Pubdate: Wed, 12 Dec 2007
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 The Province
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Joey Thompson, The Province

DETOX FIX WOULD DO MORE GOOD THAN 2ND TRIAL

We're not legally permitted to ask members of the jury how they
arrived at the conclusion that Robert Pickton's savage killing spree
was impromptu and unplanned.

Clearly, they figured he executed all the women, or at the very least
helped, but the verdict indicates they also believed each killing was
a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing.

And that doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't take a forensic expert to tell us it's unheard of for a
person to kill spontaneously, or in a blind frenzy, on so many
separate occasions, unless it's of the mass-murder variety when a
killer opens fire on a group.

Even if the seven men and five women figured Pickton's sole task was
to butcher and dispose of the corpses, and that others were
responsible for harvesting the Downtown Eastside for drug-starved
prostitutes to transport to the pig farm, it's still first-degree
murder on Pickton's part, according to Canada's criminal law.

A more apt explanation is that a few jurors -- it may have even been
just one given a verdict has to be unanimous -- refused to convict
Pickton of deliberate, premeditated murder on the grounds Crown didn't
establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Perhaps the holdouts thought the simple, slovenly pig farmer lacked
the smarts to plot, plan and pull off six murders by himself. So they
strong-armed the other jurors into convicting on the lesser included
offence instead. A saw-off, sort of speak, that ensured the depraved
creep faced life behind bars for hopefully the same stretch of time.

Whatever their reason, the fact the jury discarded the
first-degree-murder option is bound to make lawyers' jobs easier on
appeal: as the former head of Vancouver's Missing Women's Task Force
pointed out, many of the judge's 90 legal rulings during the trial
dealt with the admissibility of evidence supporting Crown's theory
that the slayings were deliberate. Those legal rulings, normally rich
in appeal potential, are irrelevant, now.

That's not to imply there won't be an appeal. A senior Vancouver
prosecutor told me Pickton has nothing to lose, except his share of
the multimillion-dollar acreage. And that windfall has likely already
been eaten up by his hefty legal defence, leaving taxpayers to
bankroll future proceedings via legal aid.

All the more reason why government lawyers must stop short of
orchestrating another costly, lengthy, but more iffy
prosecution.

The filthy alleys, squalid single rooms and sorry state of get-clean
choices for DTES users are in the same pathetic shape today as when
the first of roughly 60 hookers vanished years ago.

Nothing has changed.

The region's sickest inhabitants, as well as the families of Pickton's
victims, would gain more from a $46-million (estimated cost of the
first trial) investment in professionally staffed detox and long-term
recovery centres, in honour of the 20 victims listed in the second
string of murders facing Pickton.

Indeed, providing anything less than a full-fledged anti-drug strategy
- -- offering both voluntary and mandatory treatment for those who rob
to feed their habit -- is allowing the Picktons of the world to
continue waging their reign of terror against sickly, vulnerable women. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake