A driver plowed a rental van through a crowd of pedestrians on a busy Toronto sidewalk Monday, killing 10 and injuring 15, in Canada’s worst mass killing in almost three decades.
Capital punishment was removed from the Canadian Criminal Code in 1976. It was replaced with a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole for 25 years for all first-degree murders.
After the killing spree on Yonge Street will there be a change in attitude about capital punishment in Canada? I have no idea. Canadians are peace loving people.
California does have a capital punishment law. Killers are sentenced to death. As of Aug 24, 2017 there were 747 people in their “death row.” Due to delays and legal challenges, the state hasn’t executed a prisoner more than a decade. Only 13 men have been put to death since capital punishment was restored in 1978.
Clearly California really does not put killers to death. Giving those killers a death sentence probably gives satisfaction to the families that lost loved ones to killers. Is that a good enough reason to keep the law in place? It has been said that Death row inmates have a greater likelihood of dying of old age than actually facing their death through a lethal injection.
A total of 57 countries retain the death penalty law, according to Amnesty, while executions were recorded in 23 nations in their statistics for 2016.
My belief is that if death penalties were actually carried out in a timely manner (trial – found guilty – limited delay for trial errors – limited delay for claims of innocents) then there would be less killing.
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