a young man previously unknown to him was seen by Justice John Scurfield who delivered his verdict of non-accountability as due to mental illness. Validating and upholding the testimony given by several psychiatrists who gave expert testimony that the man suffers from mental illness.
There is no prison in his future, rather treatment in a mental institution.
Uncharitably, Tim McLean's mother, mourning the horrible death of her son, feels that the murderer has been permitted to 'get away' with murder. There will be quite a few people who wholeheartedly agree with her. He has been enabled through the kindly auspices of medical corroboration to successfully claim that he is not responsible for the monstrous acts he committed. It was God's fault.
The judge's finding was most certainly based on the opinions of expert medical witnesses. And, he said, although the attack was "grotesque" and "barbaric", it was also "strongly suggestive of a mental disorder". That it most certainly was. "He did not appreciate the actions he committed were morally wrong. He believed he was acting in self-defence", helpfully explained the judge.
As for Mr. Li, he admitted his act of murder, pleading not guilty. For, as the court heard, God had instructed him to kill Mr. McLean. And who, in their right mind would deny God?
There is another trial ongoing at the present time, where the accused on trial for first-degree murder (Mr. Li was on trial for second-degree murder; but he murdered a civilian, Curtis Dagenais shot two RCMP officers to death, meriting the first-degree murder designation) testified that he shot the two officers because he "felt like I was going to die. It was a matter of self-preservation."
To the uninitiated in court proceedings, witness accounts and defence techniques that sounds awfully like the testimony given in self-defence by Mr. Li. Mr. Dagenais explained the RCMP officers rammed his vehicle, behaved violently, and fired the first shot in that deadly 2006 shootout. He merely responded, in dread fear for his life.
That deadly incident occurred near the accused mother's home in Spiritwood, Saskatchewan. He had initially gone to the RCMP detachment to ask for assistance in a dispute with his sister. Matters escalated from there. Mr. Dagenais is additionally charged with the attempted murder of another RCMP constable, one who came on the deadly scene and who has testified, giving her account of the situation as she experienced it.
It's disputable whether any medical experts are prepared to step forward to attest to their belief that Mr. Dagenais suffered a momentary psychosis based on his immediate experience that led him to believe his life was in present danger, causing him to react as he did. He killed two RCMP officers, and almost killed another, while they were actively discharging their duty as peace officers.
And then there is the intensely sad and unbelievable case of someone who really did suffer from mental illness, a young woman hardly removed from childhood who was imprisoned for the crime of throwing crab apples at a postal worker. Her heartsick and inconsolable mother is demanding justice. To expose and to hold to account those in the criminal justice system in Canada who so miserably failed her daughter.
"It's very difficult to be here this morning. As a family, we feel that Ashley died because no one in Canada really cared. No one cared - not the guards who watched her asphyxiate; not the managers who ordered the guards not to intervene in her case; not the nameless bureaucrats who knew that my daughter needed help, but did nothing but transfer her 17 times in 11 months. We are heartbroken", Coralee Smith said at a news conference in Ottawa.
She wants those who shirked their responsibility as justice officials, down to the guards who were warned not to resuscitate the 19-year-old Ashley Smith, if she attempted once again to commit suicide, and who stood watching as her daughter turned blue from lack of oxygen as she finally succeeded in taking her life.
From the time of her original incarceration, when she suffered from mild mental illness, to the last days of her life, as her mental disease progressed, and she became increasingly more difficult to control, resulting in additional prison time being allocated to her, no one stepped in to console, befriend, or assist this child.
"Can you imagine throwing apples at postal workers and stealing a CD landed her in that hole in a suicide smock on a tileless floor getting food through a slot?" the family lawyer asked at the news conference. "That's for throwing apples. And the people [who were] breaking the law that led to her death - a form of tortuous death - they're not identified at all."
"We took a 15-year-old girl and we put her in a segregation cell with nothing but a suicide gown", Ashley's mother said. "She didn't have a pen, she didn't have a piece of paper, she didn't have a book. She didn't have anybody to speak to, other than a telephone call home."
A federal prison guard is facing assault charges with respect to an incident occurring before the young woman died. But although the ombudsman of the federal prison system concluded in a report that the girl's death was preventable, and identified a series of law and policy violations, along with poor mental-health and correctional services co-ordinates, no one has been identified as being responsible.
Miscarriages of justice? The victim suffering and no attention given to her plight. The criminal apportioned his due of humane treatment. Finding exculpatory conditions for one criminal, most certainly not the other. A child languishing in the hell of unforgivingly inhumane bureaucracy, desperate to remove herself from life.
Labels: Canada, Politics of Convenience, Security, Society
posted by Pieface | 12:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home