Crime and punishment

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/11/2023 (1050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“These are unprovoked attacks when she is under the influence of meth,” — Winnipeg Crown Prosecutor Sarah Murdoch at a sentencing hearing for Lanessa Moskotaywenene, March 14, 2023

Lanessa Moskotaywenene is 24 years old. She has been in and out of custody for most of her young life. She suffers from mental illness, made worse by her use of methamphetamine.

“I worry about her risk to the community and the repetition of this type of behaviour,” said Provincial Court Judge Raymond Wyant when sentencing her for a stabbing spree at an Ellice Avenue restaurant a few weeks before last Christmas, an attack that required three ambulance rides. Fortunately her three victims survived. You can read all about it in a Tyler Searle report published in this newspaper on Nov. 15.

This is where I need to pause for legal butt-covering. This visit is focused on a 24-year-old homeless woman with a record of mental health issues and drug use. She now is charged with the stabbings of three people less than a week ago at the Shoppers Drug Mart in Osborne Village. Even though police arrested her shortly after the stabbings at a riverbank encampment close to the store, and her recent release from prison for having committed a similar crime less than 15 minutes from the scene of this one, does not necessarily mean she is guilty in the Osborne Village stabbings on Nov. 12.

The rule of law, which I assiduously follow, informs us that Ms. Moskotaywenene is presumed innocent.

Every judge, prosecutor, and family member of a crime victim as well as paramedics, doctors, nurses and corrections officers know that their jobs are increasingly difficult, because they are asked to pretend that many who are released from custody won’t do it again and again. That leaves my informed opinion, wearing a sad face, knowing the public is not protected by a legal system tethered to fantasy.

The judges, when sentencing criminals with mental health problems, routinely order them to stay off drugs, or else they are violating their probation. But the judges all know that if the minds of these people were able to process probation orders properly, they wouldn’t be in and out of custody. Their victims wouldn’t be in and out of ambulances.

There are many lies we tell ourselves in this world.

The biggest one is that crime is difficult to solve.

Are you kidding me? It sometimes takes only hours for detectives to solve a crime. They relocate the usual suspects and rearrest them. Many crimes are not difficult to solve.

The nasty nettlesome piece of this grotesque puzzle is how to punish criminals without harming the constitution. On talk radio for years, I would ask, “Is the coddling of the constitution more important than the protection of the public?”

Criminal lawyers will tell you the public cannot be defended unless the constitution is protected. Others will tell you that’s absolutely true, on paper.

The problem is we don’t live our lives on paper.

The legal system has a vital interest in public safety — on paper.

In the real world, it’s about processing people who violate the law.

For various reasons including mental illness and drug use, many violate again and again. That’s why they’re known as career criminals. That’s why the careers of cops and paramedics and every one else in the system are stressed.

When you find yourself participating in the revolving door of injustice, the stress level can feel higher than the Richardson Building.

Some people wonder why poll numbers are deep in the dungeon for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The No. 1 issue is affordability. The price of housing and ham are high.

But career criminals, high on drugs, are also on voters’ minds. Pierre Poilievre prosecutes the PM every day. Roughly two out of five voters think he can be a more effective PM. The punishment-averse legal system is helping Poilievre’s political ambition.

Does that mean that 40 per cent of the public believe he can fix the system? Some voters may buy that.

For most, it’s good enough that he shows a level of contempt for the system that mirrors their own. The finger he gives the system is their finger.

Prime Minister Trudeau is one of the most talented retail politicians I have ever met. But I have never seen him show contempt for the legal system. It’s not in his DNA.

He does best with three virtues that aren’t polling high — hope, empathy, and compassion.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. charles@charlesadler.com