“Vengefulness,” said Lionel Kerr, considerable steel in his voice, “is a primitive, unlovely emotion, however human—”
“Let’s save the debate until after we’ve heard from our last panellist.” Ted had actually reached his hand out to cover Lionel Kerr’s mike, but managed to avoid turning the evening into a brawl by changing the action into a gesture towards the man on Kerr’s left. “Eliot Szabo has the floor.”
“Sorry to be the cause of controversy,” said the lawyer. “Although that’s not an entirely new experience for me, it usually doesn’t happen till after I’ve opened my mouth.”
A gust of laughter rustled through the hall. The tension eased.
Szabo wore a grey, chalk-striped suit and managed to do so without the appearance of perspiration. His tie was loosened and the top button of his white shirt undone. He sat sideways in his chair. An amused expression played over a clever, smile-wrinkled face. He had a mannerism of patting his forehead, which was already high and seemed to be making gradually for the nape of his neck. Tufts of mouse-coloured hair stuck out around large jug-handle ears.
“I feel certain,” he said, “that members of the public have been lured here under false pretenses tonight. From the lineup, it looked as if they’d be getting three panellists who’d be tough on crime, and one criminologist. What they got was, first, a populist politician—no swindle there. Second, a crime victim, but not someone to argue that the only justice for victims is stiff penalties for the criminals. Instead of a Hammurabi, you got a return-good-for-evil Christian. Am I right, Martha?”
“Afraid so, Eliot,” Martha Kesler replied.
“Third, the criminologist. Well, you know what they’re like. Some of us Crown counsel think they’re a bit of a soft touch when it comes to crooks. Criminologists are basically sociologists, and that—like any science—is a pretty deterministic business. Science is big on cause and effect, and not much into blame. Lionel will fill in the finer points for us in a minute, but what he’s already said tells you which side of the question he takes.
“The kicker, fourth and last, is that even your prosecutor isn’t quite the crusader against evildoers you may have been hoping for. I’ve spent most of my working life in the defence bar. Those scumbags the public would like to see locked up? I worked my butt off for twenty years trying to keep them out of jail. Last year, I crossed over to the other side—for the money as much as anything. The state may lock too many people up or lock the wrong people up, but at least it pays its legal bills. When I saw that last salary settlement negotiated by the Ontario Crown Attorneys’ Association, I knew which side of the courtroom I belonged on.
“So, Martha is soft on criminals because she’s a Christian and wants to forgive them, Lionel because he’s a determinist and thinks they can’t help it, and me—well, I sympathize with criminals because they’re the people I know and work with. I don’t know many victims. Call it the Stockholm Syndrome if you like. Or think of it as something like a zoologist put on the bat project who ends up sympathizing with bats. Call me a bat-lover or call me just plain bats, but I can’t see that punishment does anyone any good. The public loves it, but it looks like an unhealthy addiction to me.
“I’ll tell you one thing, though. If you want to see crooks punished, mandatory minimum sentences may not be the way to go. Why? Because the Crown gets to decide who will be prosecuted. If we think the mandatory minimum is more than is warranted, we will simply prosecute a lesser included charge. Or not proceed at all and let the accused walk. That may sound high-handed, but it’s based on our knowing that if the penalty seems excessive, judges and juries won’t convict. If we take those cases to trial, we’re just wasting the time we could have spent getting a conviction against some other chump on some other charge.”
Again Ted was quick off the mark. Before the audience could get their hands together, he pointedly thanked Lionel Kerr as well as Eliot Szabo so that the former would not feel he was the only one to get no chance at being applauded. Before the clapping had quite subsided, a new voice came softly and insistently over the sound system.
“Now that the panellists have all had a chance to state where they’re coming from, I’d like to ask a question.”
There were long queues at each of the two audience microphones now. The speaker was an underfed young man with large glasses and short hair.
“Which panellist is this question for?” To Ted’s right, his peripheral vision picked up an extra attentiveness in the posture of Rose Cesario.
“For the three ‘enlightened’ panellists. That is, every one but the first.”
“Fire away.”
The boy shuffled his feet and read his question from a small blue notebook. Wooden seats creaked as audience members turned to look at him.
“Ms. Kesler, Dr. Kerr, Mr. Szabo, I’d like you to think of the person now alive that means the most to you. Please think of the person whose injuries would cause you the most pain. Would the murder of that person change your view of how a murderer should be treated?”
“I just don’t know,” Martha Kesler replied promptly. “To forgive those that’ve trespassed against our loved ones is without doubt harder than to forgive those that’ve trespassed against us. My daughter, for example, is much more bitter about my injuries than I am. Now if she—if Cara—were murdered . . . That’s no small thing you’re asking. I scarcely have the courage to say the words. I just pray that I would be up to the challenge.”
“I put it to you,” said the questioner, “that if your views did change, we’re wasting our time this evening listening to people that don’t know what they’re talking about. And if your views were not changed by such an event, you would not be human.”
Eliot Szabo pulled his microphone towards him.
“It’s better to be human than inhuman. But when we’re at our most human, we’re not always at our most lucid. You pose an interesting dilemma—what’s your name?”
“My name is Tom. What’s your answer?”
“My answer is that if someone I loved was murdered, my views likely would change, but that the vengeful way I’d think then would be wrong and that the way I think now is right.”
“You attach no importance,” the questioner insisted, “to people having the courage of their convictions?”
“Sure I do, Tom. But you can’t judge the truth of an argument by the moral strength or weakness of the arguer.”
This was the point at which Ted had to bite his tongue to keep from jumping in. He understood what Szabo was saying about the fallacy of ad hominem attacks—and yet wondered whether, if a philosophy consistently failed to stand up in the crunch, it was indeed a philosophy for human beings. Recollecting his responsibilities, he asked if Lionel Kerr would like to respond.
“If Tom has been listening,” said Kerr, “he’ll realize that the likelihood that anyone in this room, let alone anyone on this panel, would lose a loved one to murder is negligible.”
Ted wanted to ask if Tom himself had lost someone he loved to murder, but the boy had moved away from the mike and was nowhere to be seen.
The panel discussion wrapped up shortly after eight to leave time for the professionals to get over to University College for the conference keynote address. The evening ended with a reception at the Faculty Club, where Ted reconnected with Lionel Kerr. Years ago, they had done a paper together on victim precipitation of assault