by Lorna Poplak
Conclusion
T he game is over.
Never again, at the end of a court case in Canada, will a judge don a black cap and black gloves and utter these grim words: “Prisoner at the Bar, it becomes my painful duty to pass the final sentence of the law upon you. You have been found guilty of murder. You will be taken from here to the place whence you came and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Nevermore will a prisoner languish on death row waiting for the results of an appeal, or tremble at the sound of a scaffold being constructed outside his or her cell window. Gone are the days when the press described in precise detail the forty-pace walk or the thirteen-step climb to the gallows. No longer does a black flag fly and a bell toll seven solemn times at Montreal’s infamous Bordeaux jail to herald a death by hanging.
The players who took part in Canada’s deadly game of Hangman — accused, policemen, sheriffs, lawyers, judges, juries, hangmen, government officials — are, for the most part, gone. And they paid the price. Many of them were in some profound way touched, twisted, or broken by their participation in the process. Some turned to alcohol or drugs to dull the pain; others broke down under the mental and emotional pressure; yet others committed suicide.
One of the foremost players died in 1985: lawyer, author, commissioner, and justice “Hanging Jim” (also known as “Vinegar Jim”) McRuer. He stands out as the tough, demanding judge who presided over the trial of Regina v. Lucas in 1962. Was the large, slow-witted Arthur Lucas actually guilty of the gangland-style killing of Therland Crater? Should Lucas have been hanged? Controversy lingers to this day.
Hanging Jim’s biographer, Patrick Boyer, writes that although the judge showed a certain readiness to sentence murderers to death, his thoughts about capital punishment were not clear. When quizzed on the topic, Justice McRuer would simply say that he was doing his duty. Would he support the restoration of the death penalty post-1976? “I do not know,” he replied.
In Boyer’s opinion, “Given his commitment to justice, however, it seems reasonable to conclude that he viewed hanging as an appropriate punishment for a heinous crime. In short, capital punishment in his mind could be an instrument of justice, a way of ensuring that human life was respected and that no person could kill another with impunity. It was the law, in any case.”
And yet, in an interview with journalist and author Jack Batten in the spring of 1985, the ninety-five-year -old McRuer pronounced his definitive legal and personal opinion on the divisive Arthur Lucas case in particular and capital punishment in general: “There was one good thing about Lucas’s hanging,” mused the venerable judge from his armchair. “It was the last. Parliament ended the death penalty, and sentencing a man to hang is one part of the administration of justice that judges need have no fear of now.”
It was over. In a timeline stretching from 1967 through 1976 to 1987, parliament chipped away at, and finally abolished, capital punishment for civil crimes in Canada. In 1998, the country achieved full abolitionist status when the last references to the death penalty were removed from the National Defence Act . Although important, this was in a sense a technicality, as there had not been a military execution since 1945.
But like a dormant volcano, the issue bubbles away just beneath the surface of public consciousness, ready to erupt when something dreadful happens — something like the reign of terror in southern Ontario that ended with the trial of serial “Scarborough-rapist”-turned-killer Paul Bernardo in 1995. Or the serial murders in the 1990s and early 2000s of possibly as many as forty-nine women in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, by pig-farmer Robert William “Willie” Pickton.
Or we can just look to the flash point that occurred fifty years after the last hanging in Canada. Victoria “Tori” Stafford was just eight years old when she was abducted from Woodstock, Ontario, in April 2009. A month later, police arrested twenty-eight-year -old Michael Thomas Rafferty, and Terri-Lynne McClintic, eighteen. On March 5, 2012, Rafferty’s trial began for the kidnapping, sexual assault, and first-degree murder of the little girl. This prompted Paul Russell, letters editor of the National Post , to ask his readers: “Should Canada bring back the death penalty?” An avalanche of replies tumbled in.
“Yes!” said the majority. “Tori Stafford was just the latest victim of cruelty, thrust on her by the dregs of human wreckage. Like any dregs, such depraved individuals are good for nothing but compost, if that. Unhooded, disgust and contempt in my eyes, I’d be happy to put the noose around their necks and pull the trapdoor,” wrote one correspondent. “The death penalty for certain crimes? Yes. And let’s have those put to death then donate their organs for transplant,” suggested another. Some letter writers invoked the word of God: “In direct rebuttal to those who say we can’t afford the death penalty — we can’t afford to continue warehousing murderers. As God Almighty commanded. Gen. 9:6: ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ So let’s bring back the noose already.”
The two-wrongs-do -not-make-a -right side was horrified. “I am disgusted by my bloodthirsty, vengeance-seeking fellow citizens. Most jurisdictions have turned away from this barbaric practice. If people want to kill someone so badly, the penalty should only be applied in name of those so quick to call for death. Not in my name or my children’s or the rest of this once sane and reasonable country.” Another naysayer commented: “Man’s propensity for error, whether in law, medicine, economics, politics, etc., is legion. We should be sufficiently humble to acknowledge our fallibilities and not allow for another source of error by revisiting capital punishment.” And the word of God was brought in to bolster the argument here, too: “All life is sacred. Criminals are humans who, despite their crime, deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. God’s mission is to bring salvation to all men and women. His salvation is not imposed but reaches us through acts of love, mercy and forgiveness that we can carry out.”
Other letter writers adopted a more nuanced approach: “We should bring the death penalty back but not use it. Bringing it back allows retributionists to say, ‘We’re tough on crime.’ And not applying it allows the more-enlightened-than -thou crowd to say ‘Yes, we could, but we don’t; aren’t we just so darned morally superior?’ This should keep both sides quiet for another ten years; then we can start the whole debate all over again. Or not.”
One female reader offered this opinion: “We should not endorse capital punishment. Castration should be legalized as a cure and a deterrent for sexual deviants. Women have said this for years.”
In 2013, a different and more structured survey of public opinion was conducted via an online Angus Reid poll. “All things considered,” respondents were asked, “would you support or oppose reinstating the death penalty for murder in Canada?”
“Bring back capital punishment” was the response of 63 percent of those polled, as opposed to 30 percent who disagreed.
The death penalty would serve as a deterrent to potential murderers, argued the 63 percent in favour. It would save taxpayers tons of money; namely, the costs associated with imprisoning murderers for years on end. If you take a life, you should lose yours in return. The death penalty provides closure to the families of murder victims. And, finally, murderers cannot be rehabilitated.
Not so, argued the 30 percent opposed to capital punishment. What about wrongful conviction and the possibility of executing innocent people? Even if convicted murderers have taken a life, it is simply wrong for them to lose theirs as punishment. The death penalty is not a deterrent, and murderers should pay the price by doing time in prison, as decided by a judge. And, finally, murderers can be rehabilitated.
The results of this opinion poll were very similar to a 2012 poll, also by Angus Reid, and there is nothing to suggest that a survey conducted today would be very different.
In case you’re wondering what the most prominent hangmen since Confederation might have brought to the debate: John Radclive, official e
xecutioner in the late 1800s and early 1900s, became increasingly opposed to capital punishment in his last years. Canada’s most famous hangman, Arthur Ellis, was always a committed advocate of capital punishment, but, as author Frank Anderson points out, in his later years, he came out forcefully against hanging. “Hanging belongs to a past age,” Ellis wrote in 1935. “I am strongly in favour of the electric chair, not only on the ground of Humanity but it is safer in every way and it is instantaneous.”
A contrasting opinion was voiced by John Ellis, Canada’s last executioner. He was a firm believer in capital punishment, a point of view that never changed. On the topic of opponents of hanging during his 1976 television interview with Paul Soles of the CBC, he said: “they don’t realize just how humane it is. Unlike electrocution.… People want to die rather than spend life in prison.”
Englishman Albert Pierrepoint, arguably the most competent hangman of all time, and certainly one of the most prolific, had this to say in his memoirs, published in 1974:
I now sincerely hope that no man is ever called upon to carry out another execution in my country. I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people.… [Capital punishment] is said to be a deterrent. I cannot agree.… All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that in what I have done I have not prevented a single murder.
However, he backpedalled somewhat in a BBC interview in 1976: “I know I wrote that in the book, and when I wrote that in the book I honestly believed it. But since then there’s been a lot more crime than there was in my time and I just can’t make my mind up. They talk about bringing it back for policemen, but they never mention bringing it back for the murder of children. If they bring it back, fair enough, but bring it back for everyone. A murder is a murder.”
No consensus, then, among those who lent the name of their occupation to the often fatal game of Hangman.
To sum up where we stand now: in spite of what the polls tell us, it seems unlikely that capital punishment will be reintroduced in Canada. Parliament has spoken, more than once.
And yet …
Recent world events have shown that nothing is cast in stone. Something particularly horrific — a mass murder, say, or a series of monstrous crimes — might bring the issue flashing back into public consciousness and reignite the fiery age-old debate.
So the question arises: If we could reinstate capital punishment — should we?
What’s your verdict?
Acknowledgements
T his book did not start off as a book. My first thought was to write a biographical article on Canada’s most famous hangman, Arthur Ellis. As my research progressed, so did my interest in evaluating the effects of capital punishment on all those who were touched by it. My first sketches morphed into a more general history of hanging in Canada — for young people. My thanks to the editorial team at Dundurn who encouraged me to convert a book for middle readers into a work of adult non-fiction, and who so ably assisted me in bringing it to print.
Special thanks to the multi-talented Tuhin Giri for the original and very striking book cover concept, to which Dundurn designers added a touch of whimsy. Tuhin applied his editing skills to every chapter, offering me pointed suggestions and insights, and, together with Cathy Landolt, he has assisted me in threading through the intricacies of book marketing.
So many others have provided support along the way. Some of them were listeners: people like Sheryl Danilowitz, Jinks Hoffmann, and Lin Judelman, whose advice helped me to hone my story telling skills.
Then there were the readers: Catherine Rondina and the members of the #9 writing group, and Paulette Bourgeois all perused and encouraged early drafts.
A big thank you to the readers of my more-or-less -final manuscript — Carolyn Poplak, Richard Poplak and Keith Pownall. Each of them brought a distinct perspective to the book that sharpened it immeasurably. Thanks, too, to Valda Poplak, who did such sterling work on my bibliography.
I have a number of other individuals and organizations to thank — among them Bill Swan; Leah Daniels; Steven E. Silver, with his wealth of knowledge about the history of executions in Canada; Win Wahrer of Innocence Canada; Patricia Petruga of the Bridgepoint Health Science Library, who, in addition to introductions and information, took me on a personal tour of Toronto’s Don Jail; the members of the Bridgepoint Communications Department who allowed me to visit restricted areas within the jail; the staff of Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa and the City of Toronto Archives, who were all unfailingly courteous and obliging. And a very special shout-out to those professionals at our city’s treasure, the Toronto Public Library. Their “Book a Librarian” service was particularly helpful. I scored the assistance of not one but two specialists: Alan Walker of the Special Collections Centre and Cynthia Fisher of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department.
Finally, my very grateful thanks to my husband, Phillip Poplak, who has been both a listener and a reader, and who sustained us by cooking many, many meals while I worked my way through the book.
Selected Bibliography
Newspapers
Acton Free Press
Border Cities Star
Brockville Monitor
Carleton Sentinel
Chronicle-Herald
Common Cause (Britain)
Courier
Daily Mail and Empire
Daily Mirror (Britain)
Detroit Post
Drummondville Spokesman
Expositor
Flesherton Advance
Guardian
Glasgow Herald
Globe and Mail (originally called The Globe )
Granby Leader-Mail
Hanover Post
Herald-Journal
Huron Expositor
Huron Signal
Irish Canadian
Lethbridge News
London Free Press
London Times
Markdale Standard
Miami News
Milwaukee Sentinel
Montreal Daily Mail
Montreal Gazette (also called The Gazette)
Morning Chronicle
National Post
New York Times
Niagara Falls Gazette
Norwalk Hour
Ottawa Citizen (also called the Ottawa Daily Citizen )
Ottawa Journal
Ottawa Times
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh Press
Quebec Daily Telegraph
Quebec Saturday Budget
Reading Eagle
Saskatoon Star-Phoenix
Schenectady Gazette
Southeast Missourian
St. Petersburg Times
Sunday Spartanburg Herald-Journal
Telegram
Toledo Blade
Toronto Daily Mail
Toronto Globe
Toronto Star (previously called the Toronto Daily Star )
Toronto Sun
Toronto World
Vancouver Sun
Winnipeg Free Press
Government Documents
Capital Case Files, RG 13, Department of Justice (Canada), Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa
Orders-in-Council (Canada)
Statutes (Canada)
Statutes (Great Britain)
Other Sources
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