Pubdate: Wed, 10 May 2006
Source: Chronicle, The (CN QU)
Copyright: 2006 Media Transcontinental
Contact:  http://www.westislandchronicle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4097

CARTOON JUSTICE

News came just before noon yesterday that the Hudson teen charged 
with responsibility for the death of 13-year-old Stevie Reilly for 
selling her a fatal dose of ecstasy will see no closed custody for 
his actions in yet another example of a fairly disturbing trend that 
makes people shake their heads in disgust. Once again, the punishment 
doesn't fit the crime. As Reilly's mother said yesterday, the verdict 
is "cartoon justice."

The youth, who pled guilty to a number of less-serious charges after 
prosecutors dropped the most serious one -- sexual assault of a minor 
- -- in an effort to get a deal done. And what a deal. The young man, 
who is facing yet another criminal investigation in the case of a 
friend's missing wallet, will only get two years of probation, with 
some conditions, and will be forced to do 150 hours of community 
service in that time.

Now, that's all well and good, but a young girl is dead, and she's 
dead because the young man who gave or sold her the drug did so 
recklessly and with little regard for the consequences.

Consequences. Now there's a word that means next to nothing these 
days. Run down two girls in the street after drinking in a bar? No 
problem. Go home, hide the damage to your car and lie about how much 
you drank. You'll get two years less a day in prison and you'll only 
serve a small portion of that time, like Carlos Steiner did after he 
killed Amber Doughty and Dahlia Sinclair in Pointe Claire in 2000. 
Maybe you want to conspire with your government buddies to steal 
hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of taxpayers' hard-earned 
money (with an unspoken agreement to funnel at least part of it back 
into Liberal Party coffers through donations).

No problem. You'll only get a year, maybe 18 months, in prison, 
whereas if you rob a convenience store and take substantially less 
money, odds are good you'll get more time in prison, not less, even 
though the betrayal of public trust is a lot worse in the former than 
the latter -- ask Paul Coffin or Jean Brault, who will both be 
heading to jail for their part in the sponsorship scandal, but not 
for very long.

Last week, Federal Justice Minister Vic Toews tabled two new bills 
designed to crack down on crime, but neither contained 
minimum-sentencing requirements, which, unfortunately, is exactly 
what is needed right now. It's great to say you're going to get tough 
on crime, but probation, house arrest and community-service edicts 
are not going to teach our young people that it's not OK to do drugs, 
that it's not OK to do whatever you want. The only thing they're 
going to learn is that it's OK to do whatever you want, with no 
consequences, as long as you apologize afterward. And while judges 
need some discretion to find the right sentence for the right 
situation, the option of house arrest for serious, violent crimes 
should be out of the question.

The Valleyfield judge who is letting this kid roam free on the 
streets of Hudson (for now; the family said the kid will be sent to 
Ontario) should be ashamed of himself, because the only thing this 
kid is going to learn from this whole ordeal is don't get caught, 
because things are the same for him as they've always been. Where are 
the consequences?
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman