Death Penalty News

NB:  The following piece was originally published on January 24, 2024 . Mr. Smith was executed by nitrogen hypoxia on January 25, 2024.  Masks made by the subsidiary of a Quebec-based company are being used for executions in the United States, justice advocacy groups say. Alabama plans to execute inmate Kenneth Smith on Thursday by nitrogen hypoxia, in which breathable air is replaced with nitrogen gas, depriving the body of oxygen.

LAST AUGUST a judge sentenced Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, to life in prison with no possibility of parole. It was the first time a court in New Zealand had meted out such a sentence. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister and a liberal icon, took grim satisfaction in the punishment. “Today I hope is the last where we have any cause to hear or utter the name of the terrorist,” she said. Lifelong imprisonment seems to be spreading as a punishment for the worst crimes. In 2019 Serbia passed “Tijana’s law” in response to the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl. It allows judges to sentence some murderers and rapists of children to life in prison without parole. In June last year, after the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl by soldiers, Colombia overturned its constitutional ban on life sentences. Britain’s government recently proposed legislation to reduce the age at which judges can impose “whole-life” sentences from 21 to 18. The most heinous crime...

Recent mass shootings in the United States have tended to confirm Canadians' sense that such events can't happen here. Similar events in Canada are not numerous, but those that have occurred are not well known. In particular, the biggest mass murder in Canada before Air India is almost unknown outside Quebec, where it occurred in 1949. It also involved an attack involving an airplane, but the murderer was motivated by misguided love rather than politics. 3 people hanged as a result of the 23 deaths that ensued, and one might have thought that their crime would have legitimated the death penalty for a long time. Yet, less than a decade after the last of these three went to the gallows in 1953, Canada saw its last state executions. Why? Joseph-Albert Guay had a jewelry business in Quebec City and he also serviced the north shore of the St. Lawrence as far as Baie-Comeau. His marriage to Rita Morel was unhappy, and he began an affair with a teenaged waitress, Marie-Ange...

His lawyers will argue that a sentence exceeding a criminal's lifespan contravenes Charter protections against "cruel and unusual punishment." Lawyers for the man who went on a murderous rampage in a Quebec City mosque will tell a judge Monday that he should not be sentenced to die in prison. Alexandre Bissonnette, who pleaded guilty to killing six Muslim men in January 2017, is scheduled to return to a Quebec City courtroom. Over three days, Bissonnette’s lawyers and the Crown will present arguments to Quebec Superior Court Justice François Huot about the sentence the killer should face. Bissonnette, 28, could be given life in prison without the possibility of parole for 150 years — consecutive 25-year sentences for each of the six first-degree murder charges. That would be the harshest punishment imposed in Canada since the death penalty was abolished. Bissonnette’s lawyers have said they will argue that a sentence that exceeds a criminal’s li...

Hopes for a pardon for the writer are fading, worries his wife who lives in Sherbrooke, Que., and posted that her husband was taken to a remote Saudi prison reserved for those who have received a final verdict. Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to receive 1,000 lashes for his liberal writings, has started a hunger strike after being transferred to a remote penitentiary, his wife has announced. In a post on her Facebook page, Ensaf Haidar said that her husband’s hopes of a pardon  have been dashed because Shabbat Central Prison, where he was taken Thursday, is reserved for those prisoners who have received a final verdict. “We are very alarmed at the prison administration decision to transfer my husband to the Shabbat Central and fear it may lead to the resumption of his flogging,” wrote Haider, who lives with the couple’s three children in Sherbrooke, Quebec. “We hold the prison administration responsible for any harm that Raif may suffer.” Badawi’...

Raif Badawi The Quebec government has granted imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi a selection certificate, a first step meant to speed up his immigration process. "Quebec is behind Raif Badawi," said Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil, who used a special discretionary power to grant the certificate. "His treatment is outrageous — it's cruel and unusual punishment," she said on Friday. She made the announcement alongside members of other provincial political parties — a demonstration of non-partisan support for Badawi, she said. Badawi's wife Ensaf Haidar and the couple's three children now live in Sherbrooke, Que., after escaping Saudi Arabia in 2012. Haidar and her supporters have been pressuring the Canadian government to work to extricate Badawi from his current situation and allow him to join his family in Quebec. Federal Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney on Friday said Canada will continue to pressure the Saudi gover...

In 1798, John Sullivan, an illiterate Irish immigrant new to the town of York, was on a drinking spree with his friend Flannery, nicknamed "Latin Mike" for his habit of reciting quotations he had learned in church. During a spirited drinking bout, Flannery forged a note for three shillings and ninepence (less than a dollar) under the name "Fisk" and persuaded Sullivan to hand it in to the bank. Successful, the pair spent the money on whisky at a local bar, but when they were found out Flannery fled town leaving his friend to take the fall. Sullivan was tried, convicted and hung from a makeshift rig on King Street opposite Toronto Street where a crowd of people in their best clothes had turned out to witness the spectacle. When he finally swung from the gallows — a poorly tied knot failed to kill him the first time — John Sullivan became the first recorded person to be executed in the town of York. The history of execution in Toronto is a grisly one filled with tal...