Robert Latimer has a date with the national parole board today at William Head minimum security prison in Victoria. The question the board will have to decide is whether Latimer is likely to kill again if he's released.
Is Latimer likely to kill again? Of course not. He took his daughter's life out of a genuine compulsion to end her suffering. Tracy Latimer had severe cerebral palsy. She'd gone through a series of operations and was in near constant pain. Her father just couldn't stand to see her suffer.
Now that's not my leftie spin on it. It is the conclusion of both the jury and the judge who sat on Latimer's murder trial. From the G&M:
"A jury found Mr. Latimer guilty in 1997 on a charge of second-degree murder, but recommended that he serve only one year in jail and another under house arrest at his farm near Wilkie, Sask.
The trial judge, Mr. Justice Ted Noble, found that Mr. Latimer's motive was to relieve what he saw as his daughter's terrible and unremitting pain and described the killing as a "compassionate" homicide."
If the seven years Latimer has served can be called justice, then justice has been more than satisfied. I hope he's back with his family for Christmas.
1 comment:
He murdered his child.
A child who was incapable of expressing a will to die, even if she really understood the permanance of the decision if she could have communicated such a will.
Let him rot.
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