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Sometimes real justice is lethal Winnipeg Sun. One of the most frustrating aspects of the capital punishment debate is that so many people on both sides of the issue miss the point entirely. It's not primarily about retribution or deterrence. It's about self-preservation. When a person has demonstrated a propensity for killing -- an actual tendency to murder people -- capital punishment is the only sure way to prevent the killer from taking more innocent lives in the future. Release him -- and in Canada, eventual release is virtually inevitable -- and he might kill again. Keep him locked up and he might kill a guard or another inmate while inside or escape prison and kill again. If the state is genuinely committed to protecting the public, state-sanctioned executions are sometimes a brutal necessity. A judge in Ohio understood this yesterday when he sentenced one James Trimble, 45, to death by lethal injection. The jury understood it also when it recommended the death penalty last week after finding Trimble guilty of murdering three people, including a young Canadian woman, on a shooting rampage last January. Enraged during a bitter domestic argument, Trimble fired 19 rounds from his assault rifle at live-in girlfriend Renee Bauer, striking her 13 times and killing her along with her seven-year-old son Dakota, who was hit by bullets that passed through his mother. Trimble fled the murder scene and randomly selected the condo of Sarah Positano, 22, of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., as a refuge from police. Described by Canadian Press as a gifted gymnast who was beginning her last term as a physical education major at Kent State University, Positano became Trimble's hostage and his final victim when he shot her in the neck. Her last gasps of breath were captured on a 911 tape, believably characterized as "heart-wrenching," that was played in court during the trial. Trimble confessed to the three killings but his defence argued that he shot Bauer while in a state of uncontrollable rage while the other two killings were accidental. The court also heard evidence that Trimble suffered from psychological problems, abused drugs and was an alcoholic. None of this "mitigated the damage" in the minds of the jury or Judge John Enlow, who passed the death sentence. Ironically, Trimble himself seemed to approve of the sentence, yelling in court: "I wanted to plead guilty, I wanted the death penalty to begin with." We can't blame him for that. Another irony is that it took a U.S. court to give the family of a Canadian murder victim a sense that the depths of their horror and heartbreak were felt and responsibly addressed. "They are satisfied that justice has been done today," Positano family lawyer Mike Callahan said after the sentencing. In her victim impact statement to the court, Sarah's mother, Susan Positano, said she had always been more protective of Sarah than of her other three children. "This was the one time I could not protect her, from this beast," she said. A beast. A dangerous beast, capable of snuffing out an unknown and completely innocent life. There's only one way to deal with such a threat. The victim's family knows it. The U.S. judge and jury know it. Even the killer knows it. A majority of Canadians know it too -- it's just that our lawmakers think they know better.
John Gleeson is the editor of the Winnipeg Sun. |