Convicted killer Colin Thatcher has written a memoir, and Saskatchewan's
government is, understandably, unhappy that the former provincial cabinet
minister might make money from his horrifying crime. But the government
should be wary of drafting a law to seize the profits of criminals who tell,
or sell, their stories. Suppress a Colin Thatcher today, and tomorrow the
autobiography of a Malcolm X, or the plea for a new trial from a Rubin
Carter, or the ruminations of a white-collar criminal such as Conrad Black,
or the insider accounts of a war criminal such as Albert Speer, might be
stifled. The U.S. Supreme Court has wondered if Henry David Thoreau's
Civil Disobedience or the
Confessions of Saint Augustine would
have been written if the law had allowed payments to be seized from them.
The most repugnant scenario would be to let a serial child killer such as
Clifford Olson, or a major al-Qaeda terrorist, make money from sharing his
story. Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Alberta have laws enabling the
government to seize the profits of such books or recollections. But it is
risky, in several ways, to use the worst-case scenarios to justify
suppressing an individual's right to free speech.
Consider a criminal who – like Mr. Thatcher – argues he was wrongfully
convicted. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, sentenced to die in New Jersey for
murder, wrote a book while in prison, and his conviction was overturned. And
what of battered women who kill a violent spouse and are convicted for it?
Shouldn't they be permitted to argue that they were unjustly convicted, or
punished excessively?
Suppressing speech from a class of people, in this case convicted
criminals, is risky in itself. Convicted people may have certain experiences
that the public could benefit from hearing; these could be about life in
prison, or about the inner workings of the Mafia, or a terrorist group, or
about the justice system or police, or their parents and the schools, or the
life that ex-criminals have when released into the community.
It is hard to imagine who would wish to buy Mr. Thatcher's
self-justifying tome, to be published by ECW Press of Toronto. He killed his
ex-wife JoAnn Wilson (née Geiger) after a bitter custody battle, and spent
more than two decades in prison before being paroled. Apparently he learned
nothing. But he (or those in a similar position, since Saskatchewan is not
proposing a retroactive law aimed at Mr. Thatcher himself) did serve his
time.
It is unjust, even loathsome, when crime pays. But governments should be
careful about depriving convicted criminals of the right to expression.
There is nothing more
revolting than INJUSTICE and specifically, CORRUPT JUDGES who with display a
psychopathic lack of empathy, a disrespect for the fundamental principles of
justice, and who bring the entire administration of Justice into ill-repute, and
thats being polite.
To be a little more direct, in Canada we have a small percentage of persons who
are dangers to society and should be indefinitely incarcerated. These are the
generally the less educated criminals. The greater the intelligence and
education, the less likely they are of getting caught and the more likely they
will remain forever unaccountable for their crimes.
The greatest dangers to Canadians, are not criminals or terrorists, at least not
as Canadians imagine them, the greatest dangers to Canadian Society are those
who betray, those who ABUSE their Absolute Power.
The persons most likely to abuse their power are those with the most amount of
power and in Canada, that is a Superior Court or Appeal Court JUDGE.
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Ontario is plagued with an epidemic problem of corrupt judges who make political
decisions instead of legal decisions, their Criminal Mentality allows them to
justify in their own minds and that of their "brother judges" as to why they
should make draconian decisions of monumental injustice that leaves destroys
lives absolutely.
The most vile examples of this kind of Judge happen to be at 161 Elgin Street
Ottawa, and here are three of them.
Judge Richard Lajoe,
When a father called him an insult to justice, he had the father arrested on a
charge of Criminal Defamation and later heard the matter in his own court and
alter refused to testify as the complainant.
Justice Denis Power and Justice Sheffield are "Dirty Judges" they act like the
hit men of the judiciary, to do the dirtiest of deeds that deprive children of
their right to a relationship with their father, all because Sheffield and Power
can't resist the temptations of absolute power.
Www.OttawaMensCentre.com
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