Murder and Go Free....Murder and Go Free....
Ontario seeks Homolka restrictions...
TORONTO (CP) - Ontario's legal battle to limit the freedoms of Karla Homolka upon her release this summer will be brought before a Quebec judge on June 2.
A team of Ontario prosecutors will seek a recognizance order against the schoolgirl killer that could include curfews, mandatory reporting to police and limits on who she can associate with.
We could have our recognizance order in place prior to her release and taking effect the moment she is released," Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant said Thursday.
The victims' families have also provided input into what restrictions they'd like to see against Homolka, Bryant said.
It remains to be seen if the Quebec judge will grant the extraordinary request under a rarely used section of the Criminal Code.
Homolka is nearing the end of a 12-year prison term for manslaughter for the rape and torture deaths of two Ontario schoolgirls. The sentence also took into account the drug-rape death of Homolka's younger sister Tammy.
Although her official release date is July 5, Homolka could be free as early as June 23 under Corrections Canada guidelines.
In a so-called "deal with the devil," Crown officials struck a pact with Homolka to help convict her ex-husband Paul Bernardo, who was subsequently declared a dangerous offender and remains behind bars indefinitely.
... May 13 2005 5:01AM Ontario refuses to release 722 copies of book on Karla Homolka to its author Financial Post May 13 2005
| Homolka to live in Montreal, father says |
| Last updated May 6 2005 08:04 AM EDT |
TORONTO – Convicted schoolgirl killer Karla Homolka will live in a suburban Montreal neighbourhood after she is released from prison this summer, her father says.
In an interview with Global News, Karel Homolka confirmed that his daughter would move to Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grace neighbourhood, a predominantly English-speaking area.Homolka has learned to speak fluent French during her prison sentence, her father said.
Homolka received a 12-year sentence for her role in the torture, rape and murder of Ontario schoolgirls Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. She is serving her time in a federal prison in Joliette, Que.
Her ex-husband, Paul Bernardo, is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Mahaffy and French.
Although her official release date is July 5, Homolka could be free as early as June 23 under Corrections Canada guidelines.
Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant said Thursday a team of Ontario prosecutors will go before a Quebec judge on June 2 to seek restrictions upon Homolka's release.
Last December, the National Parole Board ruled that Homolka must stay in prison for her full sentence, warning that there were enough concerns to justify keeping her in prison.
WHEN Karla Homolka is released from Quebec's Joliette prison on July 5, having served the full 12 years of her sentence, Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant wants restraints imposed because he considers her a danger to the public.
Tim Danson, lawyer for the families of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, whom Homolka and her husband Paul Bernardo murdered (along with Karla's young sister Tammy), also feels she is "too dangerous to release" or that she's a danger to society and "might kill or hurt someone."
CROSS-CANADA ALERT
Bryant has alerted all attorneys general across Canada and "we have ensured that we will, in fact, always be one step ahead of her ... there will be no possibility of her slipping away."
There can't be anyone who doesn't think Karla Homolka got off easy with only a 12-year sentence for killing two girls, and most will applaud Bryant's assessment.
A case can be made that both she and Bernardo deserve to be executed. The fact that Karla plea-bargained her way out of a life sentence is a condemnation of our justice system, which, put bluntly, screwed up in this case.
But Karla as a "dangerous offender" likely to kill or sexually assault again taxes credulity.
We may resent her being freed -- her debt to society ostensibly paid -- but she comes nowhere near being the threat to young girls as do scores of released pedophiles, rapists, sexual predators who are on parole or have served their sentences.
A male rapist whose sentence is served poses a far greater threat to women than Karla Homolka -- not a woman of imposing strength, but one who has been close to a model prisoner for 12 years.
The Warkworth sexual behaviour clinic for offenders has found that 29% of rapists failed their conditional release in the first year (as opposed to 14.4% of child molesters).
There may be a variety of reasons why they failed.
In two years, 47.7% of convicted rapists failed, and after three years 62.9% failed -- which doesn't mean they necessarily committed another crime, but that they couldn't fit in to society.
Other studies (the John Howard Society) indicate that 42% of child molesters were re-convicted of sexual or violent crime during a 15- to 30-year followup. Rapists are twice as likely to commit new sex crimes as child molesters.
In all studies, overwhelmingly it is males, not females, who re-commit violent or sexual crimes.
So while the light sentence to Karla is an obscenity, she's a minimal threat to anyone on her release. The Crown is guilty of making a sweetheart deal with her before the videotapes were found that showed her and Bernardo raping and murdering.
Author Stephen Williams in his book, Karla: Pact With the Devil, had it right when he asked: "How, in the name of all that's holy, does a woman like Karla, who did what Karla did, get the opportunity to pick herself up and just start over?"
How indeed! Yet that's what will happen when, at age 35, she is freed. We may not want Karla back among us, but if we twist the law or fabricate reasons to keep her out of society, we defile the legal system.
Of course, keep track of her and the company she keeps, but she's not the threat that, say, a 200-pound paroled or freed rapist is who may be living unnoticed in a residential neighbourhood.
It's hard to escape the conclusion that people who are offended at Karla being freed simply want her punishment to continue by any means possible.
Many felt that way after the recent verdict in the Air India bombing, in which two accused were acquitted in the deaths of 330 people.
Yet we have to swallow the reality that "law" is more important than "justice."
It was similar in the O.J. Simpson trial, where no one was found guilty of murdering his wife (presumably O.J. is sill looking for the real killer on golf courses), or the recent murder trial of actor Robert Blake, also acquitted of killing his wife.That's how the law works at times.
IT BOTHERS THE FAMILIES
It bothers the families of Karla's victims, as it bothers everyone who remembers the case. But the fact remains that to depict Karla as a threat to anyone seems preposterous.
Author Williams was right to say: "If there were any such thing as justice, (Karla) would at least be rotting in jail for the rest of her life."
But there isn't "justice." There is "law." So don't despoil the latter in search of the former.
Worthington normally appears Friday and Sunday.
Letters to the editor should be sent to: editor@tor.sunpub.com
