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| Norman Douglas |
I have 11 grandchildren.
My head throbs today with goblins, witches and monsters. Halloween may be fun, but real evil is anything but.
I have pondered this question since the day I began my career as a criminal court prosecutor (for 21 years), and then a criminal court judge (for 27 more).
I guess I have been in the same room with people who have committed evil acts more times than most people. Early in my experience, I came across an article written by a forensic psychiatrist entitled “Killers: Bad or Mad?”
And I have heard a thousand times: “He must be sick … only an insane person could possibly commit such a crime …”
And so this is the question we are going to consider: Are there evil people amongst us? If not, then the people who commit atrocities should be hospitalized because they are sick.
If so, then what should the sentence be when they are found guilty?
Keep in mind that I am only one of thousands of prosecutors and judges who have had a part in deciding what punishment/treatment would be justice for those we have dealt with. So my examples are but a tiny percentage of the cases in Canada that qualify for the most heinous acts that have been tried in our court system. I may as well tell you where I am going with this, knowing that some of you will not agree with me, to put it mildly. You be the judge. There are some people who should be locked up for life — real life that is, until they die.
Let’s start with the two murderers I prosecuted where the killer should never have been allowed to be paroled to kill again (R. v. Sweeney, [1986] O.J. No. 2324; R. v. Guay (Ont. C.A.), [1983] O.J. No. 12).
Sweeney (hiding in his next-door neighbour’s home), ambushed, tortured and knifed to death a young mother and was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Ten years later, on parole and living in a halfway house, he ambushed, tortured and knifed to death a 21-year-old criminology graduate — she had been left in charge of the halfway home. Once more, he was sentenced to life in prison, as I pleaded with Superior Court Justice David Watt to recommend Sweeney never be paroled again. He had no authority to do it, but we both did our best to make it plain on the record how we felt.
Guay was sentenced to hang for the robbery/murder of a defenceless older man living alone. I was 10 years old at the time. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. You guessed it — he was paroled. His next victim was his partner — he knifed her to death in broad daylight on their front lawn as neighbours heard her screams and came out of their homes. They witnessed him break the knife as he repeatedly stabbed her and then went back into the home to get another knife to come out and finish the job.
I referred to these cases in a capital punishment debate with criminal defence lawyer Eddie Greenspan. He used the flagship argument that having capital punishment on the books risks executing innocent people. I countered that NOT having capital punishment on the books does allow innocent people to be executed.
I have prosecuted a contract killer; a baby killer; a group who garroted and knifed to death a taxi driver; a man who beat to death a homeless young man “for the thrill of watching someone die” (sent to Millhaven, not Folsom); a man who killed a man at a card game, dragged him into another room then went back to play some more cards; a couple who tied up a grandmother and after shooting the grandfather with a shotgun, tied him up too as he lay dying, then laughing about it hours later. Those are just some of the murder cases I have been involved with. Others are detailed in my book.
I have deliberately refused to look at some of the baby-porn pictures and videos filed in several cases. Until the Court of Appeal ruled that the trial judge must view the exhibits. Yes, babies.
I made it clear to the Crowns thereafter that they need not file the pictures if they preferred to describe them and if the defence counsel agreed. One man recorded himself with an 18-month-old baby inserting his penis in her mouth and her anus.
And then there are the thousands of battered women I have encountered. Beaten, sexually abused, ridiculed, confined, threatened that their children would be killed and on and on. And these are only the ones who had the courage to tell someone. We all knew there were those, though courageous in other ways, who suffered in silence for legitimate reasons.
I read about the case of the outlaw biker who tormented and beat a young woman in front of his biker friends. Then he made her eat a tissue paper that he had smeared with his own excrement. Then, as she begged him not to kill her, he killed her.
Before you stop reading here, I have made my point and will not sicken you with the hundreds of other examples that sometimes torment my mind when I can’t sleep. And my nightmares are not nearly as bad as the first responders who witnessed these things at the time or shortly after they happened.
Now let’s move from the real world to the academic world.
You have already concluded that I believe there are evil people in our communities.
I am not referring to those who are suffering from mental illness to the degree that they truly are not aware of what they are doing or of the wrongfulness of their actions. The difficulty here, of course, is determining who qualifies as sick. All my career, we left that up to the medical experts. Let’s leave it there.
I want you to consider:
- those who some would call psychopaths — they know what they are doing but have no feelings for others;
- the gang members who kill for their own selfish reasons;
- the serial killers who kill for excitement;
- the contract killer;
- the predators who kill for lust;
- the terrorist, the hostage takers who kill for political reasons;
- the drug traffickers who kill to protect their turf;
- the repeat violent offenders who finally beat a victim to death;
- the “brave” school shooters who kill for “fame” or hatred.
Perhaps you can add to the list — I have only had an afternoon to think about mine.
So, if you agree that these people qualify for the label “evil” and I realize that there will be cases that are borderline — that’s why we need judges — but what do we do with these criminals once they are caught and convicted?
My view is that we have to do something differently than we are doing now. That is if we want to protect ourselves and those in our care.
Let’s consider capital punishment just for a brief moment.
I begin with Osama Bin Laden and the celebration around the free world when he was assassinated.
The cheering whenever hostages are freed and terrorists killed.
The relief when school shooters or snipers are taken out by law officers.
You see, there is nearly universal approval when law enforcement requires capital punishment.
“Thou shalt not kill” literally should be translated from the Hebrew, “Thou shalt not murder.”
So the second main argument (there are three) against capital punishment — that “killing people to show that killing people is wrong, is wrong” — is as flawed as the “innocent man convicted” argument. There are times when we require our law to execute a dangerous person.
The third main point made by the abolitionists when this topic was being debated is called the “deterrent” argument.
It goes like this: Statistics show that capital punishment does not deter people from committing murder.
The counterpoint: Statistics show that capital punishment deters the killer from killing again.
With regard to what I have called the “flagship” argument, these days when DNA analysis proves beyond any doubt who the killer is, the only “innocent” people being executed are the victims of the killer.
But I am not proposing we go back to the guillotine or hangman’s noose or even the needle.
We can accomplish (perhaps with the rare exception of fellow prisoners or correctional officers being murdered inside our jails) what I believe is our duty to the public as law enforcement professionals, by introducing the sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Perhaps that compromise solution would bring both sides together.
I have applied to the parole board to attend the application of Russell Colwell for day parole, scheduled for Nov. 21.
I want the opportunity to submit my views on not only the danger of allowing him off the prison grounds but on the anguish of the family of the 14-year-old girl he caught inside a school washroom stall, stabbed to death then masturbated on. That family should never have to worry again about Colwell being free. They already are serving their own life sentences.
Norman Douglas is a retired criminal court judge with 27.5 years of experience on the bench. His book, You Be the Judge, was published in December 2023.
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