THE ADVOCATE V O L . 7 9 P A R T 1 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 1 11
shrugging off the killing of someone who was “known to police”. Just
because that is one facet of what could be said about the victim, should we
not care either—and there are likely two issues here—(1) that they have
died; and (2) that their death was at the hands of another person?
The first of these issues (should their death trouble us?) may be a personal
one that invokes religious and philosophical considerations going far
beyond matters of law and this editorial. The second is closely aligned with
what society has taken the trouble to express through its law, and the reform
of those laws, as acceptable conduct. As a society, we have resolved that the
death penalty is inappropriate even for the gravest of crimes, even where
those crimes are proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law and
where the penalty is imposed for perceived social ends. The death penalty
is not an available punishment today despite the fact that it would be implemented
only after the checks and balances of the judicial process for a limited
range of crimes.
It is particularly jarring in that context for us to be content with having a
criminal decide who in their circle should live and who should die. As a
society we should never tolerate that penalty, or indeed even a lesser one,
being meted out by Gangster A:
• against individuals of Gangster A’s choosing, who have not necessarily
been convicted or are not necessarily guilty of any crime
(much less a crime that was even at some point in the 20th century
a capital crime in Canada) or who may have seen the error of their
ways and are now cooperating with police, thereby attracting
Gangster A’s ire;
• for self-interested reasons that have nothing to do with any perception,
however skewed, of social good. No doubt Gangster A is acting
to advance the gang’s ability to commit crime unimpeded by
rivals (if Gangster B was a competitor) or potential informants (if
Gangster B was suspected of working with police) who could otherwise
have aided law enforcement in bringing Gangster A to justice.
Not that we condone vigilantism, but Gangster A does not
even rise to that level. Gangster A is not acting to vindicate social
norms, but presumably to get an even freer hand—without a rival
or snitch—to destroy those norms, by trafficking in more drugs or
people, and inflicting more havoc.
The term “no risk to the public” sometimes has also been applied to cases
of domestic violence or other situations where the victim was not known to
police but simply had the terrible misfortune of being known to the perpe-