Death penalty arguments

“Death-row cases deserve aid: Poll” Star April 4^th/09

While I am not a proponent of the death penalty, I do question the need and appropriateness of the Canadian Government’s further involvement in the Ronald Smith case. This man decided to kill someone in Montana, a foreign country, and he has faced justice in the jurisdiction where he committed the crime. Montana is not some banana-republic without human rights or democracy. As we expect the US to respect our sovereignty and laws, so we must abide by theirs. Beyond ensuring that Mr. Smith receives proper legal representation, we should not –nor do we have the right to –interfere in another country’s legal affairs. No one compelled Ronald Smith to commit murder in Montana.

We should also remember that in the seventies, for almost ten years, the US did not have the death penalty (found unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in its then present form), but Canada did (though no one were executed from Dec.1962 (Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas, hanged back to back at Don Jail in Toronto), until its abolition in 1976.

Sometimes I think we Canadians act a bit like “the mouse that roared” vis-à-vis the US. It might be better to mute our criticism and save the ammunition for the really important and deserving cases.