Punishment should fit the criminal, too

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/08/2011 (5332 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Arkansas murderer Ricky Ray Rector was served his last meal before his execution, he wanted to save his pudding to eat later. He was so mentally impaired he didn’t understand there would be no later.

During his arrest, he shot himself in the head in an apparent suicide attempt. He was left brain-damaged, and, argued his lawyers, unable to understand the criminal charges against him or his resulting death sentence

He was executed on Jan. 24, 1992.

In 2002, American Rickey Dale Newman was sentenced to death for the murder of a 46-year-old woman. Newman represented himself during the one-day trial. He has an IQ of 67, which falls in the range of what the American justice system still calls “mentally retarded.”

He was declared competent to stand trial although his execution was commuted based on his intellectual impairment. He remains in prison.

That same year, the United States Supreme Court ruled “mentally retarded” prisoners could not be executed for their crimes. The court called such executions “cruel and unusual punishment.”

In 1979, Johnny Paul Penry was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a Texas woman. His IQ is estimated to be between 50 and 60.

An IQ level of 144 is a genius level. Between 70 and 84 is below average.

His lawyers argued that Penry, who has the reasoning capacity of a seven-year-old and says he still believes in Santa Claus, should not be executed for his crime.

Several trials later, Penry was sentenced to life in prison.

None of these three men was innocent. The salient question was whether they had the intellectual ability to understand their crimes. Rector was executed. Newman and Penry were not. Their trials polarized the death penalty debate.

If someone can’t comprehend the crime they have committed, should they be punished as though they do? What good will it serve to jail someone who will not return to society having learned the significance of what they have done?

Closer to home, a young Winnipeg man was arrested this week for a string of arsons that destroyed the property and peace of mind of Fort Rouge residents.

Twenty-year-old Brandon Sutyla is charged with 18 counts of arson to property and two counts of arson with disregard to human life.

He was also charged with arson in 2009 and convicted of one count.

His lawyer says Sutyla lacks the “sophistication” to pull off the string of arsons. Apparently his client has ADHD and is cognitively and mentally challenged. He functions at the level of a typical 10-year-old.

His mother said her son has a Grade 6 reading level. Both his mother and lawyer, Martin Glazer, say it is easy to get the mentally vulnerable to confess to crimes they did not commit.

We don’t decide Sutlya’s innocence or guilt. That’s up to the courts. The question is what we do with him when there finally is a verdict. He was already enrolled in a community-support program. He lives with his mother. He seemed to be making progress. Now, he’s back in trouble.

Prison rarely cures people of their inclination toward crime. It’s not likely to teach a permanent lesson to a man with a child’s mind.

If indeed he is too mentally challenged to understand the severity of what he has done (and, again, he is presumed innocent) how do you punish him?

We routinely fail our most vulnerable citizens. The mentally ill and the fragile of mind make do with a patchwork of services.

If Ricky Ray Rector wanted to save the pudding from his last meal, he wasn’t capable of fully understanding the evil he had committed.

If Brandon Sutyla set those fires but couldn’t understand he was endangering life, prison is no place for him.

The punishment should fit the crime. In special circumstances it should fit the criminal, too.

lindor.reynolds@freepress.mb.ca