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Officer Down (Sgt. Ryan Russell)

Admiral Beez said:
I predict this guy will get off with the insanity excuse in the Criminal Code...

16. (1) No person is criminally responsible for an act committed or an omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong. [1]

I hate this defence, as I care little if the person knew what they were doing was wrong. I know that's why we have the courts to decide what's wrong and right.
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Our justice system is based, quite rightly, on rehabilitation, not vengeance (factors such as specific and general deterrence are also considerations). If someone is truly not responsible for their actions, how, morally, can we punish them? I understand that the victims might want to see someone pay for the crime, but that's just not something we consider in sentencing.

I actually agree that sentences are far too light for certain types of crimes (sexual assault, especially on children, is a glaring example) and that judges are too willing to give people more chances than they deserve, but I don't disagree with making rehabilitation the main focus of sentencing. Punishment for vengeance's sake is best left to the middle ages.
 
Hank said:
Our justice system is based, quite rightly, on rehabilitation, not vengeance. If someone is truly not responsible for their actions, how, morally, can we punish them?
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I wasn't suggesting vengeance, but instead I am concerned when we release murderously insane people back into society after a short period of forced medication and observation. I admit, I'm jumping ahead here, so let's see what the verdict is.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I wasn't suggesting vengeance, but instead I am concerned when we release murderously insane people back into society after a short period of forced medication and observation.
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I'm also curious as to why this would so concern you. Has there ever been a case of murderously insane person in Canada who was found not guilty because of insanity ever repeating their crime after "a short period of forced medication and observation"?
 
Hank said:
Our justice system is based, quite rightly, on rehabilitation, not vengeance.
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If that's true, how is our current Canadian prison system 'rehabilitating' the majority of prisoners (other than the fact that we euphemistically call it 'corrections' Canada?)

And why do the courts assign different length terms for some crimes rather than others? Do the courts know ahead of time how long it's going to take to rehabilitate someone? Oh he'll take 5 years, oh he'll take 25.

I'd posit that our criminal justice system is actually based on a mixture of punishment and rehabilitation. Punishment is not the same as simple vengeance, as it's society doing it not an individual. In the same way that when the state sentences someone to death it's an execution not murder.

Anyway, the way it appears to me is that the majority of the sentence is punishment while a smart part of it is perhaps optimistically 'rehabilitation'.

If it were on that jury, I'd argue he knew full well the consequences of his actions when he killed Ryan Russell. And because of that I would hold him criminally responsible.
 
hawc said:
If it were on that jury, I'd argue he knew full well the consequences of his actions when he killed Ryan Russell. And because of that I would hold him criminally responsible.
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If you've already got a verdict without being there to hear the case, doesn't that make you prejudiced, and thus ineligible for being on the jury?
 
hawc said:
If it were on that jury, I'd argue he knew full well the consequences of his actions when he killed Ryan Russell. And because of that I would hold him criminally responsible.
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Which is why the idea of a 'jury' is a silly idea to begin with.

This was probably the right decision. Hopefully he is not released so long as he remains a danger to society, however.
 
hawc said:
If it were on that jury, I'd argue he knew full well the consequences of his actions when he killed Ryan Russell. And because of that I would hold him criminally responsible.
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Have you reviewed all the evidence to come to that conclusion? Judging by the length of time to come to a verdict, I would suggest that many of the jurors felt as you did at first.

Myself, I'm of two minds....no I'm not MPD...

First mind - the system of justice has prevailed, the evidence of the physical facts and professional medical diagnosis and opinion has been weighed by an impartial and just jury. The burden of proof to demonstrate criminal intent was not met, so the justice system's mechanisms to deal with those not criminally responsible has operated as it should, taking into account the seriousness of the act combined with compassion for the mentally ill person involved. The system will likely place Kaschar into a mental health facility where he will receive the treatment he needs. Since he is not guilty, once the system finds he is no longer a reasonable threat to society he should be released back into society, with scheduled check-ups as the system deems fit, or not. Society needs to care for its mentally ill persons, not imprison them, and compassion should prevail, not revenge.

Second mind - here's another dangerous psycho that's killed someone, in this case a police officer, and now's gotten away with murder under the disgusting "not criminally responsible" escape clause. I don't care if he was in a clear mental state when he committed his murderous rampage, the act itself, not the mind of the killer should be all it takes to decide prison or not. I'm tired of the system's compassion for crazed murderers like Vince Lee, Kaschar, etc, etc. Canada can be said to treat its pets better than people, but when a dog mauls a child we don't question its mental state or its intent, but only the act itself, and the system doles out the same justice for all. Kaschar should be convicted in the 1st Degree murder of a police officer and locked up for 25 years. Forget about compassion, society needs protection from these crazies.

I think the truth to my mind is somewhere in the fuzzy middle.
 
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Even if he was criminally responsible, what evidence does the prosecution have to suggest that he hijacked this snowplow for the sole purpose of killing others? Isn't premeditation a fundamental requirement for a 1st degree conviction?

This has probably been explained, but I haven't been following this case and I don't feel like searching through this thread.
 
It's in the definition of first degree, I.e. pre-meditated or a police officer
 
Admiral Beez said:
First mind - the system of justice has prevailed, the evidence of the physical facts and professional medical diagnosis and opinion has been weighed by an impartial and just jury. The burden of proof to demonstrate criminal intent was not met, so the justice system's mechanisms to deal with those not criminally responsible has operated as it should, taking into account the seriousness of the act combined with compassion for the mentally ill person involved. The system will likely place Kaschar into a mental health facility where he will receive the treatment he needs. Since he is not guilty, once the system finds he is no longer a reasonable threat to society he should be released back into society, with scheduled check-ups as the system deems fit, or not. Society needs to care for its mentally ill persons, not imprison them, and compassion should prevail, not revenge.

Second mind - here's another dangerous psycho that's killed someone, in this case a police officer, and now's gotten away with murder under the disgusting "not criminally responsible" escape clause. I don't care if he was in a clear mental state when he committed his murderous rampage, the act itself, not the mind of the killer should be all it takes to decide prison or not. I'm tired of the system's compassion for crazed murderers like Vince Lee, Kaschar, etc, etc. Canada can be said to treat its pets better than people, but when a dog mauls a child we don't question its mental state or its intent, but only the act itself, and the system doles out the same justice for all. Kaschar should be convicted in the 1st Degree murder of a police officer and locked up for 25 years. Forget about compassion, society needs protection from these crazies.
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Yup. Well put. I don't disagree with your assessment.

And hey, if 3 shrinks found him crazy, who am I to question that he isn't. I just on a gut level look at the guy and think, nope you knew what you were doing, what you did was crazy, but you ain't crazy. Time to go to jail for a long time.

On a bit of a tangent, I think perhaps there's a temptation to take events that don't make any sense to us and say well let's call him crazy, because we can't rationalize what else it would be if not crazy. Like the guy who shot all the people on that island in scandinavia. Pure nuts or pure evil? Sometimes it's easier to admit there's crazy in this world than evil. Because evil can't be rehabilitated.
 
PinkLucy said:
It's in the definition of first degree, I.e. pre-meditated or a police officer
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If the police officer was on duty, known to be a police officer, and in the commission of his/her duties does a intentional homicide automatically gets prosecuted as first degree murder and if found guilty of murder, it's first degree that applies. Manslaughter and other non-murder homicide charges are still possible if applicable, though. But any murder in the commission of a major pre-mediated crime (like armed robbery or kidnapping) is similarly bumped up to first.

I'm glad to see reasonable discussion here since the verdict was handed down. I don't expect the Toronto Sun to do the same in tomorrow's issue. (Bets on the front page?)
 
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hawc said:
On a bit of a tangent, I think perhaps there's a temptation to take events that don't make any sense to us and say well let's call him crazy, because we can't rationalize what else it would be if not crazy. Like the guy who shot all the people on that island in scandinavia. Pure nuts or pure evil? Sometimes it's easier to admit there's crazy in this world than evil. Because evil can't be rehabilitated.
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One could argue that much of the prison population that we might call pure evil is mentally ill. Paul Bernardo, Russell Williams, etc. are in jail because their mental state, that of sociopaths and psychopaths led them to be evil. Of course they understood their actions, and are in jail for good reason. Can we call pure evil a mental illness, or perhaps just a social illness?
 
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