Ernestly ?!Ernestly ?!By ERNIE NEUFELD, Weyburn Review Associate Publisher
Unless you were on an extended trip out of the country at the time, in a coma, attending a religious retreat, totally absorbed in the Olympics, or otherwise out of touch with the Canadian scene, you will have seen the much-publicized photo of Karla Homolka living it up in prison.
Newspapers I have seen printed only a picture of Karla in a chummy pose with another female criminal ("convicted for helping lure girls to be used as sex slaves.") Both were in slinky attire, smiling broadly, and apparently in a party mood.
Maclean's Magazine complemented reproduction of the large, full-color Montreal Gazette version of the glamour shot with a reduction of a full-page spread of Karla and friends in festive mode, capsulized in a banner headline heralding "Birthday cakes and baseball."
If your reaction was anywhere close to mine, you were disgusted by the photo and how it depicted penal servitude in Canadian institutions.
Soon after this publicity Corrections Canada decided (although it denied any connection) to transfer Homolka from the medium-security prison at Joliette, Quebec, to a maximum-security facility in or near Saskatoon.
This move prompted objections from Homolka's lawyers (plural), her mother, and from Homolka herself, who "threw a fit" and protested that she feared for her life if transferred, saying she had already been "the victim" of death threats. (A subsequent hearing did not forbid her removal to the terrible west.)
In the remote event that any readers of this column are unfamiliar with the facts leading to Homolka's incarceration: most briefly stated, she was convicted of manslaughter for participating with her then-husband, Paul Bernardo, in the "horrific" murder of two teen-age Ontario schoolgirls. She was similarly implicated in the death of her 15-year-old sister Tammy at Bernardo's hands.
Revelations of wrongful conviction of a number of Canadian individuals on murder charges - on the basis of doctored evidence - have caused me to retreat from a long-held adamant position on capital punishment. However, videotaped evidence of the murders in which this woman's complicity was proven, seems to remove her conviction from any likelihood of having been the result of falsified evidence by police or prosecution. While I would not volunteer to pull the switch on her, if chosen by lot to do the deed, I would accept the onus with a minimum of regret.
I would also add that I am alarmed at the involvement of "defense" lawyers evidently available - presumably at public expense - to argue any objection Homolka may have to the nature of her confinement. Certainly, there should be a procedure in place for any prisoner to appeal inhumane treatment. Perhaps panels - such as standby juries - might be made available to review any such representations and decide for or against further investigation.
Now having said all this, and confessed my own initial disgust at the depiction of Homolka in party mode, I am wondering if we haven't let ourselves over-react to the photographic scene of gaiety.
If possible, let's try to imagine ourselves, as young persons, serving - however deservedly - a prison term of years. I know it is difficult, because you and I are good guys. ("Guys," of course, is gender neutral, as in "Would you guys like some more coffee?") But just suppose!
Is it unreasonable to acknowledge that you and I, in such circumstances, would become friendly with one or more individuals in similar circumstances? And would it be quite unthinkable, upon an isolated occasion - perhaps one's birthday - to don party attire, eat a piece of special cake, play a game of baseball, smile at the camera, and forget for a few minutes or an hour the shameful deed that had put us there, and pretend that at some future date we might again become free and socially redeemable individuals?
Imprisonment instead of execution must presuppose a remote possibility of rehabilitation, or at least that there exists some meaning and merit to life even as a convicted murderer. If not, wouldn't it be faster, simpler and kinder - and less expensive - just to execute a person than to demand years of existence in a condition that could hardly be described as life, and totally barren of hope?
So let them eat cake: just keep Karla where she belongs.
My address (also listed on the Review's Website) is ernestly@pathcom.com.
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