Robert Latimer has a problem with the truth. He has a problem telling it, a problem grasping it and a problem understanding it.
When he murdered his 12-year-old daughter Tracy in 1993, Latimer initially lied to the police about it, saying that she died in her sleep, in her bed. In truth he carried the girl out of the house, placed her in his pickup truck, ran a hose from the exhaust pipe and filled the cab with poisonous gas until she was asphyxiated. Then he carried her back in the house and put her in her bed. It was only when an autopsy revealed that she had been murdered in this cold and calculated fashion that he confessed.
That's a pretty natural kind of lie and it's not even necessarily the kind of lie that is inconsistent with his claim that he killed his daughter out of love, that it was a mercy killing meant to end what he saw as a life of constant pain, a life not worth living. It was, however, a lie and a lie that he told to avoid the consequences of what he had done.
Latimer has never been able to grasp the simple truth that his action had to have consequences beyond the praise that he thinks he deserves for it -- and which a surprising number of Canadians seem to think he deserves as well.
After two trials, two guilty verdicts from basically sympathetic juries, and seven years in prison -- he is now out on day parole -- he still believes that he did nothing wrong. He feels no remorse, but he does feel bitter that what he did should be considered a crime by society, the law, the courts and other Canadians. He objects to the fact that the two juries that convicted him were only asked to judge whether he had in fact killed his daughter, an act to which he had already, if somewhat belatedly, confessed.
Murder is clearly a crime and killing is a legal matter but Latimer does not want to judged on the basis of the law like other Canadians. What he wants now is another jury that would be "able to consider whether what I did was right or wrong ... I've never had a jury like that."
Neither has anyone else, of course, unless it's a runaway jury that totally disregards the law. Henry Morgentaler got such juries on his abortion charges and he was acquitted, but those juries made it clear that the national consensus on abortion had dramatically shifted from pro-life to pro-choice and refused to convict him despite the fact that he was clearly guilty -- proudly, arrogantly guilty -- of a crime.
That's the kind of jury that Latimer wants and, if he can win a new trial, he might get one, although there is nothing like the widespread approval of mercy killing today that there was for easier access to abortion back then.
It seems unlikely that Latimer will get a new trial -- that usually happens only when there is new evidence to consider and his case is cut, dried and closed.
At least it is cut, dried and closed as far as almost everyone but Latimer and those few Canadians who devote their own lives to the curious cause of acquiring the legal right to kill people whose lives, they think, are not worth living.
Latimer may be the poster boy of the euthanasia movement but he says that he will not join that cause while on parole. He told the National Post that people who think that he will "are hysterical. I don't know what they're afraid of."
Well, I don't think I'm hysterical, but I do know what I and many other Canadians -- particularly disabled Canadians -- are afraid of. We're afraid of Robert Latimer and people like him who think that they have the right and should have the authority to judge the quality of our lives and to decide whether those lives should continue, as Latimer did with his daughter.
Even here, however, Latimer has a problem with the truth. He says that he won't campaign in favour of euthanasia or a "right-to-die" law. What he will campaign for is a jury that will say that his murdering Tracy was the right thing to do.
I find that distinction hard to make, because if he, or anyone else, can get a jury to bring in a verdict that says there is a "right-to-kill" in Canada, then it will only be a matter of time before that right actually is enshrined in law.
There are three degrees of mercy killing, each one more serious than the one before. One is doing it yourself to yourself because you don't want to suffer any more -- or for whatever other reason. That's more commonly called suicide and is not today illegal.
The second is asking someone else to kill you because you can't take it anymore. This is more commonly called assisted suicide and is against the law, although the law is not as vigorously enforced as it might be.
The third -- Robert Latimer's crime -- is doing it for someone unasked, killing a person without their instruction or consent because you think they would be better off dead. Because there is no consent, this might be more accurately described as doing it to someone, rather than for her; it is most accurately described as premeditated murder and the day that Canadians come to consider it as the "right" thing to do, as Latimer asks us to, will not only be a dark day for Canadians who are disabled, but an even darker one for those who are not.
tom.oleson@freepress.mb.ca
