Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for their testimonies. Everyone was listening with rapt attention.
In the previous session we had Mr. Teague, who represented his interests in terms of what happened to his own family. There was quite a revelation in that he came in with a view that was different from the view he had held previously in terms of feeling some form of...I won't go as far as forgiveness, but some empathy for a convicted person who might be able to change in the system.
Determining an appropriate sentence is a very difficult process, and judges go through this process. It's why somebody before us drafted the complicated section 718. If you wanted to give insult to section 718, you might say it is a bit schizophrenic, because it says we have to consider these principles, and they're competing principles. That's what we all have to recognize.
In my view, they're given equal weight, and judges strive to find the balance. That's what we're trying to do here; we're trying to find the balance between various societal goals. There is deterrence, and deterrence is very important. We have to have general deterrence for crimes in our society. We also have to have denunciation, because it's in the code. It's there, and denunciation is what people feel is just. Denounce what is there.
Then, generally speaking, there are elements that relate to the person who committed the crime. These are principles with respect to rehabilitation, and I know that Marlene will be rehabilitated if we move her BlackBerry away from the microphone. There's rehabilitation and there are elements of remorse, or how the person who committed the crime might be a better person.
But there isn't--and I think we're all struggling with why there isn't--anything specific with respect to what the crime did to the victims of the crime, the victimization of the event. You might say it belongs in denunciation. You might, but it's not. It's something that's perhaps missing. It's not in our code. Maybe the argument should be that we go back to the basics of the code, look at the maximum and minimum sentences, make them mean what they say, and make section 718 more responsive to how we feel we should deal with these after reviewing the evidence.
However, we're not dealing with that. We're dealing with a person who's incarcerated. We, and even representatives of Elizabeth Fry and John Howard, would have to admit that for the first 15 years in these cases, the law says there's no hope of getting out. That's for the first 15 years. With faint hope, there is no hope of getting out, so do we admit that for the first 15 years we're serving the purposes of denunciation and deterrence, and that's the sentence? Even if you had a conversion, became a very worthy person, learned the errors of your ways and all that sort of thing, after the first three, four, five, seven.... Fifteen years is a long time, and there is no hope of your getting out, no hope of parole, but between 15 and 25 years, and periodically, there may be hope through this process.
The question is, why didn't we just write it as 25 years? Why didn't we just write it as 15 years? Why didn't we just write it the way it was? How valuable is it to us to turn people while they're incarcerated? That's a very valid point. These are general questions to everyone.
I have a specific question to Mr. Mandelcorn. Do you, in your experience, believe the elimination of the faint hope provision will alter sentencing or will alter judges' sentences in particular circumstances?
Finally, I couldn't agree more with Ms. Rosenfeldt's statement that there is a spectacle of revictimization each time there is a hearing or evidence is asked for by the chief justice in the first stage. With you, I also believe very much that every victim's family--and I know many--would feel it their duty to appear, and therefore there's no bye and no alleviation of the pain, so we have to be very careful in balancing this and not put families through this incessantly.
Perhaps Mr. Mandelcorn could reply first on that specific point.