Faith Meets Life: Canadian hangmen remain unemployed

Travelling across Canada hanging people — that was the job of the executioner who worked under the pseudonym of Camille Blanchard from 1912 to 1960. The last of Canada's hangmen, he was based at Montreal's Bordeaux Prison where 85 executions took place. Interestingly, he sometimes worked for free.

The last execution in Canada took place December 11, 1962, and the death penalty was abolished in 1974.

South of the border things are different. Lee Boyd Malvo was a teenager when he and his adult friend, John Allen Muhammad, shot random people in Washington D. C. and surrounding areas. They rigged the trunk of their car so they could shoot people from inside of it. In daylight hours during September and October 2002 they killed 10 people before being arrested at a roadside rest area.

As of last Tuesday night, only one of the two remains alive. Malvo is serving a life sentence. Muhammad was executed. At least one eyewitness account of the execution is posted online.

There are about 800 people serving life sentences in Canada for murder. Should they be executed? Estimates are that it costs each Canadian $3 to $7 per year to have them imprisoned.

Is this money well spent? Most Canadians think so. Arguments abound to support the continued banning of the death penalty in Canada and to keep convicted murderers alive until they die of natural causes.

For one thing, we realize that the legal system is not infallible. Earlier murder convictions based on more recent DNA evidence have demonstrated this beyond any doubt. When we find someone innocent of murder that has been convicted in the past, we exhale a collective sigh of relief that we did not kill him or her.

Second, we tend to favour rehabilitation over revenge. One of the hopes for those convicted of crime is that they will benefit from training programs and counseling available to them, no matter what their past.

Third, we are suspicious that the main motive for execution is not justice but revenge. On some level there is an element of satisfaction when the relatives of a murder victim see the perpetrator die. But we are wary of this kind of satisfaction, and should be.

Fourth, many of us realize that “there but for the grace of God I.” Many people start off with many strikes against them. Dynamics in their family and in their growing up years, or some form of mental distress or illness — all these things can put people on a path where killing becomes a thought, then an option, and then an act.

Finally, I think, the killing of a convicted murderer can be an act of hopelessness. There will be no more opportunities for the convict. There will be no more hope for the victim's family to forgive, as impossible as that may seem to many. No more chances to write letters of regret or to extend some gesture of that forgiveness. No more prayers, no more hope, no more human contact.

Muhammad died staring silently at the ceiling. When he was asked if he had any last words he did not respond. The witnesses of his execution were equally silent. And so he died, utterly abandoned by every ordinary person. Was this necessary? And will it do any good?

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.