Mandatory Minimum Sentences: R. V. Latimer

The concept of minimum sentences for certain criminal charges, though always controversial, has remained a staple of Canadian Criminal Justice throughout the decades. In fact, under the current Canadian Conservative government lead by Stephan Harper, mandatory minimums are seeing an increase in popularity amongst policy makers as a response to crime. Mandatory minimums are often part of the ‘tough on crime’ ideology – which often garners public support (Borovoy). However, public opinion is largely just that – opinion, with little true knowledge of the effectiveness of mandatory minimums or their implications for ethical criminal justice operations. Within the legal and criminology fields there exists more of a critical view of mandatory minimums

v Latimer. A farmer from the Canadian west, Robert Latimer was charged and convicted of murdering his daughter, Tracy Latimer. Given that information alone, obviously anyone would not disagree that Latimer is a murderer who deserves a harsh punishment. Under the policy of mandatory minimums, that is how it forced to be considered. However, as evidenced by the fact that the case made its way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, there were more factors at play than a simple act alone (Gabor, 2001). Tracy was severely disabled, being completely unable to function on her own, to the point of being confined to her bed and needing to be spoon fed. Latimer claimed that he did not kill his daughter out of malice, but rather out of compassion and a desire to end her suffering; needless to say her quality of life was very poor. He was convicted of second degree murder, but the unorthodox part of the trial came after that, at sentencing. While there exists some dissent as to the validity of his defence, mainly that Latimer did not do enough to prove that Tracy wanted to die or that she was in enough pain for it to be considering a compassionate act (Sampson, 2001), the judge agreed with his ‘mercy killing’ defence: Latimer was granted a rare constitutional exemption as a workaround for the mandatory minimum. Latimer received

Unfortunately, evidence has shown that mandatory minimums and severity of punishment as a whole is sorely ineffective as a deterrent for crime. The idea of punishment as a deterrent hinges on the perception of criminals as rational actors who, before committing a deviant act, weigh the potential costs and benefits logically (Renke, 2001). Crime is not always the product of careful reflection, many instances are snap judgements which occur too fast to consider the outcomes. In addition, deterrence assumes that criminals are aware of the law and the punishments which will come as a result of crime. As has been already mentioned, the public is largely unaware of the finer details of the criminal justice system, criminals included. To compound this issue, those who are most unaware and uneducated about the law are those of low socio-economic status, which puts them at an increased risk of offending. As Renke notes, based on a meta-analysis of other literature regarding deterrence, the perceived fairness of the law and the criminal justice system factors into whether or not policy can be a deterrent. If an individual or group believes the system to be unfairly biased against them then the authority of the law holds less deterrent weight (2001). Considering that those of low