Homolka: Big News, not Big Surprise

Well, Karla Homolka won her appeal and all the conditions imposed upon her were removed.  She is a free woman.  Surprised?  You shouldn’t be.

There are a lot more convicted criminals living among us who are far more likely to re-offend than Karla.  You don’t see governments going after them and trying to get conditions put on them, do you?  Why Karla? 

Publicity.  Karla’s case had huge publicity even before they knew she was involved.  There was a huge appeal to the public to find the perpetrators and, from that moment on, the case attracted huge media attention. 

Tim Danson, the lawyer for the French and Mahaffy families, has added to that.  He holds court with the press and expresses the families’ feelings at every stage of the saga. 

It’s time to step back and face the facts, without the hype and emotion. 

The fact is that she made a deal for a 12 year sentence.  Stop complaining about it.  It’s way too late for that.  The Crown considered whether to renege on the deal and made the decision not to.  (It was the right decision, not because Karla did not deserve more, but because deals are deals and must be honoured for the system to work.)

The fact is that she served all her time.  No parole for her.  Unlike most criminals who might have been released after as little as 4 years, she never even sought early release and spent every day of her sentence in jail. 

Her sentence is over.  She is free. 

I don’t like Karla.  She committed some extreme nastiness to a Jane Doe, tortured and killed two girls and served up her unconscious sister (who died later as a result of the incident) as a present for Bernardo. 

I also don’t want Karla to do it again.  I don’t want her to do any more nasty things.  However, the more we ostracize her and make it impossible for her to try to have a normal life, the more likely she won’t have a normal life.  Do we really want her to start living abnormally again?  I don’t think so.

So let’s stop complaining about the past.  We can’t change it, nor can we really do anything to compensate for it. 

The Quebec government has announced that it will appeal the removal of the conditions.  In my opinion, that is a bad decision.  For those that think the Homolka affair has been a series of mistakes, this is another. 

I predicted that the first attempt would fail.  I was wrong, but vindicated on appeal.  I predict that this further appeal will fail.  It is the right result.  If s. 810 of the Criminal Code can be used to impose conditions on criminals who have served their sentences simply because someone predicts that they are likely to commit another offence, we will be heading to a dangerous society.

We don’t want to go there, so leave Karla alone.