How Luka Magnotta’s defense team is trying to justify a murderer’s actions:

As the Luka Magnotta trial continues, it brings to light the burden and costs our justice system endures prosecuting and trying to convict a self-confessed murderer. After already spending over $370,000 to return him from Germany, it will likely cost Canadians hundreds of thousands more as the trial is being held in a high-security court room and expected to take at least six weeks. The expense and effort involved in trying to find a guilty man guilty may sound absurd, but that isn’t even my biggest concern; what if this guy actually gets off?

Many are comparing this case to an eerily similar one a few years ago when Vincent Li, later diagnosed with schizophrenia; stabbed, beheaded, and cannibalized a 22 year old man on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba. Li was subsequently found not criminally responsible and was remanded to a mental facility. He was later granted unsupervised outings as his doctors claimed he was no longer a threat to society. The cases are similar, but differ in the fact that even with Li’s history of mental illness, his actions were likely not predictable. Magnotta on the other hand, showed all kinds of indications he was a calculating psychopath. He spent time in a mental ward, was known to several psychiatrists, posted videos on-line of him killing cats, and emailed a UK journalist indicating he wanted to kill someone and film it. He followed through a year later when he lured a young student to his apartment and repeatedly stabbed him with an ice pick and kitchen knife. The victim was tied to a bed frame, murdered, dismembered, and his body parts were sent to schools and politicians (including Stephen Harper). Magnotta filmed the slaughter, posted it on-line, and then skipped the country. Though his actions were organized and premeditated, his defense is claiming he shouldn’t be held criminally responsible because he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong. As crazy as that seems, and in spite of overwhelming evidence including his confession; prosecutors still have to prove Magnotta knew he was committing a crime. It may not be as easy as it sounds as he’s proven himself as someone who can manipulate professionals. Just weeks before the murder he had a one hour psychiatric session in which he was cleared okay to go.

There is no doubt mental illness is a complex, serious, and mostly treatable disease; I don’t think you’ll find anyone to dispute that. It makes perfect sense to make sure someone struggling with it gets the help they need. But what do you do when someone proves capable of taking a life; should they ever be allowed their freedom again? In the case of Magnotta, he has shown the mind and actions of a ruthless psychopath with little or no conscience; how could we ever possibly be assured therapy or medicine will keep those demons at bay. And who makes that call… the psychiatrists arguing on the persecutor’s behalf, the defense’s behalf, or the psychiatrist that cleared Magnotta weeks before he murdered and mutilated an innocent person? Perhaps the process should be that the person(s) approving their release into the public has to allow them to babysit their kids or grandkids for a night first, or spend a few days in their home… just a thought.

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