Canadians and people in other countries keep falling for the Nigerian letter scams. Fraud artists are finding it easier amid a battered economy to entrap the gullible with dubious offers once easily dismissed as scams, and are snaring a growing number of victims to the tune of millions of dollars a month. The scam operates as follows: the target receives an unsolicited fax, email, or letter often concerning Nigeria containing either a money laundering or other illegal proposal. The Nigerian Scam is, according to published reports, the third to fifth largest industry in Nigeria. Some scams originate from other West African nations including Ghana, Togo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast etc. In most cases, these emails come from other nations such as European nations like the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Russia and even Canada and the United States. The advantages that the scammers in Russia have is that Russia permits the Internet providers to mask the sender's source IP address, making the scammers completely untraceable even in the country of origin.
It has been estimated that there's over 100,000 people all over the world earning a living from scamming people around the world. The scammers are making their websites to look legitimate so that innocent dupes will fall for them. Scammers will also make up company names so that most of the business names appearing in our emails simply don’t exist at all.
The Competition Bureau of Canada is warning that recessions are ‘boom times for scammers’ and predicts desperate Canadians will fall into traps offering easy cash online, by phone and mail. The victims are increasingly falling prey to scams of all types.
Ploys such as the ‘lottery scams’ that had virtually disappeared because the public had gotten wise to the ruse are now making a comeback. Because of the current economic turndown, people are getting desperate and are now falling for even the most outlandish scams. Among those scams are the so-called Nigerian letter scams, which typically offer too-good-to-be true promises of untold millions from an African country or other country in exchange for some simple help generally with a few bank transactions.
The offer; which is usually passed along in broken English and riddled with grammatical errors sees most Internet users simply hitting delete. Still, an average of ten Canadians each month continue to fall for it and get soaked for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the first six months of the year, there were more than 7,000 mass-marketing fraud victims, including 3,903 Canadians, with losses totaling almost $26.5 million. June, 2009 was a relatively slow month for victims of the letter scam in Canada, with only four people reporting losses of a total of almost $73,000. But in May, eleven Canadians fell for the letter scam and were taken for a total of almost $571,000; while a U.S. victim reported he lost $200,000 in a scam with Canadian links. Last year, more than 11,000 victims reported more than $9.6 million in losses. In 2008, about 57 per cent of the 14,201 victims of mass-marketing scams with Canadian connections were from other countries, while the percentage was about 67 per cent in 2007. Those numbers only scratch the surface, since authorities usually only hear from victims who have lost a lot of money. Many who get taken for $100 or less don't bother reporting they've been scammed.
The scammers are generally attempting to get one of three things from the victims. They are; enough particulars from the victim’s personal background so that false ID can be created in his or her name; (however that isn’t done as often as one would think. They usually ask for the information so that the scammer can appear as being legitimate nevertheless, the chance of false ID abuse can not be excluded, especially for passport data and bank account information), the victim is told that the money will be sent but first, the taxes have to be paid, (this is where the victims lose their money) and finally, their bank particulars so that money can be withdrawn from it by the scammers.
At some point, the victim is asked to pay up front an Advance Fee of some sort, be it an ‘Advance Fee’, ‘Transfer Tax’ or ‘Performance Bond’. If the victim pays the fee, there are often many ‘so-called complications’ which require still more advance payments until the victim either quits, runs out of money, or both.
Current fraud emails involving ‘Nigeria letter’ and fake lotteries trace back to an idea known as the ‘Spanish prisoner scam’, which goes back to before 1914 (World War I) and before it the ‘Letter from Jerusalem scam’ was documented by Vidocq after the French Revolution. Modern variants of the scam started circulating from Nigeria by fax and postal mail in the 1980s and netted quite a few, often quite wealthy victims worldwide during the 1990s. The scam crossed over into email in the late 1990s and now it is the main method of communication used by the scammers.
You would be surprised just how many people from all walks of life have become victims of this kind of scam. Some are businessmen or academics. In some cases people have even committed other crimes, such as stealing money from their employers, to cover the advance fee payments, hoping they would be able to repay the money from the promised fortune before anybody would notice.
They all have one of three things in common. The scammers want to get as much personal information about me so that they can create identification that is in my name and use it for their own purposes, they want my bank particulars so that they can illegally withdraw my money from it or they want me to come up with money for the ‘expenses’ such as taxes, lawyer’s or accountant’s fees which they claim is required to transfer those millions to me. The victims think a few hundred or a few thousand dollars is trivial when millions are at stake. Each demand for more money is claimed to be the very last obstacle before the big money is released. Sometimes, the victim is lured to Nigeria, where even worse things happen. I was told by a police officer friend of mine that a Canadian went to Nigeria to find out why the money wasn’t transferred and soon after his arrival, he was murdered.
One way that you can determine that an illegal attempt is being made to seek personal information from you or otherwise scam you out of your money, is to look for mistakes in the messages. When you read the email sent to you, you will see that the senders have the language skills of a fourth grader. Notice the unnecessary capitalization of words, improper grammar and complete lack of sentence structure they use in their messages. Their spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes are peppered throughout their messages. I have underlined the mistakes in the messages and offered my comments on each of messages that were sent to me so far in 2009, beginning with the latest one.
As in most scams like the ones I am presenting to you, using even the slightest amount of caution will show you that the offers are a scam. For example, did you know these people? How did they get your email address? These two questions should automatically open up your eyes real wide to the fact that someone is attempting to scam you. The following are scams that were sent to me by email from January 6, to July 4, 2009. I will begin with the latest one I received.
Received in my email on July 4, 2009
This scam letter is supposed to make me believe that I am the recipient of a grant. You know you are dealing with an Internet email scam when the opening sentence says, “You were selected...” or similar words.
United Nations Trust Fund
Switzerland Department of Humanitarian Affairs
Palais des Nations CH-1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Congratulations Beneficiary,
your email has been selected by the United Nations(UN) for a cash grant award of Six Hundred And Fifty Thousand Five hundred GREAT BRITISH POUNDS, (650,500.00GBP) for this year 2009 award. Your email address was selected during our random email balloting for the cash grant and if you receive this notification, it means that you are a lucky beneficiary of our cash grant award. The united nations authorities has decided to give this award to 15 beneficiaries from all over the world to help facilitate and improve the standard of living to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf for developing States, in particular the least developed countries and small island developing States, and compliance with article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This grant is been aided by the United Nations development programme and the united nations trust funds for human security. Your cash grant pin number is (UNO-154/4456/011)
Contact our corresponding office (United Nations Trust Funds ) in Liverpool, United Kingdom and they will give details on how your funds would be remitted to you. Do contact our payment office immediately with the informations below. Your grant numbers fall within your Location file, you are requested to contact the event manager/Claims Department, send your winning identification numbers and fill the verification form below, to enable him verify your claims.
1.FULL NAMES OF DONATION BENEFICIARY:..................
2.RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:........................
3.DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:.........................
4.WINNING EMAIL:...........................
5.PHONE/FAX NUMBERS:............................
6.NAME AND ADDRESS OF NEXT OF KIN:..............
7.SEX:....................
8.OCCUPATION:...................
9.MARITAL STATUS:..................
10.COUNTRY:..................
11.NATIONALITY:..........
Do contact our payment office immediately with the informations below.
Payment Officer: Dr.Nathan Giroux
Tell: +4470359 93503
Email: claims undept101@live.com
Regards,
Mrs. Ruth Williams
UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL
My comments
In this message, there are a great many mistakes. Far too many for an official message to have been sent by the United Nations. Some of the mistakes are glaring. I have underlined the mistakes and will explain why the mistakes are stupid mistakes.
The United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland has a department called, Department of Humanitarian Affairs However, it is not prefaced with the proper noun, Switzerland. In fact when you go to Google and type in Switzerland Department of Humanitarian Affairs, a message will come up telling you that the message is a scam.
You will note that there is a comma at the end of the word, Beneficiary. An educated person would put a colon after the word, not a comma.
You will note that the word, ‘your’ does not begin with a capital as it should when it is the first word in a sentence.
You will also note that the second and third times the words ‘United Nations’ is written, the words are not capitalized.
The following mistake is so obvious; it makes you wonder just how stupid the author of the message really is. He or she wrote;
“The united nations authorities has decided to give this award to 15 beneficiaries from all over the world to help facilitate and improve the standard of living to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf for developing States, in particular the least developed countries and small island developing States….”
Did the dummy not realize that I live in Canada, a country that has one of the world’s highest standards of living and a country that is definitely not one of the least developing countries or a small island developing State that the author of the message assumed that I was a citizen of?
Further, when the scammer said in part, “The united nations authorities has decided to give this award ….” The scammer used the word ‘has’ which is only used when the noun before it is singular. He should have used the word, ‘have’ because the word, ‘authorities’ is plural. Further, United Nations is capitalized.
The scammer typed in the word, ‘informations’. The word ‘informations’ doesn’t exist because the word, ‘information’ can be used to imply one or many just as the word, ‘sheep’ does.
The words, ‘event manager’ should have been capitalized because that is the title of an official.
The dummy wrote; “…. send your winning identification numbers…..” but that doesn’t make sense since the dummy only gave me one grant pin number and not two or more grant pin numbers.
The dummy also used the word, ‘claims’ as if I was making more than one claim for the money when he previously used the singular word, ‘payment’.
It isn’t necessary to preface a sentence with the word, ‘Do’ when you are giving instructions for some one to contact an office.
The stupidest mistake was when the dummy wrote in the name, Mrs. Ruth Williams as being the United Nations Secretary General. First of all, so far, no woman has ever held that post and second of all, the post is currently held by Mr. Ban Ki-moon.
Where did the scammer get the information about the United Nations Trust Fund? The Fund was created in March of 1999 by the Government of Japan and the United Nations Secretariat. At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called upon the world community to advance the twin goals of 'freedom from want’ and ‘freedom from fear. As a contribution to this effort, an independent Commission on Human Security was established. The United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security finances projects carried out by organizations in the UN system, and when appropriate, in partnership with non-UN entities, to advance the operational impact of the human security concept. Projects are distributed globally, with priority given to countries and regions where the insecurities of people are most critical and pervasive, such as the least developed countries and countries in conflict. Its function is to place priority on projects that address more than one element among the following situations and shall pay particular attention to the special needs and vulnerabilities of women and children. Its function includes assisting community-level efforts to establish mechanisms to protect people exposed to extreme poverty, sudden economic downturns and natural disasters.
The United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security in Security Council’s Resolution 1244 in June 2009 listed the 71 countries where the Fund would apply and Canada, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the other countries in Europe along with Australia, New Zealand and Japan which are all well developed countries are not listed in the Fund as recipients of the Fund’s money. Since my email address is listed in Canada where I live, it follows that no monies from that Fund would be sent to me and further, I would not be getting a personal message from the Secretary General of the United Nations telling me that I would be receiving $650,500.00 from the Fund.
The purpose of the Fund is to assist poor people in underdeveloped countries. What makes the scammer's message so ridiculous is that the monies would be sent to me because my email address was selected at random. The UN does not operate a lottery.
Received in my email on May 26, 2009
This scam letter is supposed to make me believe that I have won a lottery, one that I didn’t even enter. Everyone wants to win the lottery so this one is enticing to the unsuspecting fools who are too stupid to ignore the message. Legitimate lotteries don't use email to notify winners. Either the winners have to come forward on their own or they are notified by registered mail.
QUEEN'S LOTTERY
Ref: QNL/9420X2/68
Batch: 074/05/QNL369
WINNING NOTIFICATION!!!
We happily announce to you the draw (#80) of the QUEEN'S LOTTERY, 2009. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 56475600545 188 with Serial number 5368/02 drew the lucky numbers: 12-18-22-33-43-48-25, which subsequently won you the lottery in the 1st category. You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of $1.5 million USD (One Million Five Hundred Thousand million United State Dollars) in cash credited to file KTU/9023118308/09.
All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web sites through a computer draw system and extracted from over 100,000 unions, associations, and corporate bodies that are listed online. For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning code confidential till your money is remitted to your designated bank account. This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid unwarranted abuse of this program.
Please be warned. Queen's Lottery is promoted and sponsored by a conglomerate of multinational companies in commonwealth countries as part of their social responsibility to the citizens in the communities where they have operational base.
To file for your claim, you are required to forward the following details to our
verification department.
Full names................
Residential address.......
Phone number................
Occupation..............
Sex.................
Age.............
Nationality................
Contact Person: Mr Richard White
Email: claims_dispatchunit1109@queens-lotto.co.cc
Yours sincerely
Harry White.
Online coordinator for QUEEN'S LOTTERY International Program.
Warning!!!
Fraudulent emails are circulating that appear to be using Queen's Lottery
addresses, but are not from The Queen's Lottery. PLEASE REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO CUSTOMER CARE/COMPLAINTS DEPT via this email:customercareunit@queens-lotto.co.cc
My comments
First of all, notice the word ‘million’ added after the words, ‘Five Hundred Thousand’. The additional word million is pointless.
Second, he didn’t add the word,‘a’in the following sentence----“All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web sites through (a) computer draw system…..”
Third, the United States is not written as the United ‘State’. The word, State is singular when in fact it would be plural.
Fourth, they have stated that the money will be sent to ‘your designated bank account’ which means that they are actually looking for the name of my bank, the address of my bank and my bank account number so that they can withdraw my money from it after I give them all the other information they are seeking in their message. If they were honest, they would send me a bank draft or certified cheque (check) instead of asking me for my bank information. Admittedly, they could then get my bank information but only after I received from them one million five hundred thousand dollars in US funds. But my bank information would be useless to them because I would then close that account and open another one.
Fifth. It is beyond me as to why the dummy typed in the following words, Please be warned just before the dummy begins to describe what his corporation is. Does this mean that he is warning me about his corporation?
Sixth. He typed in the words, FULL NAMES. The word NAMES should not be plural because the words are supposed to be FULL NAME since the full name of a person includes their first, second and last names.
Seventh. He didn’t put a period after the word, Mr.
Eight. You will note that I was to contact Richard White but the message was sent to me by Harry White.
The scammer would insist that I pay the taxes up front to the scammer. Legitimate lottery companies don't charge a fee, ask for the taxes up front or demand bank information in order for you to receive your winnings. Fake lotteries do, and then don't deliver any winnings.
The message was obviously sent by someone who obviously doesn’t proof read his messages before he sends them out.
Received in my email on May 6, 2009
This scam letter is supposed to make me believe that I have inherited a great deal of money. This is the typical unsolicited Good Samaritan offer that drops into your email inbox from somebody you don't know from overseas. In scams where the victim is a supposed heir to a dead foreigner, the paperwork and ID submitted for those bogus claims is sometimes used in conjunction with bank account information for falsifying wire transfer instructions to the victim's bank in order to transfer money out of the victim’s account.
Dear Friend,
I'm MR .DERRA DENZ, an accountant in a financial institution here in BURKINA FASO. I have decided to contact you for a fund transfer transaction worth the sum of US$10,500,000.00 into your reliable bank account as the sole NEXT-OF-KIN to the foreign deceased customer of our bank (an International Billionaire French Businessman) who was killed with his entire family by PLANE-CRASH in Central England in the year 2003. Since his death occured, no body have show up as his next of kin for the claim because the account is untraceable.
Upon the investigation I carried out from his records, I found out that his foreign business consultant who would have trace the account died earlier before the deceased. Therefore, this is a confidential and sealed deal.
For the success of this transaction, you should apply and act as the only existing NEXT-OF-KIN to the deceased which our bank will replace the deceased account information through proper documentation in position of your own account.
This transaction is risk-free, it will never harm your good reputation in your society because no one can trace the account, and on the instant of the transfer of the fund into your account, the chapter of this transaction will be closed entirely.
Note that in a business of this nature, the bank doesn't want to know your difference between the deceased country, religion or believe because our bank inheritance law is against that. So, it is a preference for us__achieve this success without any problem.
Please note down that once the fund get transferred into your account, you will take 39% of the total sum for the assistance and role you are going to play in this transaction,(11%) will be used to establish a charity organization in your country with your supervision while the remaining will be for me and my other loyal colleagues here.
I need your urgent response__ and include your private telephone/mobile numbers for easy communication. Please reply if you can be trusted in this deal.
Thanks,
DERRA DENZ
My comments
Again, I am bombarded with submissions of stupid and an uneducated scammer.
First, he referred to my bank account being reliable. How would he know what the standing of my bank account is? In Canada, it is against the law for anyone to look into another person’s bank account unless that person is an employee of the bank or unless the bank customer has given his or her written permission.
Second, he misspelled the word occurred by spelling it as occured.
Third, he said, “….no body has shown up….” He should have written; “…..nobody or no one has shown up…..”
Fourth, he said that the “…..account is untraceable.” If that is so, then why did he later say; “….our bank will replace the deceased account information through proper documentation in position of your own account.” If that were possible, then the account would not be untraceable.
Fifth, he said, “….you should apply and act as the only existing NEXT-OF-KIN to the deceased…..” Since I haven’t been given the full name of the so-called deceased person he claims was a French billionaire, how could I know whether or not I was related to him? Not only that, even though the supposed deceased person and his family were killed, if the offer was legitimate, and a real relative were to show up and claim the money, I could be personally be held liable not only for the 39% this dummy promised me but also for the 81% of the money the dummy kept for himself.
Sixth, am I to really believe that the dummy would trust a stranger to give him back 61% of the so-called estate that he claims is mine simply because he found the so-called untraceable funds?
Received in my email on March 7, 2009
This scam letter is supposed to make me believe that a dying woman wants to give me her inheritance. These con artists try to tie in a tragic event with a large lump sum payment if only you would help.
Brethren in the lord.
Greetings to you and your family! My name is Mrs. Ashley Johnson. I am 59 years old deaf aging widow suffering from a terminal disease Cancer for about 5 years now. I have just been informed by my doctor that I have a short time now to live on earth, ___I have no kids and my husband is dead and most of my trusted relatives are also dead.
During my quiet time with the lord, he has directed me to inform you of his desire to have you as his servant, I inherited the sum of US$8,800.__000 from my late husband and now that I have a short time to live on earth, I sought for an honest person that will distribute the funds amoung the charity homes, I got your contact through a deep search of likely relatives.
However, I have realized that if anything happens to me now, the bank will use that as an opportunity to confiscate the funds. Hence I have prayed and cried to the lord for divine direction and he gave me a vision of faith in my dreams then I woke up and opened my bible to Leviticus 5:15 : which says, "If any one commits a breach of faith and sins unwittingly in any of the holy things of the LORD or defy the lord's command, he shall bring, as his guilt offering to the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flock, valued by you in shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary; it is a
guilt offering.
I beseeched the LORD to direct my steps and I am now imploring you to help me realize my dream and obey God's command, more privileged information will be communicated to you upon our receipt of your positive response.
I look forward to your prompt and committed response, you should have no course to entertain any fear at all hence the transaction is 100% risk free.
Regards
Mrs. Ashley Johnson.
My comments
This fool also made blunders in his message.
First. When referring to God as the Lord, the L is always capitalized. Twice, he used lower case.
Second. She used a comma instead of a period after her name in her first sentence.
Third. She wrote; “I am 59 years old deaf aging widow…” when in fact she should have written “I am 59 years old and I am a deaf, old widow…”
Fourth. She should have bracketed the word Cancer so that the sentence read; “….suffering from a terminal disease (cancer) for about 5 years now. The word ‘cancer’ doesn’t have to have its first letter capitalized unless it is the first word in a sentence.
Fifth. She should have put a period after the word ‘earth’ instead of a comma.
Sixth. A period should be after the word, servant, not a comma.
Seventh. “….sum of US$8,800.000… “There should be a comma after the first three zeros, not a period.
Eighth. “…..I sought for an honest person….” She should have used the word ‘sought’ in the following manner; “I sought an honest person….” or alternatively, written it this way; “….I searched for an honest person…”
Ninth. “…..distribute the funds amoung the charity homes….” The word should have been spelled ‘among’ and not ‘amoung’.
Tenth. A period should have been placed after the word ‘homes’ instead of a comma.
Eleventh. She wrote; “I got your contact through a deep search of likely relatives.” Instead of using the word ‘contact’ she should have sued the words, “your email address’
Twelfth. It is beyond me as to why used the word likely. It doesn’t make any sense at all.
Thirteenth. A period should follow the word ‘response’ and then the word ‘you’ could be capitalized since it is the beginning of a new sentence.
Fourteenth. She said in part, “….you should have no course to entertain any fear…” The word she should have chosen is ‘cause’.
The woman (if it was a woman) that wrote that message was terribly uneducated in the English language, especially with respect to spelling, grammar, punctuation and the use of words.
Received in my email on January 23, 2009
This scam letter is offering me a partnership in which I will get 40% of
twenty-one million English pounds.
Mr. Rashid Saif Al-Jarwan
General Manager
Dana Gas,
United Arab Emirates
Dear Friend,
I am brokering an Investment deal in your country.This deal will involve
the eventual investment of GBP21. (Twenty-One Million Pounds Sterling's)
in your country.I am Mr. Rashid Saif Al-Jarwan the General Manager and also one of the New Executive Director of Dana Gas in United Arab Emirates.So I am by
this letter offering you a partnership, so as to allow me have you as
representative and manager of invested funds in your country within the
time frame of the investment/partnership scheme.I am contacting you because I want you to deal with my attorney (Frank Robertson) base in United Kingdom and the payment bank and claim the money on my behalf.You shall also be required to assist me in investment in your country.I hope to trust you as a God-fearing person who will not sit on this money when you claim it,rather assist me properly,___ share in this percentage, 60% to me and 40% to you.I will need your positive response so that my attorney we give you viable information relating to this project. My Attorney is base in United Kingdom (Frank Robertson) because you have to deal with him directly because I have already told my company that the funds belong to a foreign business partner.What I need is for you to indicate your interest that you will assist us by receiving the money on my behalf. For this, you shall be considered to be direct owner to the funds.The project in brief, is that the funds with which we intend to carry out our proposed investments in your country, is presently in the custody of a bank in Europe. I do not want my Company to know about the money because they will believe I got the money from the sales of Oil $ Gas.I will need you to forward your details to my attorney that will instruct the payment bank for the release of the funds to your account. I intend to use my own share in acquiring some estates abroad.For this too you shall also be the overseas manager of all our properties and you will be paid based on a certain percentage agreed on by both parties.I guarantee you that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.Please get in touch with my attorney urgently by E-mail:frank1234@mail2consultant.com Please, provide me the following:
1. Full Name
2. Your Telephone Number and Fax Number
3. Your Contact Address.
4. Sex
5. Age
6. Country
Best Regards.
Mr. Rashid Saif Al-Jarwan
My comments
This is another hoaxer who hasn’t grasped the full use of the English language.
First. The word, ‘Sterling’ is not pluralized any more than the word ‘sheep’ is.
Second. He wrote, in part; “….also one of the New Executive Director of Dana Gas…” He should have pluralized the word ‘director’.
Third. He wrote; “I want you to deal with my attorney (Frank
Robertson) base in United Kingdom….” The word base should have been written as ‘based’
Fourth. The word, investment should have been pluralized.
Fifth. He wrote; “I hope to trust you as a God-fearing person who will not sit on this money when you claim it, rather assist me properly ___share in this percentage…” He left out four words. The sentence should have read; “I hope to trust you as a God-fearing person who will not sit on this money when you claim it ‘but instead’ assist me properly ‘by sharing’ in this percentage…”
Sixth. Having already referred to his lawyer’s name and where he is based, he didn’t then have to later repeat the same information.
Seventh. The dollar sign doesn’t have to go in between the words Oil and Gas. I think he punched $ instead of &. This clearly means that he didn’t proof read his message.
Eighth. He wrote in part; “…details to my attorney that will instruct…” The word ‘that’ is used when referring to an object or thing and not when referring to a human being. He should have used the word, ‘who’.
You will note that the information he is seeking from me (if given to him) could easily be used to create a new ID in my name. For example, if he knew my age, he could then match it with a face that belongs to someone my age and then print in a bogus date of birth on the passport or other official document.
In his message, he said, “I do not want my Company to know about the money because they will believe I got the money from the sales of Oil $ Gas." What he means is that he is going to rip off his fellow directors and he wants me to be part of the theft of the company’s money. That is not only a quick way to go to prison but a sure way to go bankrupt when the directors find out who I am and sue me for the money back along with the interest that has accumulated. This is of course premised on the fact that the company actually exists.
There are many scams sent my people who claim that they were in Iraq and that they have access to a great deal of money found in barrels on a farm near one of Saddam’s palaces.
Received in my email on January 16, 2009
Attention.
Business Proposal, please Contact me on my private email ede26@verizon.net My name is Sgt DAVID DOVER I am an American soldier with Swiss background, serving in the military with the army's 3rd infantry division based in Iraq/Baghdad. With a very desperate need for assistance, I have summed up courage to contact you. I found your contact particulars in an address journal. I am seeking your kind assistance to move the sum of $25 Million U.S. Dollars Twenty Five Million, United State Dollars to you, as far as I can be assured that my share will be safe in your care until I complete my service here, this is no stolen money, and there are no danger involved.
Source Of Money: Some money in various currencies was discovered in barrels at a farmhouse near one of Saddam's old palaces in Ticket-Iraq during a rescue operation, and it was agreed by staff Sgt Kenneth buff and I that some part of this money be shared among both of us before informing anybody about it since both of us saw the money first. No compensation can make up for the risk we have taken with our lives in this hell hole. Of which my share will be safe in your care until I complete my service here, this is no stolen money, and there are no danger involved. kindly indicate your interest in assisting me as well as Providing the following information to facilitate the smooth conclusion of the consignment fund delivery to your door step.
1) Your Full Name:
2) Your Address:
3) Your Age And Occupation:
4) Your Mobile Telephone Number:
5) Your Direct Email Address:
6) Your Fax Number:
7) The Name of the Closest Airport to your City of
Residence:
8) Your country and your present location:
One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this misinformation to facilitate the smooth conclusion of the consignment fund delivery to your door step. One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this matter with anybody, should you have reasons to reject this offer, please and please destroy this message as any leakage of this information will be too bad for us soldier? here in Iraq. I do not know how long we will remain here, and I have been shot, wounded and survived two suicide bomb attacks by the special grace of God, this and other reasons I will mention later has prompted me to reach out for help, I honestly want this matter to be resolved immediately, please contact me as soon as possible my only way of communication email.I also want you to tell me how much you will take from this money for the assistance you will give to me. I wait for your reply via my private email address as soon as possible ede26@verizon.net
God Bless You As You Help Out In This Transaction.
Sgt. David Doover.
My comments
This scammer is just as stupid as the others are. Here are the reasons.
One. The word, ‘Proposal’ should have ended with a period, not a comma.
Two. His name ‘DOVER” should have ended with a period. He didn’t put any punctuation after his name.
Three. Since the words, “…..3rd infantry division…” is a proper noun, the first letter of each word following 3ed should have been capitalized.
Four. There is no such thing as an address journal. He should have written, ‘address book’. In any case, I don’t know any American soldiers or any civilians living in Iraq so it follows that no such address book exists with my name in it that was previously in the possession of anyone in Iraq.
Five. When you write an amount of money that is in American funds, you don’t type U.S. Dollars after it. He should have written the amount as, $25 Million US.
Six. When you write a numerical figure that has two words, such a twenty-five dollars, you type a hyphen in between the two words. He didn’t do this.
Seven. He typed “…..United State….” when he should have typed United States.
Eight. He typed, “…..as far as I can be assured….” When he should have typed, “….as ‘soon’ as I can be assured…..”
Nine. He should have typed a period after the word ‘here’.
Ten. He typed, “this is no stolen money….” He should have typed, “This is ‘not’ stolen money…”
Eleven. He typed, “…..money in various currencies was discovered in barrels at a farmhouse near one of Saddam's old palaces….” and then claims that he and his partner are not stealing the money. The money in fact (if it exists) belongs to the Iraqi people so in reality, if he and his partner found the money and tried to slip it out of Iraq undetected, he is stealing it and he wants me to be a part of the theft.
Twelve. He typed in an Iraqi city as Ticket-Iraq. No such city in that country exists. There is however a city called Tikrit in Iraq. It was in that city that Saddam had a palace.
Thirteen. When typing in a rank that is followed by a name, such as staff sgt., it should be written as thus, Staff Sgt., and not as staff sgt.
Fourteen. What was a truly stupid mistake was when the scammer didn’t capitalize the first letter of his so-called partner’s name.
Fifteen. The scammer unnecessarily repeated the following badly written sentence. “…..until I complete my service here, this is no stolen money, and there are no danger involved.” Grammatically, it was a disaster. He should have written it as follows; “…..until I complete my service here. This is ‘not’ stolen money and there ‘is’ no danger involved.”
Sixteen. He should have capitalized the first letter of kindly since it begins a sentence and he should not have capitalized the word Purpose since it is in the middle of a sentence.
Seventeen. He really made a blunder when he wrote in part; “…..is not to discuss this misinformation….” He meant to say, ‘information’ but by typing in the word, ‘misinformation’ he was subliminally telling his readers that his message is based on misinformation. Of course, the scammer was too stupid to catch his glaring error.
Eighteen. He typed in; “…..any leakage of this information will be too bad for us soldier? here in Iraq.” I don’t know why the question mark is after the word soldier but since he used the word, ‘us’ the word ‘soldier ‘should be pluralized and not singular.
Nineteen. The following sentences were all wrong. “…..I have been shot, wounded and survived two suicide bomb attacks by the special grace of God, this and other reasons I will mention later has prompted me to reach out for help, I honestly want this matter to be resolved immediately, please contact me as soon as possible my only way of communication email.”
The sentences should have been written in the following manner. “…..I have been shot, wounded and survived two suicide bomb attacks ‘and’ by the special grace of God, ‘and for’ this and other reasons I will mention later, has prompted me to reach out for help. I honestly want this matter to be resolved immediately. Please contact me as soon as possible ‘by way of communicating’ with me ‘by’ email.”
You may recall that I said that you should always check these messages out with Google first. When I checked this particular message out with Google, I discovered that similar postings had been sent to people around the word. Here are the so-called names of two of the scammers.
The first sender’s name is SGT ARTHUR HUGO and his so-called email address is peter@peterson.com. His message is almost identical to the one I received except in his message, all the letters in the message are capitalized. It was sent out on the 15th of May, 2009. In his message, he is saying that he found $28 million dollars. In his message, he said that he and members of his crew would share the money before they would give it to others. The second one was sent by a person called HEATHER ROSS who states that she is with the American Red Cross working with the troops in Iraq. In her message, she only found $4.8 million dollars and naturally, she wants to share it with the suckers. In her message, she actually got it out of Iraq and the money is in a package in England waiting to be sent to the sucker who falls for the scam.
Received in my email on January 16, 2009
A great many scamming messages sent via the Internet purport to be written by employees of corporations.
Good Day
This is a Letter from Gulf Oil & Gas Company, our coporate = website:www.gulfoilandgas.com
We know that you may be surprise on how we got your email address, your
email was picked at random by our Gmek System use to randomly select
the right candidate for this position. We want to make you our Payment
Agent there in your location and your reward is 5%. Please contact us for
more information. I hereby assure you that you will not regret working with
us in this venture, as nobody is going to ask you for any money up front. I
wish to let you know that the key factor in this partnership is trust, you
will be given the opportunity to negotiate your mode of which we will pay
for your services. As our payment officer in your country,
(1)Your Full Names:.......................
(2)Contact Address:.......................
(3)Phone/fax numbers:.....................
(4)Occupation:............................
Thanks for your understanding, i am expecting your reply as soon
as possible.
Thanks you for your time.
Yours Faithfully
Mrs. Rose Frank.
My comments
First. The word, Letter should not be capitalized since it is in the middle of a sentence.
Second. The word corporate is not spelled coporate.
Third. A period should have been placed after the word, ‘trust’. That means of course then that a capital ‘Y’ will be the first letter of the word, ‘You’.
Fourth. She wrote at the end of the message; “As our payment officer in your country,_______” It is a incomplete sentence. When I looked in Google, the same scammer wrote a similar message and that last sentence in that one was also incomplete.
Fifth. She didn’t say what country her firm is located in but in her message in Google, she listed the country as Hong Kong.
The scammers in this kind of scam are looking for dupes who might be looking for a good job. Once they have the dupe hooked, the scammers tell them that they are required to pay them money in advance, usually under the guise of work visas, air travel expenses, and out-of-pocket expenses. Further, the scammer will extract personal information such as the victim’s full name, bank account details, credit card details, Social Security, driver's license, birth date, home address, or any other personal data under the guise of wishing to establish that the victim is a reliable and trustworthy person. I don’t have to tell you what the scammer will do with that kind of information once he or she has it.
Final Summary
Despite these horrendous mistakes that are found in the scammer’s messages, there are a great many fools in this world who should know better but because of their desperation and greed, they….well let me quote a proverb. “A fool and his money are soon parted.” There really is truth on that old adage; “If it is too good to be true, then it isn’t true.” What is rather sadly ironic is that despite their horrendous mistakes in their messages, these scammers are still fishing the oceans of mankind in hopes of snagging the gullible tricking them into believing what is in their messages. I can only assume that those persons who read my essays in my Blog are extremely educated and would never fall for such silly scams. I am right, am I not?
Whenever you get a message that is making you an offer, the first thing you should do is go to Google and see what has been written about the scam. Then look at the spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. And finally, ask yourself, is this too good to be true?
How do they get our email addresses? They do it exactly the same way all spammers get our email addresses. Spammers ‘harvest’ email addresses mentioned on web sites. Others run ‘dictionary attacks’— programs which query mail servers if they have an address AAA100, AAA101, AAA102, etc. That's why you get tons of unsolicited commercial email even if you've kept your email address a secret. And spammers sell each other CD's with millions of addresses. Remember that practically all spam email is fraudulent anyway, so there is no reason why sellers of penis enlargement pills and vinyl siding wouldn't sell lists of email addresses to Nigerian letter scammers.
Why are the scamming messages we get in our emails called ‘Nigerian letters’? Regardless of the country or countries mentioned in the messages, the fraudsters were originally from certain families or gangs based in Lagos, Nigeria, however, such scams have been initiated in Montreal and a great many of them are now coming from Russia where it is impossible to trace the scammers through their IP numbers.
1. NEVER pay anything up front for any reason.
2. NEVER extend credit for any reason.
3. NEVER do anything until their cheque (check) clears.
4. NEVER expect any help from the government of the scammer.
5. NEVER rely on your own government to bail you out.
Now that I have passed all this useful information to you, can I interest you in a bridge? It crosses a large river and although there is currently no toll fees being paid by the thousands of users who cross it daily, this doesn’t mean that it can’t be a toll bridge. It crosses the river between Manhattan and Brooklyn. I will need from you, a mere deposit of $5000 US and the remaining balance of two million dollars US can be paid over a period of forty years which you can collect from the billions you will get from the toll-paying customers.
Hello….Hello….Are you still with me? Hello…
Monday, July 6, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Affirmative Action: Does it work?
Section 15(2) of the Canadian Charter guarantees equality to everyone.
A very good friend of mine raised a very interesting issue about that section. In his email message to me, he wrote; “This section has been absolutely devastating to white males who are employed by governments. It is also responsible for incompetents being hired and then promoted into positions that they are incapable of handling.”
This essay is my response to his complaint.
The equality section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explicitly guarantees the legal status of affirmative action. Subsection 2 of Section 15 states that the equality provisions do "not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration (to make better or more tolerable) of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability."
The term ‘affirmative action’ refers to policies that take race, ethnicity, or gender etc., into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity for all. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs etc.
Affirmative action is seen by its proponents as a foundational principle of democratic societies such as in India, that seek to redress imbalances, due to disproportionate representation of underprivileged sections of society in governmental, educational and industrial institutions.
Opponents say that affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of people who are chosen because of the social group to which they belong rather than based upon their qualifications. Opponents also contend that affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of all those who belong to groups it is intended to help, therefore making affirmative action counterproductive.
In some countries which have laws on racial equality, affirmative action is rendered illegal because it doesn't treat all races equally. This approach of equal treatment is sometimes described as being ‘color blind’, in hopes that it is effective against discrimination without engaging in reverse discrimination.
In such countries, the focus tends to be on ensuring equal opportunity and, for example, targeted advertising campaigns to encourage ethnic minority candidates to join the police force. This is sometimes described as ‘positive action’ or ‘positive discrimination’. This can be a good thing. For example, the Toronto Police Service also hires gays and lesbians because the police force does not discriminate. Such officers can relate to the gay and lesbian community within Toronto.
If follows then that if there was an opening specifically for a gay person in a police force so that that person can work with criminals who are gay and a heterosexual man also applies for the job and both men are otherwise equally qualified to work as a police officer, it would not necessarily be a form of affirmative action if the homosexual was hired instead.
The underlying motive for affirmative action is the Constitutional principle of equal opportunity, which holds that all persons have the right to equal access to self-development. In other words, persons with equal abilities should have equal opportunities.
However, affirmative action nowadays in countries like Canada are not really necessary anymore because concrete steps are taken not only to eliminate discrimination—whether in employment, education, or contracting—but also to attempt to redress the effects of past discrimination.
The Canadian Employment Equity Act requires employers in federally-regulated industries to give preferential treatment to four designated groups: Women, people with disabilities, aboriginal people, and visible minorities. In most Canadian Universities, people of Aboriginal background normally have lower entrance requirements and are eligible to receive exclusive scholarships. Some provinces and territories also have affirmative action-type polices.
For example, in Northwest Territories in the Canadian north, aboriginal people are given preference for jobs and education and are considered to have P1 status.
Non-aboriginal people who were born in the NWT or have resided half of their life there are considered to have a P2 status as well as women and disabled people. White males receive the lowest priority, by being assigned a P3 status. His means that in some instances, people are hired for jobs who have lesser credentials than other people applying, because their status is higher.
This policy in my opinion can backfire and it does. For example, would you want a pathologist to be hired whose qualifications are less than another applicant’s qualifications simply because the one who is hired is a member of a visible minority? Canada has already had the terrible experience of having an unqualified pathologist who bungled many cases where innocent people were sent to prison. How would you feel if you went to prison and it turned out that the pathologist who testified against you was unqualified but he got the job instead of a more qualified person because the man that testified against you was a member of a visible minority? How would you feel if a fireman who didn’t do his job properly and a member of your family died as a result and you later learned that he was given the job over another more qualified applicant simply because he too was a member of a visible minority?
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that minorities shouldn’t be hired. Canada has always wanted to have an aboriginal on the Supreme Court of Canada and when one of them got the appointment, he did a marvelous job. The Supreme Court of the United States has had blacks serving in that court and they too did a marvelous job.
In the United Kingdom, positive discrimination is unlawful and quotas/selective systems are not permitted. An exception to this is a provision made under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which requires that the Police Service of Northern Ireland recruit equal numbers of Catholics and non-Catholics. Positive action in encouraging people from under-represented backgrounds to apply for jobs is permitted, but it is illegal to discriminate in favour of them in awarding employment
As affirmative action evolved, employment practices that were not intentionally discriminatory but that nevertheless had a ‘disparate impact’ on affected groups were considered a violation of affirmative action regulations. Another central issue was whether members of affected groups could receive preferential treatment and, if so, the means by which they could be preferred. For example, a black person who was single might get the job instead of the white person who has a family to support despite the fact that both men are equally qualified.
In Entrop v. Imperial Oil Limited a 1996 case heard in Canada, the court said that an employer has the right to ensure that its business operations are conducted safely, and a corresponding right to assess whether employees are incapable of performing their essential duties. It follows that if employers have that right, then surely that can refuse to hire someone who is a member of a visible minority if that person is unable to perform the specific job that requires a certain amount of expertise that the person doesn’t have.
This raises the important question as to whether a Human Rights Tribunal appointed under s. 39 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, had the power under s. 41(2)(a) to impose upon an employer, such as the Canadian National Railway Co., a program tailored specifically to address the problem of ‘systemic discrimination’ in the hiring and promotion of a disadvantaged group.
On February 18, 1982, 155 complaints against CN had been lodged with the federal Human Rights Commission on behalf of women who were denied promotions. Evidence was brought to the Commission that women employed by the CN were being systematically abused and treated as second-class citizens by their male colleagues. In actual fact, they were denied promotions they deserved simply because they were women.
The Human Rights Tribunal concluded that it was essential to impose upon the CN a special employment program if the proportion of women in blue-collar jobs at CN was to mirror even roughly the proportion of women in similar jobs across the country.
The Commission ordered that the CN was to immediately discontinue all practices pursued by foremen or others in which female candidates underwent physical tests not required of male candidates, mainly the test which consisted of lifting a brakeshoe with one arm; a test that was clearly unfair.
The Commission also ordered that the CN was to immediately modify its system of interviewing candidates; in particular, it was to ensure that those responsible for conducting such interviews were to be given strict instructions on how to treat all candidates in the same way, regardless of their sex.
But suppose a woman applicant was a midget. Would the CN be forced to hire her knowing that she couldn’t do the heavy work required of her?
The edict of section 15(2) of the Canadian Charter guarantees that everyone in Canada is entitled to equal treatment irrespective to race, creed and sex etc.
In direct discrimination cases, where the complainant has shown a prima facie case of discrimination on a prohibited ground, the onus falls on the employer to justify that he is not acting in a discriminatory manner based on a balance of probabilities. The question then is whether section 15(2) should apply in cases of adverse effect discrimination. Obviously, the CN failed to show that they were not discriminatory in their treatment of women employees.
Mr. Justice McIntyre of the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of Ontario Human Rights Commission v. Simpsons-Sears said in part;
“Where adverse effect discrimination on the basis of creed is shown and the offending rule is rationally connected to the performance of the job, as in the case at bar, the employer is not required to justify it but rather to show that he has taken such reasonable steps toward accommodation of the employee's position as are open to him without undue hardship. It seems evident to me that in this kind of case the onus should again rest on the employer, for it is the employer who will be in possession of the necessary information to show undue hardship, and the employee will rarely, if ever, be in a position to show its absence. The onus will not be a heavy one in all cases. In some cases it may be established without evidence; for example, a requirement that all employees work on Saturday in a business which is open only on Saturdays, but once the prima facie proof of a discriminatory effect is made it will remain for the employer to show undue hardship if required to take more steps for its accommodation than he has done.” unquote
Orthodox Jews are not supposed to work from sundown Fridays to sundown Saturdays because that is their Sabbath so employers should not make them work on those days. If the employers don’t accommodate them, they are conducting their business in a discriminatory manner. This means they can’t fire an employee who is a Jew because he refuses to work during those time periods.
If discriminated in this manner, the complainant first has to establish a prima facie case of discrimination. The onus then shifts to the employer to show that he has taken such reasonable steps to accommodate the employee as are open to him without undue hardship such as having the employee work on other days instead. In the Sears’ case, the employer did not discharge the onus of showing that it had taken reasonable steps to accommodate the complainant.
But this raises an interesting and very perplexing question. Suppose two men apply for the same job and both men are also collecting employment insurance. Both men are equally experienced and trained in electronics. The job is to repair items brought back to Sears for repair. The opening is a part-time job for three days a week (Friday through Sunday beginning at 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. each day) One man is an orthodox Jew who is black and the other man in a non Jew who is white. Affirmative action would dictate that the job would be offered first to the Jew because he is black. If when offered the job, he refuses to accept it because it would entail him working on the Sabbath, would his employment insurance benefits be cancelled?
There was a case where a man was employed as a laboratory coordinator by a college in Alberta, and was given a permanent, full time position in 1988. Throughout his term of employment, he received positive evaluations, salary increases and promotions for his work performance. In 1990, in response to an inquiry by the president of the college, the man disclosed that he was homosexual. In early 1991, the college’s board of governors adopted a position statement on homosexuality, and shortly thereafter, the president of the college requested the man’s resignation. The man declined to resign so his employment was terminated by the college. The sole reason given was his non compliance with the college’s policy on homosexual practice.
Gays and lesbians do not have formal equality with reference to other protected groups, since those other groups are explicitly included and they are not. There is a more fundamental, distinction is between homosexuals and heterosexuals. The exclusion of the ground of sexual orientation, considered in the context of the social reality of discrimination against gays and lesbians, clearly has a disproportionate impact on them as opposed to heterosexuals.
By reason of its under-inclusiveness, it creates a distinction which results in the denial of the equal benefit and protection of the law on the basis of sexual orientation, a personal characteristic which is analogous to those enumerated in section 15(1) of the Charter This, in itself, is sufficient to conclude that discrimination is present and that there is a violation of Section 15. The serious discriminatory effects of the exclusion of sexual orientation from the Act reinforces this conclusion. The distinction has the effect of imposing a burden or disadvantage not imposed on others.
ut this raises another interesting and perplexing question. Suppose that the man didn’t return to his job and two other men applied for the job of laboratory coordinator and one of them is a homosexual and is more qualified than the other man who is a heterosexual. Would the college be forced to hire the less qualified man because he is not a homosexual?
If that were to happen, then the college would certainly suffer just to accommodate the less qualified man, not to mention the suffering that the qualified man would undergo by not getting the job he was more qualified to get.
I can say with conviction that it is counterproductive to hire someone who is not as qualified as other applicants simply because the person hired is a member of a visible minority.
Now there are some who will say that this could mean that aboriginals will be denied employment because they are aboriginals irrespective of their qualifications. In the past, that was a common problem they faced but nowadays, it would be illegal to refuse to hire them, simply because they are aboriginals.
But to hire an aboriginal or any other member of a visible minority even though that the applicant is not qualified for the job, is to bring an unfair burden upon the employer.
Everyone in Canada has an equal opportunity to obtain an education and if young persons choose to leave school before they are properly educated, then they must suffer the consequences that face them when they are applying for jobs that require a good education. To say that uneducated people who are members of a visible minority should automatically be hired despite the fact that they are not qualified because of their lack of proper education is ridiculous. The same applies with newcomers to Canada who don’t have a sufficient understanding of the English language.
The principle of affirmative action was a good idea when it was first conceived. The reason was that many minorities were being denied employment even though they were as qualified as non minorities who were applying for the jobs were. However, over the years, it went too far.
A good example of this is what has happened in Zimbabwe. The whites were told to get out of their farms so that the blacks could take over their farms. Unfortunately, the blacks didn’t know how to operate the farms and as a result, many of the blacks in that country are starving since the farms are no longer supplying the food to feed the people in that nation.
As I see it, everyone should have the same rights as every other person and if two people apply for a job, a minority factor should not be considered. What should be considered is the qualification of the applicant and nothing more. That way, the employer will benefit and the person most qualified for the job, is not cheated out of the opportunity to get the job simply because he is not a member of a visible or non visible minority.
A very good friend of mine raised a very interesting issue about that section. In his email message to me, he wrote; “This section has been absolutely devastating to white males who are employed by governments. It is also responsible for incompetents being hired and then promoted into positions that they are incapable of handling.”
This essay is my response to his complaint.
The equality section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explicitly guarantees the legal status of affirmative action. Subsection 2 of Section 15 states that the equality provisions do "not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration (to make better or more tolerable) of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability."
The term ‘affirmative action’ refers to policies that take race, ethnicity, or gender etc., into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity for all. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs etc.
Affirmative action is seen by its proponents as a foundational principle of democratic societies such as in India, that seek to redress imbalances, due to disproportionate representation of underprivileged sections of society in governmental, educational and industrial institutions.
Opponents say that affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of people who are chosen because of the social group to which they belong rather than based upon their qualifications. Opponents also contend that affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of all those who belong to groups it is intended to help, therefore making affirmative action counterproductive.
In some countries which have laws on racial equality, affirmative action is rendered illegal because it doesn't treat all races equally. This approach of equal treatment is sometimes described as being ‘color blind’, in hopes that it is effective against discrimination without engaging in reverse discrimination.
In such countries, the focus tends to be on ensuring equal opportunity and, for example, targeted advertising campaigns to encourage ethnic minority candidates to join the police force. This is sometimes described as ‘positive action’ or ‘positive discrimination’. This can be a good thing. For example, the Toronto Police Service also hires gays and lesbians because the police force does not discriminate. Such officers can relate to the gay and lesbian community within Toronto.
If follows then that if there was an opening specifically for a gay person in a police force so that that person can work with criminals who are gay and a heterosexual man also applies for the job and both men are otherwise equally qualified to work as a police officer, it would not necessarily be a form of affirmative action if the homosexual was hired instead.
The underlying motive for affirmative action is the Constitutional principle of equal opportunity, which holds that all persons have the right to equal access to self-development. In other words, persons with equal abilities should have equal opportunities.
However, affirmative action nowadays in countries like Canada are not really necessary anymore because concrete steps are taken not only to eliminate discrimination—whether in employment, education, or contracting—but also to attempt to redress the effects of past discrimination.
The Canadian Employment Equity Act requires employers in federally-regulated industries to give preferential treatment to four designated groups: Women, people with disabilities, aboriginal people, and visible minorities. In most Canadian Universities, people of Aboriginal background normally have lower entrance requirements and are eligible to receive exclusive scholarships. Some provinces and territories also have affirmative action-type polices.
For example, in Northwest Territories in the Canadian north, aboriginal people are given preference for jobs and education and are considered to have P1 status.
Non-aboriginal people who were born in the NWT or have resided half of their life there are considered to have a P2 status as well as women and disabled people. White males receive the lowest priority, by being assigned a P3 status. His means that in some instances, people are hired for jobs who have lesser credentials than other people applying, because their status is higher.
This policy in my opinion can backfire and it does. For example, would you want a pathologist to be hired whose qualifications are less than another applicant’s qualifications simply because the one who is hired is a member of a visible minority? Canada has already had the terrible experience of having an unqualified pathologist who bungled many cases where innocent people were sent to prison. How would you feel if you went to prison and it turned out that the pathologist who testified against you was unqualified but he got the job instead of a more qualified person because the man that testified against you was a member of a visible minority? How would you feel if a fireman who didn’t do his job properly and a member of your family died as a result and you later learned that he was given the job over another more qualified applicant simply because he too was a member of a visible minority?
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that minorities shouldn’t be hired. Canada has always wanted to have an aboriginal on the Supreme Court of Canada and when one of them got the appointment, he did a marvelous job. The Supreme Court of the United States has had blacks serving in that court and they too did a marvelous job.
In the United Kingdom, positive discrimination is unlawful and quotas/selective systems are not permitted. An exception to this is a provision made under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which requires that the Police Service of Northern Ireland recruit equal numbers of Catholics and non-Catholics. Positive action in encouraging people from under-represented backgrounds to apply for jobs is permitted, but it is illegal to discriminate in favour of them in awarding employment
As affirmative action evolved, employment practices that were not intentionally discriminatory but that nevertheless had a ‘disparate impact’ on affected groups were considered a violation of affirmative action regulations. Another central issue was whether members of affected groups could receive preferential treatment and, if so, the means by which they could be preferred. For example, a black person who was single might get the job instead of the white person who has a family to support despite the fact that both men are equally qualified.
In Entrop v. Imperial Oil Limited a 1996 case heard in Canada, the court said that an employer has the right to ensure that its business operations are conducted safely, and a corresponding right to assess whether employees are incapable of performing their essential duties. It follows that if employers have that right, then surely that can refuse to hire someone who is a member of a visible minority if that person is unable to perform the specific job that requires a certain amount of expertise that the person doesn’t have.
This raises the important question as to whether a Human Rights Tribunal appointed under s. 39 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, had the power under s. 41(2)(a) to impose upon an employer, such as the Canadian National Railway Co., a program tailored specifically to address the problem of ‘systemic discrimination’ in the hiring and promotion of a disadvantaged group.
On February 18, 1982, 155 complaints against CN had been lodged with the federal Human Rights Commission on behalf of women who were denied promotions. Evidence was brought to the Commission that women employed by the CN were being systematically abused and treated as second-class citizens by their male colleagues. In actual fact, they were denied promotions they deserved simply because they were women.
The Human Rights Tribunal concluded that it was essential to impose upon the CN a special employment program if the proportion of women in blue-collar jobs at CN was to mirror even roughly the proportion of women in similar jobs across the country.
The Commission ordered that the CN was to immediately discontinue all practices pursued by foremen or others in which female candidates underwent physical tests not required of male candidates, mainly the test which consisted of lifting a brakeshoe with one arm; a test that was clearly unfair.
The Commission also ordered that the CN was to immediately modify its system of interviewing candidates; in particular, it was to ensure that those responsible for conducting such interviews were to be given strict instructions on how to treat all candidates in the same way, regardless of their sex.
But suppose a woman applicant was a midget. Would the CN be forced to hire her knowing that she couldn’t do the heavy work required of her?
The edict of section 15(2) of the Canadian Charter guarantees that everyone in Canada is entitled to equal treatment irrespective to race, creed and sex etc.
In direct discrimination cases, where the complainant has shown a prima facie case of discrimination on a prohibited ground, the onus falls on the employer to justify that he is not acting in a discriminatory manner based on a balance of probabilities. The question then is whether section 15(2) should apply in cases of adverse effect discrimination. Obviously, the CN failed to show that they were not discriminatory in their treatment of women employees.
Mr. Justice McIntyre of the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of Ontario Human Rights Commission v. Simpsons-Sears said in part;
“Where adverse effect discrimination on the basis of creed is shown and the offending rule is rationally connected to the performance of the job, as in the case at bar, the employer is not required to justify it but rather to show that he has taken such reasonable steps toward accommodation of the employee's position as are open to him without undue hardship. It seems evident to me that in this kind of case the onus should again rest on the employer, for it is the employer who will be in possession of the necessary information to show undue hardship, and the employee will rarely, if ever, be in a position to show its absence. The onus will not be a heavy one in all cases. In some cases it may be established without evidence; for example, a requirement that all employees work on Saturday in a business which is open only on Saturdays, but once the prima facie proof of a discriminatory effect is made it will remain for the employer to show undue hardship if required to take more steps for its accommodation than he has done.” unquote
Orthodox Jews are not supposed to work from sundown Fridays to sundown Saturdays because that is their Sabbath so employers should not make them work on those days. If the employers don’t accommodate them, they are conducting their business in a discriminatory manner. This means they can’t fire an employee who is a Jew because he refuses to work during those time periods.
If discriminated in this manner, the complainant first has to establish a prima facie case of discrimination. The onus then shifts to the employer to show that he has taken such reasonable steps to accommodate the employee as are open to him without undue hardship such as having the employee work on other days instead. In the Sears’ case, the employer did not discharge the onus of showing that it had taken reasonable steps to accommodate the complainant.
But this raises an interesting and very perplexing question. Suppose two men apply for the same job and both men are also collecting employment insurance. Both men are equally experienced and trained in electronics. The job is to repair items brought back to Sears for repair. The opening is a part-time job for three days a week (Friday through Sunday beginning at 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. each day) One man is an orthodox Jew who is black and the other man in a non Jew who is white. Affirmative action would dictate that the job would be offered first to the Jew because he is black. If when offered the job, he refuses to accept it because it would entail him working on the Sabbath, would his employment insurance benefits be cancelled?
There was a case where a man was employed as a laboratory coordinator by a college in Alberta, and was given a permanent, full time position in 1988. Throughout his term of employment, he received positive evaluations, salary increases and promotions for his work performance. In 1990, in response to an inquiry by the president of the college, the man disclosed that he was homosexual. In early 1991, the college’s board of governors adopted a position statement on homosexuality, and shortly thereafter, the president of the college requested the man’s resignation. The man declined to resign so his employment was terminated by the college. The sole reason given was his non compliance with the college’s policy on homosexual practice.
Gays and lesbians do not have formal equality with reference to other protected groups, since those other groups are explicitly included and they are not. There is a more fundamental, distinction is between homosexuals and heterosexuals. The exclusion of the ground of sexual orientation, considered in the context of the social reality of discrimination against gays and lesbians, clearly has a disproportionate impact on them as opposed to heterosexuals.
By reason of its under-inclusiveness, it creates a distinction which results in the denial of the equal benefit and protection of the law on the basis of sexual orientation, a personal characteristic which is analogous to those enumerated in section 15(1) of the Charter This, in itself, is sufficient to conclude that discrimination is present and that there is a violation of Section 15. The serious discriminatory effects of the exclusion of sexual orientation from the Act reinforces this conclusion. The distinction has the effect of imposing a burden or disadvantage not imposed on others.
ut this raises another interesting and perplexing question. Suppose that the man didn’t return to his job and two other men applied for the job of laboratory coordinator and one of them is a homosexual and is more qualified than the other man who is a heterosexual. Would the college be forced to hire the less qualified man because he is not a homosexual?
If that were to happen, then the college would certainly suffer just to accommodate the less qualified man, not to mention the suffering that the qualified man would undergo by not getting the job he was more qualified to get.
I can say with conviction that it is counterproductive to hire someone who is not as qualified as other applicants simply because the person hired is a member of a visible minority.
Now there are some who will say that this could mean that aboriginals will be denied employment because they are aboriginals irrespective of their qualifications. In the past, that was a common problem they faced but nowadays, it would be illegal to refuse to hire them, simply because they are aboriginals.
But to hire an aboriginal or any other member of a visible minority even though that the applicant is not qualified for the job, is to bring an unfair burden upon the employer.
Everyone in Canada has an equal opportunity to obtain an education and if young persons choose to leave school before they are properly educated, then they must suffer the consequences that face them when they are applying for jobs that require a good education. To say that uneducated people who are members of a visible minority should automatically be hired despite the fact that they are not qualified because of their lack of proper education is ridiculous. The same applies with newcomers to Canada who don’t have a sufficient understanding of the English language.
The principle of affirmative action was a good idea when it was first conceived. The reason was that many minorities were being denied employment even though they were as qualified as non minorities who were applying for the jobs were. However, over the years, it went too far.
A good example of this is what has happened in Zimbabwe. The whites were told to get out of their farms so that the blacks could take over their farms. Unfortunately, the blacks didn’t know how to operate the farms and as a result, many of the blacks in that country are starving since the farms are no longer supplying the food to feed the people in that nation.
As I see it, everyone should have the same rights as every other person and if two people apply for a job, a minority factor should not be considered. What should be considered is the qualification of the applicant and nothing more. That way, the employer will benefit and the person most qualified for the job, is not cheated out of the opportunity to get the job simply because he is not a member of a visible or non visible minority.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Should he have been convicted of first degree murder?
Jurors in the trial of a Canadian pig farmer accused of being the country's deadliest serial killer came back with a guilty verdict after nine days of deliberations. Robert 'Willie' Pickton was found guilty of six counts of second- degree murder in the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Mona Wilson and Brenda Wolfe, who went missing from a seedy downtown neighbourhood in the Canadian Pacific Coast city of Vancouver.
Prosecutors argued during the trial that Pickton, acting alone, killed the women, butchered them, and then disposed of their body parts by feeding them to pigs or taking them to a rendering plant. Parts of two of the women’s bodies were found in five-gallon buckets in Pickton’s freezer; others were discovered in a dustbin, a pig pen and buried in manure on the farm.
The verdicts of second-degree murder disappointed many of the victim’s family members, who gasped and cried in disbelief as the jury found Pickton not guilty of first-degree murder.
Prosecutors allege that he lured at least 26 women to his Port Coquitlam pig farm, about 25 kilometres east of Vancouver, with promises of drugs and money and then murdered them. Pickton, 58, had pleaded not guilty to all 26 charges of first-degree murder.
After the seven men and five women delivered their verdict in New Westminster, a suburb of Vancouver, Judge James Williams asked them to recommend a prison sentence. He said, “You are asked to make a recommendation as to whether Mr Pickton should serve more than 10 years in prison but less than 25, before he is considered to be eligible for parole,” The jury later returned again, declined to make a recommendation about sentence length.
The jury convicted Pickton of a lesser charge of second degree murder, not the first degree murder charge he originally faced. The verdict still carries a sentence of life in prison, but the lesser charge makes it easier to get parole.
The jury's failure to convict Pickton of first degree murder meant it did not agree with prosecutors that he planned the murders in advance. I am not in agreement with the verdict of the jury.
There was abundant evidence presented during the trial, including mutilated body parts, DNA matched to the victims and the accused, hours of video tape of police interviews with Pickton, testimony by an alleged eye-witness who claims she saw Pickton----covered in blood----butchering one of the victims hanging on a meat hook, and a possible confession from Pickton to an undercover officer saying that he was “so close” to reaching his goal of killing 50 women but got sloppy and was caught. He later complained to police: “You’re making me out to be more of a mass murderer than I am.”
The primary difference between first degree and second degree is that sentencing can be discussed and recommended by the jury whereas in first degree, it is automatic with no chance for discussion since twenty-five years in prison is automatically mandatory.
Prosecutors involved in the lengthy murder trial of Robert (Willie) Pickton are satisfied with the second-degree murder verdict in the case, a spokesman for the Crown counsel office told the media. Stan Lowe said, "Mr. Pickton murdered these women. That is what the jury has found.” He was happy with the verdict because if they hadn’t arrived at that verdict, they would have had to acquit him and that was not what the crown wanted. Second degree murder was better than an outright acquittal.
The sentence is the same in for both degrees of murder. Life imprisonment. What was left was the date that Pickton would be eligible to apply for parole.
The judge sentenced him to the maximum he could sentence him after Pickton was found guilty of second degree murder----life with no chance of parole for 25 years. He will however be eligible to apply for parole 25 years from the day of his arrest. That doesn’t mean that he will get it.
The procedure for murderers under the original faint hope clause is that if the parole board considers them as being eligible to apply for parole after serving only 15 years, the murder has to appear in court before jury and the jury will decide whether or not he is worthy of release back into society.
The faint hope clause is no longer available to murders however, before that law was changed by parliament, anyone convicted before the canceling of that law, can apply for an early release after serving only 15 years. But even if Pickton applied for an early release under the faint hope clause, I can’t envision any jury granting him parole.
Does a serial murderer plan in advance that he intends to kill his victims? We might find the answer to that question by looking in Hansard. (Parliamentary records) The transcripts of hearings conducted by “The House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights” provided insight into the purpose of s. 487.055(1)(b). ( has been declared a dangerous offender )
The transcripts of the Standing Committee hearings reveal that the purpose of s. 487.055(1)(b) is to include serial or “career” murderers with a high potential for recidivism in the DNA Databank. For example, Michael E. Zigayer, a senior counsel with the Department of Justice testified that:
“The provision is intended to deal with the person who commits more than one murder, has premeditated the commission of the offence. This is not a situation that arises out of one specific incident. He’s intentionally going out and killing again.”
Was Pickton really going out and killing again? Unlike many serial murderers, he didn’t hunt for women to kill and then kill them in various locations around the country like Bundy, the serial killer who murdered as many as 35 known victims in various states in the US. Pickton invited the prostitutes to his home on his pig farm and then murdered them in his barn.
If he had killed only one victim and said that he killed her in a fit of anger or out of fear that she might report him to the police and he killed her suddenly without much forethought, then the verdict of second degree murder might very well be appropriate.
What he really did was he killed twenty six women and then butchered each of them and disposed of their bodies so that they wouldn’t be discovered and he did this over a period of many months. Since he killed his first victim and realized that he could get away with it (which he did for a long time) it follows that he planned to kill the other twenty-five women. His victims were each murdered at a different time and although in the same location, Pickton was rightly convicted of these murders as separate counts.
It is beyond me as to how that can’t be first degree murder since that kind of murder is done with planned deliberation.
Why didn’t the Crown appeal the jury’s verdict? The reasons are quite obvious. First of all, the trial cost millions of dollars. Second, the penalty would still be the same; ineligibility to apply for parole for 25 years since that is what the trial judge gave Pickton. A second trial with respect to the murder of the six women would be academic and pointless.
Pickton was 58 when he was convicted and he was 53 when he was arrested and our laws in Canada will permit him to deduct the five years he was in custody before his trial from the minimum sentence of 25 years. That means that he can apply for parole in 2022. He will be 71 years of age then. However, the chances of this serial killer ever getting released from prison on parole during any part of his lifetime is highly unlikely. I don’t think any National Parole Board member would recommend that Pickton should ever be released unless the board member is willing to bring into question the issue as to whether or not he or she is a person of sound mind.
Despite the fact that the attorney general of B.C. promised that if Pickton was convicted of the murder of the six women in his first trial, he would be put on trial for the murder of the remaining twenty women. He later changed his mind to the disappointment of the families of the twenty remaining victims.
If such a trial could come about, a strange anomaly could occur. In the second trial, the jury might find him innocent if they believed that someone else committed the murders as Pickton has always claimed. If that was their verdict, it would raise a very troubling question; ‘Was Pickton also innocent of the murders of the first six victims?’
As I see it, Pickton is a convicted serial killer and is destined to remain in prison for the rest of his life. That being as it is, let’s move on. The families of the remaining twenty victims should be content that the murderer of their loved ones has been established as being Robert Pickton and that the jury that convicted him for the first six victims knew all along that he also killed the others when they found him guilty of murder of the first six. He in reality is being punished for murdering all twenty-six victims and they should believe that the members of the National Parole Board will know that also when they are considering his application for parole.
Prosecutors argued during the trial that Pickton, acting alone, killed the women, butchered them, and then disposed of their body parts by feeding them to pigs or taking them to a rendering plant. Parts of two of the women’s bodies were found in five-gallon buckets in Pickton’s freezer; others were discovered in a dustbin, a pig pen and buried in manure on the farm.
The verdicts of second-degree murder disappointed many of the victim’s family members, who gasped and cried in disbelief as the jury found Pickton not guilty of first-degree murder.
Prosecutors allege that he lured at least 26 women to his Port Coquitlam pig farm, about 25 kilometres east of Vancouver, with promises of drugs and money and then murdered them. Pickton, 58, had pleaded not guilty to all 26 charges of first-degree murder.
After the seven men and five women delivered their verdict in New Westminster, a suburb of Vancouver, Judge James Williams asked them to recommend a prison sentence. He said, “You are asked to make a recommendation as to whether Mr Pickton should serve more than 10 years in prison but less than 25, before he is considered to be eligible for parole,” The jury later returned again, declined to make a recommendation about sentence length.
The jury convicted Pickton of a lesser charge of second degree murder, not the first degree murder charge he originally faced. The verdict still carries a sentence of life in prison, but the lesser charge makes it easier to get parole.
The jury's failure to convict Pickton of first degree murder meant it did not agree with prosecutors that he planned the murders in advance. I am not in agreement with the verdict of the jury.
There was abundant evidence presented during the trial, including mutilated body parts, DNA matched to the victims and the accused, hours of video tape of police interviews with Pickton, testimony by an alleged eye-witness who claims she saw Pickton----covered in blood----butchering one of the victims hanging on a meat hook, and a possible confession from Pickton to an undercover officer saying that he was “so close” to reaching his goal of killing 50 women but got sloppy and was caught. He later complained to police: “You’re making me out to be more of a mass murderer than I am.”
The primary difference between first degree and second degree is that sentencing can be discussed and recommended by the jury whereas in first degree, it is automatic with no chance for discussion since twenty-five years in prison is automatically mandatory.
Prosecutors involved in the lengthy murder trial of Robert (Willie) Pickton are satisfied with the second-degree murder verdict in the case, a spokesman for the Crown counsel office told the media. Stan Lowe said, "Mr. Pickton murdered these women. That is what the jury has found.” He was happy with the verdict because if they hadn’t arrived at that verdict, they would have had to acquit him and that was not what the crown wanted. Second degree murder was better than an outright acquittal.
The sentence is the same in for both degrees of murder. Life imprisonment. What was left was the date that Pickton would be eligible to apply for parole.
The judge sentenced him to the maximum he could sentence him after Pickton was found guilty of second degree murder----life with no chance of parole for 25 years. He will however be eligible to apply for parole 25 years from the day of his arrest. That doesn’t mean that he will get it.
The procedure for murderers under the original faint hope clause is that if the parole board considers them as being eligible to apply for parole after serving only 15 years, the murder has to appear in court before jury and the jury will decide whether or not he is worthy of release back into society.
The faint hope clause is no longer available to murders however, before that law was changed by parliament, anyone convicted before the canceling of that law, can apply for an early release after serving only 15 years. But even if Pickton applied for an early release under the faint hope clause, I can’t envision any jury granting him parole.
Does a serial murderer plan in advance that he intends to kill his victims? We might find the answer to that question by looking in Hansard. (Parliamentary records) The transcripts of hearings conducted by “The House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights” provided insight into the purpose of s. 487.055(1)(b). ( has been declared a dangerous offender )
The transcripts of the Standing Committee hearings reveal that the purpose of s. 487.055(1)(b) is to include serial or “career” murderers with a high potential for recidivism in the DNA Databank. For example, Michael E. Zigayer, a senior counsel with the Department of Justice testified that:
“The provision is intended to deal with the person who commits more than one murder, has premeditated the commission of the offence. This is not a situation that arises out of one specific incident. He’s intentionally going out and killing again.”
Was Pickton really going out and killing again? Unlike many serial murderers, he didn’t hunt for women to kill and then kill them in various locations around the country like Bundy, the serial killer who murdered as many as 35 known victims in various states in the US. Pickton invited the prostitutes to his home on his pig farm and then murdered them in his barn.
If he had killed only one victim and said that he killed her in a fit of anger or out of fear that she might report him to the police and he killed her suddenly without much forethought, then the verdict of second degree murder might very well be appropriate.
What he really did was he killed twenty six women and then butchered each of them and disposed of their bodies so that they wouldn’t be discovered and he did this over a period of many months. Since he killed his first victim and realized that he could get away with it (which he did for a long time) it follows that he planned to kill the other twenty-five women. His victims were each murdered at a different time and although in the same location, Pickton was rightly convicted of these murders as separate counts.
It is beyond me as to how that can’t be first degree murder since that kind of murder is done with planned deliberation.
Why didn’t the Crown appeal the jury’s verdict? The reasons are quite obvious. First of all, the trial cost millions of dollars. Second, the penalty would still be the same; ineligibility to apply for parole for 25 years since that is what the trial judge gave Pickton. A second trial with respect to the murder of the six women would be academic and pointless.
Pickton was 58 when he was convicted and he was 53 when he was arrested and our laws in Canada will permit him to deduct the five years he was in custody before his trial from the minimum sentence of 25 years. That means that he can apply for parole in 2022. He will be 71 years of age then. However, the chances of this serial killer ever getting released from prison on parole during any part of his lifetime is highly unlikely. I don’t think any National Parole Board member would recommend that Pickton should ever be released unless the board member is willing to bring into question the issue as to whether or not he or she is a person of sound mind.
Despite the fact that the attorney general of B.C. promised that if Pickton was convicted of the murder of the six women in his first trial, he would be put on trial for the murder of the remaining twenty women. He later changed his mind to the disappointment of the families of the twenty remaining victims.
If such a trial could come about, a strange anomaly could occur. In the second trial, the jury might find him innocent if they believed that someone else committed the murders as Pickton has always claimed. If that was their verdict, it would raise a very troubling question; ‘Was Pickton also innocent of the murders of the first six victims?’
As I see it, Pickton is a convicted serial killer and is destined to remain in prison for the rest of his life. That being as it is, let’s move on. The families of the remaining twenty victims should be content that the murderer of their loved ones has been established as being Robert Pickton and that the jury that convicted him for the first six victims knew all along that he also killed the others when they found him guilty of murder of the first six. He in reality is being punished for murdering all twenty-six victims and they should believe that the members of the National Parole Board will know that also when they are considering his application for parole.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
What do we need to make an almost perfect world?
Having almost reached my 76th birthday; I am in a position of having seen what has gone wrong in this world. I have travelled quite extensively around the world and as a criminologist; I have addressed the United Nations 23 times since 1975 on such topics as justice and human rights. I have also counselled prison inmates and practiced in the field of law. That being as it is, I have arrived at the following conclusions.
There must be honest and caring governments for humans to peacefully coexist within each nation and between nations. Admittedly, it is very hard to find leaders and politicians who are both honest and capable but they do exist. Those that don’t meet the expectations of honesty and the capability to govern; should be removed by the electorate.
Governments must change with the times. As our planet becomes much more technologically smaller, the nations of the world must have much more cooperative interaction with one another.
Each national government must allow its citizens certain basic fundamental freedoms. The general rule on fundamental freedoms is that anything should be allowed so long as others are not adversely affected by the actions of one’s fellow citizens. Dictatorships and one party systems do not allow for any society to make its own determinations. Therefore, the form of government should be self-government through democracy. True freedom includes not only the right of free choice, but also the ability to exercise the right of free choice.
It is a basic principle that governments should promote the advancement of humanity toward its citizens. Good governments enact laws that encourages good deeds and discourages evil acts. Such governments should bring about charitable programs, (such as welfare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, aid to dependent families, free medical aid, etc) so that no one suffers for want of any of the benefits of these programs and other such programs that can be can offered to them.
Obviously, individuals must sacrifice some of their freedoms in order to live in society, such as for example not being able to play loud music in an apartment building or let their dogs roam about in the community. It goes without saying that in order for the world to be at peace and every nation have peace within their communities, crime must cease. That is a difficult goal to achieve because there are evil and dangerous people in every community but efforts should be undertaken by every community to treat the offenders, not only after they commit their crimes but even before they commit them. Such treatment includes guaranteeing children a good home life, a good education, an opportunity to extend their educations in colleges and universities and opportunity to participate in after-school sports and other activities.
Everyone should be able to find employment if that is their wish and no one should be forced to retire from their job if they are still capable of fulfilling their tasks. Eventually, robots, computers, and machines will be able to perform much of the work that needs to be done, and by themselves create unlimited production capabilities, which will free humans from the binding chains of boring, tedious and strenuous work and therefore allow humans the true freedom to pursue happiness and fulfillment both in their work and free time.
In a near perfect world, the environment will be protected so that no one is poisoned by the air they breathe or by the food they eat. Insects will be controlled so that they don’t harm the food that human or pets eat or their bodies.
Religion will continue to exist but no religion will be detrimental to the welfare of anyone, be they a member of that religious body or outside that religious body.
Knowledge in the hands of good people can prevent the formation of evil in any of its forms. Knowledge can also lead to surplus food supplies and cure illnesses. Knowledge can stop pollution and create faster and safer forms of transportation. Knowledge can find the means for near human immortality. Knowledge can lead to unlimited production capability and therefore a top-of-the-line standard of living for all humans. For this reason, no one should be poor. Everyone should also strive individually to increase their knowledge and encourage their children to pursue the path of knowledge so that both the individual and society as a whole reap the rewards that knowledge can bestow on everyone.
The future of Earth is an unknown event, and as such can only be speculated about. We will never achieve a perfect world. However one way to bring us closer to it is to follow a rule that has been with us for a very long time. I am speaking of the Golden Rule which follows one of the edicts of the Lord’s Prayer. ‘We should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.’ If we see a blind man struggling to get across the street, we should assist that person, even if it takes us out of our way. If we see a hungry person, we should give him or her the means to obtain food. If we know of a person who has lost a loved one, we should try and comfort that person. This also means that business firms should be honest with their customers and not cheat them or give misleading information about their products or services. There are many ways that we can live by the Golden Rule and if all of us live that way, then truly the near perfect world that we dream of will be closer to us than we thought. We who are presently alive may never see a perfect world but hopefully, those that follow us may see such a world. If we want them to live in such a world, we who are already here today have to start working towards that goal for our children and their children.
There must be honest and caring governments for humans to peacefully coexist within each nation and between nations. Admittedly, it is very hard to find leaders and politicians who are both honest and capable but they do exist. Those that don’t meet the expectations of honesty and the capability to govern; should be removed by the electorate.
Governments must change with the times. As our planet becomes much more technologically smaller, the nations of the world must have much more cooperative interaction with one another.
Each national government must allow its citizens certain basic fundamental freedoms. The general rule on fundamental freedoms is that anything should be allowed so long as others are not adversely affected by the actions of one’s fellow citizens. Dictatorships and one party systems do not allow for any society to make its own determinations. Therefore, the form of government should be self-government through democracy. True freedom includes not only the right of free choice, but also the ability to exercise the right of free choice.
It is a basic principle that governments should promote the advancement of humanity toward its citizens. Good governments enact laws that encourages good deeds and discourages evil acts. Such governments should bring about charitable programs, (such as welfare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, aid to dependent families, free medical aid, etc) so that no one suffers for want of any of the benefits of these programs and other such programs that can be can offered to them.
Obviously, individuals must sacrifice some of their freedoms in order to live in society, such as for example not being able to play loud music in an apartment building or let their dogs roam about in the community. It goes without saying that in order for the world to be at peace and every nation have peace within their communities, crime must cease. That is a difficult goal to achieve because there are evil and dangerous people in every community but efforts should be undertaken by every community to treat the offenders, not only after they commit their crimes but even before they commit them. Such treatment includes guaranteeing children a good home life, a good education, an opportunity to extend their educations in colleges and universities and opportunity to participate in after-school sports and other activities.
Everyone should be able to find employment if that is their wish and no one should be forced to retire from their job if they are still capable of fulfilling their tasks. Eventually, robots, computers, and machines will be able to perform much of the work that needs to be done, and by themselves create unlimited production capabilities, which will free humans from the binding chains of boring, tedious and strenuous work and therefore allow humans the true freedom to pursue happiness and fulfillment both in their work and free time.
In a near perfect world, the environment will be protected so that no one is poisoned by the air they breathe or by the food they eat. Insects will be controlled so that they don’t harm the food that human or pets eat or their bodies.
Religion will continue to exist but no religion will be detrimental to the welfare of anyone, be they a member of that religious body or outside that religious body.
Knowledge in the hands of good people can prevent the formation of evil in any of its forms. Knowledge can also lead to surplus food supplies and cure illnesses. Knowledge can stop pollution and create faster and safer forms of transportation. Knowledge can find the means for near human immortality. Knowledge can lead to unlimited production capability and therefore a top-of-the-line standard of living for all humans. For this reason, no one should be poor. Everyone should also strive individually to increase their knowledge and encourage their children to pursue the path of knowledge so that both the individual and society as a whole reap the rewards that knowledge can bestow on everyone.
The future of Earth is an unknown event, and as such can only be speculated about. We will never achieve a perfect world. However one way to bring us closer to it is to follow a rule that has been with us for a very long time. I am speaking of the Golden Rule which follows one of the edicts of the Lord’s Prayer. ‘We should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.’ If we see a blind man struggling to get across the street, we should assist that person, even if it takes us out of our way. If we see a hungry person, we should give him or her the means to obtain food. If we know of a person who has lost a loved one, we should try and comfort that person. This also means that business firms should be honest with their customers and not cheat them or give misleading information about their products or services. There are many ways that we can live by the Golden Rule and if all of us live that way, then truly the near perfect world that we dream of will be closer to us than we thought. We who are presently alive may never see a perfect world but hopefully, those that follow us may see such a world. If we want them to live in such a world, we who are already here today have to start working towards that goal for our children and their children.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Was it second degree murder or infanticide?
A young Alberta woman hung her head in an Edmonton courtroom on June 23, 2009 as a judge denied her lawyer's request to set aside a jury verdict that found her guilty of second-degree murder in the death of her newborn baby in 2005. When Effert was 19, she secretly gave birth in her parents' basement and then strangled the baby boy with her underwear and then tossed his body into a neighbour's yard in order to conceal it.
Her defence lawyer, Peter Royal asked for a mistrial, arguing the case was clearly not murder, but infanticide, a lesser crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years. Mistrials are usually sought before a verdict is reached.
Justice Joanne Veit said the issue is one better left for the court of appeal to decide. He sentenced her to the minimum sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 10 years.
The question that the court of appeal will have to deal with is, “Was it murder or was it infanticide?”
I will explain the difference.
In Canada, murder in the first degree, is one that is planned ahead of time. In this particular case, there was no evidence that Effert had planned with some deliberation to kill her child prior to its birth. For this reason, she was charged with second degree murder since planning the murder in advance was not a factor in her case for the court to have to consider.
The reason is because the word, ‘deliberate’ as used as part of the definition of the crime of murder in the first degree means ‘considered’ and not ‘impulsive’. The existence of some form of temporary mental disorder is not incompatible with the commission of a planned and deliberate murder however there generally has to be evidence that the crime was planned in advance with someone with a sound mind in order for there to be a conviction of first degree murder.
Ms. Effert may have decided to murder her baby right after it was born but that really doesn’t mean that she planned in advance to murder her baby because prior to its birth, she didn’t even know if it was going to a still-born baby.
To obtain a conviction of second degree death, the Crown had to demonstrate that the accused intended to cause bodily harm that she knew was ultimately so dangerous and serious that it was likely to result in the death of her baby. But that intent did not need to persist throughout the entire act of strangulation. The jury could infer that mother, by seizing he baby by the neck, intended to cause him bodily harm that she knew that was likely to cause her baby’s death.
It was not necessary that the requisite intent continue throughout the entire time required to cause the death of the victim. If death results from the wrongful act that then it must be established that the requisite intent coincided at some point with the wrongful act of murder.
The wrongful or unlawful act committed by Ms. Effert on which the verdict of second degree murder is based would not have equally have provided a basis for a verdict of infanticide. This does necessarily mean that the court of appeal shouldn’t re-consider trial judge’s verdict, and replace that verdict of second degree murder with a verdict of infanticide.
If the prosecution had been able to positively prove that Ms. Effert did not suffer any disturbance of the mind as a result of childbirth, the Crown might have been able to say that the crime which was proved was different from, and more serious than the crime of infanticide.
Infanticide constitutes a homicide that is a lesser offence and is an included offence in the offence of murder. The specificity of the offence resides in the fact that a link must be established between the mental disturbance and the birth of the child or lactation: it is not a requirement that the act itself is caused by the mental disturbance, it is sufficient that the mother’s mind is then disturbed. It is a question of reduced responsibility on the part of a woman who causes the death of her new born child while she is in the grip of a mental disturbance caused by the birth. There is an implicit assumption that if a woman with a disturbed mind kills her child, the disturbance is what led to the killing.
There can be no doubt that a woman who gives birth to a child that she doesn’t want or expects, is suffering some degree of disturbance in her mind. But the question is, does this justify murdering her new-born child?
The mental disturbance must be causative, in the sense that it must be the mental disturbance which prevents the formation of the required specific intention, the mental disturbance might not be related to the birth but it must be causally related to the homicide, which, distinguishes it from the offence of infanticide.
Section 663 of Canada’s Criminal Code complicates the requirements for lack of recovery from giving birth and mental disturbance because it provides that even if the Crown fails to provide that a woman had not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth or from lactation and that her mind was disturbed as a result, the accused can still be convicted of infanticide. Hence, it could be argued that infanticide can describe any killing of a newly-born child by its mother, not just those where the mother has a mental disturbance.
In that section dealing with the crime of infanticide, it is not necessary, in order to get the benefit of infanticide conviction and/or sentencing to establish postpartum depression. The test imposed by Parliament is quite specific: At the time of the commission of the offence, a mother is entitled to the defence of infanticide if, at the time when she killed her baby, she was not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth to the child and by reason thereof, her mind was then disturbed. There is no requirement for the mother to prove postpartum depression. Indeed, as in other crimes, there is no requirement that the mother prove anything. In an infanticide case, the Crown would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the mother was fully recovered from the effects of giving birth and that her mind was not disturbed by the effects of giving birth.
Postpartum psychosis is a very serious condition that usually begins a couple of days or weeks after childbirth. A woman experiencing this form of depression has become severely depressed and may experience acute anxiety, restlessness, hallucinations, paranoia, and hysteria and have thoughts related to harming herself or the baby.
Ms. Effert wasn’t suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time she murdered her baby because she murdered it immediately after it was born. If she had murdered her baby a day or so later when postpartum psychosis had set in, then she may very well have been convicted of infanticide instead of second degree murder.
The Crown essentially can never prove a negative to a near certainty. In Ms. Effert’s case, the Crown must have led evidence that Ms. Effert did not suffer from the major mental disorder of postpartum depression at the time that she strangled her baby and then tossed his body into a neighbour's yard in order to conceal it.
Her baby had a right to life and she took her baby’s life from him and then threw him away like he was just garbage. I think the ten-year sentence was appropriate in this particular case.
Her defence lawyer, Peter Royal asked for a mistrial, arguing the case was clearly not murder, but infanticide, a lesser crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years. Mistrials are usually sought before a verdict is reached.
Justice Joanne Veit said the issue is one better left for the court of appeal to decide. He sentenced her to the minimum sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 10 years.
The question that the court of appeal will have to deal with is, “Was it murder or was it infanticide?”
I will explain the difference.
In Canada, murder in the first degree, is one that is planned ahead of time. In this particular case, there was no evidence that Effert had planned with some deliberation to kill her child prior to its birth. For this reason, she was charged with second degree murder since planning the murder in advance was not a factor in her case for the court to have to consider.
The reason is because the word, ‘deliberate’ as used as part of the definition of the crime of murder in the first degree means ‘considered’ and not ‘impulsive’. The existence of some form of temporary mental disorder is not incompatible with the commission of a planned and deliberate murder however there generally has to be evidence that the crime was planned in advance with someone with a sound mind in order for there to be a conviction of first degree murder.
Ms. Effert may have decided to murder her baby right after it was born but that really doesn’t mean that she planned in advance to murder her baby because prior to its birth, she didn’t even know if it was going to a still-born baby.
To obtain a conviction of second degree death, the Crown had to demonstrate that the accused intended to cause bodily harm that she knew was ultimately so dangerous and serious that it was likely to result in the death of her baby. But that intent did not need to persist throughout the entire act of strangulation. The jury could infer that mother, by seizing he baby by the neck, intended to cause him bodily harm that she knew that was likely to cause her baby’s death.
It was not necessary that the requisite intent continue throughout the entire time required to cause the death of the victim. If death results from the wrongful act that then it must be established that the requisite intent coincided at some point with the wrongful act of murder.
The wrongful or unlawful act committed by Ms. Effert on which the verdict of second degree murder is based would not have equally have provided a basis for a verdict of infanticide. This does necessarily mean that the court of appeal shouldn’t re-consider trial judge’s verdict, and replace that verdict of second degree murder with a verdict of infanticide.
If the prosecution had been able to positively prove that Ms. Effert did not suffer any disturbance of the mind as a result of childbirth, the Crown might have been able to say that the crime which was proved was different from, and more serious than the crime of infanticide.
Infanticide constitutes a homicide that is a lesser offence and is an included offence in the offence of murder. The specificity of the offence resides in the fact that a link must be established between the mental disturbance and the birth of the child or lactation: it is not a requirement that the act itself is caused by the mental disturbance, it is sufficient that the mother’s mind is then disturbed. It is a question of reduced responsibility on the part of a woman who causes the death of her new born child while she is in the grip of a mental disturbance caused by the birth. There is an implicit assumption that if a woman with a disturbed mind kills her child, the disturbance is what led to the killing.
There can be no doubt that a woman who gives birth to a child that she doesn’t want or expects, is suffering some degree of disturbance in her mind. But the question is, does this justify murdering her new-born child?
The mental disturbance must be causative, in the sense that it must be the mental disturbance which prevents the formation of the required specific intention, the mental disturbance might not be related to the birth but it must be causally related to the homicide, which, distinguishes it from the offence of infanticide.
Section 663 of Canada’s Criminal Code complicates the requirements for lack of recovery from giving birth and mental disturbance because it provides that even if the Crown fails to provide that a woman had not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth or from lactation and that her mind was disturbed as a result, the accused can still be convicted of infanticide. Hence, it could be argued that infanticide can describe any killing of a newly-born child by its mother, not just those where the mother has a mental disturbance.
In that section dealing with the crime of infanticide, it is not necessary, in order to get the benefit of infanticide conviction and/or sentencing to establish postpartum depression. The test imposed by Parliament is quite specific: At the time of the commission of the offence, a mother is entitled to the defence of infanticide if, at the time when she killed her baby, she was not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth to the child and by reason thereof, her mind was then disturbed. There is no requirement for the mother to prove postpartum depression. Indeed, as in other crimes, there is no requirement that the mother prove anything. In an infanticide case, the Crown would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the mother was fully recovered from the effects of giving birth and that her mind was not disturbed by the effects of giving birth.
Postpartum psychosis is a very serious condition that usually begins a couple of days or weeks after childbirth. A woman experiencing this form of depression has become severely depressed and may experience acute anxiety, restlessness, hallucinations, paranoia, and hysteria and have thoughts related to harming herself or the baby.
Ms. Effert wasn’t suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time she murdered her baby because she murdered it immediately after it was born. If she had murdered her baby a day or so later when postpartum psychosis had set in, then she may very well have been convicted of infanticide instead of second degree murder.
The Crown essentially can never prove a negative to a near certainty. In Ms. Effert’s case, the Crown must have led evidence that Ms. Effert did not suffer from the major mental disorder of postpartum depression at the time that she strangled her baby and then tossed his body into a neighbour's yard in order to conceal it.
Her baby had a right to life and she took her baby’s life from him and then threw him away like he was just garbage. I think the ten-year sentence was appropriate in this particular case.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
I met my wife purely by fate
Until I was 41 years of age, I was a very lonely man. I had waited too long to find a woman that I could spend the rest of my life with. Christmas was the worst time of the year for me because there was no one close to me that I could share it with. There were beautiful and intelligent and very nice women around me but they were already going with other men and I don’t cut the grass of other men’s lawns, so to speak. My friends told me, “Hey! Some day, a great woman that is just right for you will come along. But it appeared to me that none of them would ever come along.
Perhaps I was too fussy in looking for a mate. There were five attributes that I was seeking in a mate and I would settle for three of them, if I found a possible mate who had them. The first was that she had to be reasonably pretty. I didn’t want my friends to laugh at me because they thought I was blind. She didn’t have to have a great figure however; I wasn’t really looking for a fat woman. She had to be reasonably intelligent. I didn’t want a woman who would say, “Uhh?” every time I asked a simple question. She had to be compatible in bed. I didn’t want a woman who would cross herself every time we finished making love. She also had to be a great mother of my children. Of course, I would have to wait until we were married before I could make that determination.
Some women I went with were great in bed but terribly argumentative. Some were very pretty but extremely fat. Some others had nice personalities but often they acted stupid. Some were very intelligent but terrible in bed. I just couldn’t find one woman who had at least three of the attributes I was looking for in women. As I said earlier, those women that did, were already spoken for.
I once prayed to God for help and in my prayer I said, “I will forgo any riches that I might acquire in life if you would send me a mate I could truly love.” If there is a God, he must have heard my prayer. I never acquired any riches in my life however; but I did find a mate that had all five attributes I was looking for. How we met in September 1975 is very strange indeed.
That year, I was attending a United Nations Congress at the UN Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. My speech dealt with the UN’s proposal to create a Transnational Tribunal on Terrorism. I had spoken about the Japanese Red Army terrorists who for the most part, were women. After my speech, the head of security approached me with a big smile and said, “Whatever you do, Mr. Batchelor, don’t pick up any Japanese women while you are here. They could be members of the Japanese Red Army terrorists.” I replied, “I have no intentions of picking up any Japanese women.”
Two days later, I was at a bus station and ready to take a bus to France for a three-day break so that I could climb on Mount Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain. The man at the ticket wicket suggested that I catch the train as it would get me there quicker. I ran up the street and when I arrived in the train station, there in front of me was the woman I was looking for. Mind you, I didn’t know that at that particular moment. If fact at that moment, not only was that woman not the woman I wanted to be with, she was actually a woman I was trying to hide from. You see, she was a young twenty-four-year-old Japanese woman.
When we got onto the train, she sat at one end and I sat at another end. I was nervous because she was always staring at me. We had to switch trains at the border of France and Switzerland so I went into the small washroom at the station and when I left it, there was the woman a few steps from the door as if she was waiting for me. I didn’t know if she was following me so I walked around the station and she followed me wherever I went. When the second train arrived, I went to the lead car and she too went to that car. I got out and walked on the platform until I arrived at the second car. She too entered that car. I immediately got out and went to the third car. She did the same thing. Now I was nervous but what really made me nervous was that she sat immediately across the aisle from me. If she was a Japanese Red Army terrorist, I was doomed.
There were two girls from Ontario sitting across from me and while I was telling them jokes, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, the Japanese girl was laughing at the punch lines. I leaned over the aisle and asked, “Do you speak English?” She smiled and replied, “Yes I do.” I asked, “Do you understand my jokes?” She laughed and then smiled, “They’re very funny?”
The rest is history. From then on, we were together as soul mates. She came to Canada with me and six months later, I married her. At the time of this writing, that was thirty-three years ago. On Father’s Day, June 21, 2009, my wife, Ayako and I, and our two beautiful daughters, Sarah and Michelle and their spouses and my four granddaughters, were together as one very happy family. Since my wife and I were married, we have traveled around Europe, Africa, South America, North America and South Asia together. I learned that those who travel alone; travel the fastest but they who travel alone, also end up being the worst off for their travels.
If there is a God, he certainly answered my prayer. I never became rich but as sure as God made little green apples, I had eventually found my mate.
Ohh! You are wondering why she was following me on the train. I wondered that also so recently, I asked her. I hinted that it was because of my good looks. She laughed. I then suggest that it was because of my magnificent figure. I did have an hour glass figure back in 1975. She laughed even louder. Alas, in the past thirty-three years, the sand has all shifted.
Finally the truth came out. She began; “Do you remember when we were in the train station in Geneva, and a train conductor was walking towards you and you asked him what platform you were to go to in order to catch your train?” I replied, “Yes.”
She continued, “And you remember that he told you and you thanked him and then you walked along the main platform and then onto the specific platform that you were to be on to catch your train?” Again I replied, “Yes.”
Then she said, “Well, as you know, I wanted to go to the same town you were going to so that I too could go partway up Mount Blanc but I, like you, didn’t know what platform to go on. I heard you ask the question but I didn’t hear the conductor’s reply. But I knew you did and since we were going to the same destination and you knew how to get there, I decided that I would follow you all the way and never let you out of my sight in doing so.”
It’s fate, of that, there can be no doubt. All good things come to those who wait. I waited a long time but the wait was well worth it. Since then I have never been lonely.
I entered this world alone and for some time, I lived it while I was alone. I will leave it alone but I know that when I leave it, I leave behind, a family that loves me and what greater ending of one’s life can anyone hope for than that?
Perhaps I was too fussy in looking for a mate. There were five attributes that I was seeking in a mate and I would settle for three of them, if I found a possible mate who had them. The first was that she had to be reasonably pretty. I didn’t want my friends to laugh at me because they thought I was blind. She didn’t have to have a great figure however; I wasn’t really looking for a fat woman. She had to be reasonably intelligent. I didn’t want a woman who would say, “Uhh?” every time I asked a simple question. She had to be compatible in bed. I didn’t want a woman who would cross herself every time we finished making love. She also had to be a great mother of my children. Of course, I would have to wait until we were married before I could make that determination.
Some women I went with were great in bed but terribly argumentative. Some were very pretty but extremely fat. Some others had nice personalities but often they acted stupid. Some were very intelligent but terrible in bed. I just couldn’t find one woman who had at least three of the attributes I was looking for in women. As I said earlier, those women that did, were already spoken for.
I once prayed to God for help and in my prayer I said, “I will forgo any riches that I might acquire in life if you would send me a mate I could truly love.” If there is a God, he must have heard my prayer. I never acquired any riches in my life however; but I did find a mate that had all five attributes I was looking for. How we met in September 1975 is very strange indeed.
That year, I was attending a United Nations Congress at the UN Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. My speech dealt with the UN’s proposal to create a Transnational Tribunal on Terrorism. I had spoken about the Japanese Red Army terrorists who for the most part, were women. After my speech, the head of security approached me with a big smile and said, “Whatever you do, Mr. Batchelor, don’t pick up any Japanese women while you are here. They could be members of the Japanese Red Army terrorists.” I replied, “I have no intentions of picking up any Japanese women.”
Two days later, I was at a bus station and ready to take a bus to France for a three-day break so that I could climb on Mount Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain. The man at the ticket wicket suggested that I catch the train as it would get me there quicker. I ran up the street and when I arrived in the train station, there in front of me was the woman I was looking for. Mind you, I didn’t know that at that particular moment. If fact at that moment, not only was that woman not the woman I wanted to be with, she was actually a woman I was trying to hide from. You see, she was a young twenty-four-year-old Japanese woman.
When we got onto the train, she sat at one end and I sat at another end. I was nervous because she was always staring at me. We had to switch trains at the border of France and Switzerland so I went into the small washroom at the station and when I left it, there was the woman a few steps from the door as if she was waiting for me. I didn’t know if she was following me so I walked around the station and she followed me wherever I went. When the second train arrived, I went to the lead car and she too went to that car. I got out and walked on the platform until I arrived at the second car. She too entered that car. I immediately got out and went to the third car. She did the same thing. Now I was nervous but what really made me nervous was that she sat immediately across the aisle from me. If she was a Japanese Red Army terrorist, I was doomed.
There were two girls from Ontario sitting across from me and while I was telling them jokes, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, the Japanese girl was laughing at the punch lines. I leaned over the aisle and asked, “Do you speak English?” She smiled and replied, “Yes I do.” I asked, “Do you understand my jokes?” She laughed and then smiled, “They’re very funny?”
The rest is history. From then on, we were together as soul mates. She came to Canada with me and six months later, I married her. At the time of this writing, that was thirty-three years ago. On Father’s Day, June 21, 2009, my wife, Ayako and I, and our two beautiful daughters, Sarah and Michelle and their spouses and my four granddaughters, were together as one very happy family. Since my wife and I were married, we have traveled around Europe, Africa, South America, North America and South Asia together. I learned that those who travel alone; travel the fastest but they who travel alone, also end up being the worst off for their travels.
If there is a God, he certainly answered my prayer. I never became rich but as sure as God made little green apples, I had eventually found my mate.
Ohh! You are wondering why she was following me on the train. I wondered that also so recently, I asked her. I hinted that it was because of my good looks. She laughed. I then suggest that it was because of my magnificent figure. I did have an hour glass figure back in 1975. She laughed even louder. Alas, in the past thirty-three years, the sand has all shifted.
Finally the truth came out. She began; “Do you remember when we were in the train station in Geneva, and a train conductor was walking towards you and you asked him what platform you were to go to in order to catch your train?” I replied, “Yes.”
She continued, “And you remember that he told you and you thanked him and then you walked along the main platform and then onto the specific platform that you were to be on to catch your train?” Again I replied, “Yes.”
Then she said, “Well, as you know, I wanted to go to the same town you were going to so that I too could go partway up Mount Blanc but I, like you, didn’t know what platform to go on. I heard you ask the question but I didn’t hear the conductor’s reply. But I knew you did and since we were going to the same destination and you knew how to get there, I decided that I would follow you all the way and never let you out of my sight in doing so.”
It’s fate, of that, there can be no doubt. All good things come to those who wait. I waited a long time but the wait was well worth it. Since then I have never been lonely.
I entered this world alone and for some time, I lived it while I was alone. I will leave it alone but I know that when I leave it, I leave behind, a family that loves me and what greater ending of one’s life can anyone hope for than that?
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Guilty of murders but no bodies found
A jury in Sarnia, Ontario decided that the sister of an accused murderer, Thomas Moffit, told the truth when she testified that her brother admitted killing his girlfriend over a domestic dispute. The case hinged on her testimony alone. During several days on the stand, his sister testified that Moffit told her in late May of 2007 that he broke the neck of Shelley Mathieu-Read in the hallway of a Finch Drive apartment building in Sarnia, Ontario. His sister was the only witness to testify that Mathieu-Read was really dead. Shelley’s body has never been found. No one has heard from Mathieu-Read since late May 2007.
Despite that, Moffit was charged with committing second-degree murder between May 1, 2007 and July 29, 2007. His lawyer LeRoy said during his argument, “It’s possible she’s living somewhere in North America after leaving Sarnia, or that something bad happened to her unrelated to Moffit because of her dangerous life as a drug addict.”
Shortly after people lost contact with the missing woman, Moffit told his sister that Mathieu-Read wasn’t coming back and admitted he’d killed her. But LeRoy noted that the sister’s story kept changing the more times she told it. He said that she is neither credible nor reliable, and her testimony doesn’t get the Crown’s case beyond the standard of a reasonable doubt.
The sister initially testified she had no memory of Moffit taking a borrowed wheelbarrow out of a truck he’d borrowed, but later said she remembered him taking it out. Then she testified she didn’t remember looking at the gas gauge after he borrowed the truck, but a short time later she said she had looked at the gauge.
On the evening the sister told police about Moffit’s confession, she led police officers to a comforter she said had been thrown in Perch Creek after Moffit disposed of the body. She also took them to a spot where they later found pants and boots, the court heard. She further testified her brother threw the items away while she drove him back to Sarnia after borrowing her truck. Despite the testimony of Moffit’s sister, the jury found him guilty of second degree murder after deliberating less than an hour.
This is not the first time that someone has been convicted of murder when no body was found however; conviction for a murder in the absence of a body is possible; although historically, cases of this type have been hard to prove as the prosecution must rely on other evidence, usually circumstantial.
More recently, absence of a body has been less of an obstacle to conviction for murder. For example, circumstantial evidence was originally deemed sufficient in the Australian ‘Dingo baby case’, and in others such as Bradley John Murdoch and the murder of Thomas and Jackie Hawks. In the 2002 murder of Danielle Jones, the required circumstantial evidence was provided by forensic analysis of text messages sent by the accused.
I should add however that in the famous ‘Dingo baby case’, years later, the clothes of the baby was found and it was established that the parents hadn’t killed their baby; as it was killed by a Dingo (wild dog) just as they had said to the police. They were immediately released from prison.
However, the possibility of the supposed victim turning up alive remains. In 2003, Leonard Fraser, having allegedly confessed to the murder of teenager Natasha Ryan, was on trial for this, and other murders, when she reappeared after having been missing for four years.
Bradley John Murdoch (born 1958) is serving life imprisonment for the July 2001 murder of English backpacker Peter Falconio in Australia. He was arrested in 2003 and charged with the murder of Peter Falconio on a remote part of the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek on 14th of July 2001. Falconio's body has never been found. Murdoch has maintained his innocence to this day.
During his trial, defence lawyers claimed that police procedures were not followed correctly, that the witness’ (Joanne Lees) testimony was inconsistent, and that it was impossible for him to have committed the crime. They said that Lees incorrectly identified the details of the vehicle Murdoch was driving. Lees also admitted seeing an internet photograph and article linking Murdoch to the murder before she was interviewed by police. Further, she received large sums of money for a TV interview and advance royalties for her book, No Turning Back. There was however, circumstantial evidence that was hard to disprove. Lee was the victim’s girlfriend and they were together when Peter and she were backpacking. Murdoch had raped her and his blood was later discovered on her clothes. He appealed to the highest court in Australia but his appeal was denied.
In 1999, 14-year old Natasha Ryan vanished from her Queensland, Australia home. No body was ever found, and, after years of searching, her family presumed she was dead. Their fears were confirmed in 2002 when incarcerated serial killer, Leonard Fraser, was secretly recorded in his jail cell confessing that Natasha was one of his many victims.
In the middle of Fraser's 2003 trial for the murder of four women, including Natasha Ryan, the authorities received a tip that Ryan had been living with her boyfriend, Scott Black, since her disappearance. They raided Black's house, which was less than a half-mile away from her parents' home, and found Natasha hiding in a wardrobe. The charges for Natasha's murder were dropped, though Fraser was sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences for the other three murders.
As for Natasha and her boyfriend, he was sentenced to one year in prison for perjury for claiming he didn't know Natasha's whereabouts. He was also fined $3000 and had to pay $16,740 of the costs accrued by police while searching for Natasha. Natasha only had to pay $1,000 fine for causing a false police investigation, though she sold her story to Australian tabloids for much, much more.
The murder of Danielle Jones was an English murder case where no body was found and the conviction relied upon forensic authorship analysis of text messages sent on the victim's mobile phone.
Jones' uncle, Stuart Campbell, a builder, was convicted of abduction and murder on 19th of December, 2002. Campbell was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder as well as 10 years for abduction.
The trial was unusual in the UK as prosecutions for murder without a body are very rare. The Crown's case rested upon several pieces of evidence. Jones had disappeared without contacting her parents and had been seen talking to a man in a blue Ford Transit van resembling Campbell's on the morning of her disappearance. The testing of blood-stained stockings discovered in the loft of Campbell's house found DNA matching both himself and his niece's; lip gloss used by Jones was also found in Campbell's home. A diary kept by Campbell revealed an obsession with teenage girls, with testimonies that Campbell had manipulated young girls into posing for topless photographs. Mobile Switching Center records demonstrated that Campbell's alibi of being at a D-I-Y store half an hour away in Rayleigh was false, and that Campbell's and Jones's mobile phones had been within the range of a single mobile phone mast at the time that a text message had allegedly been sent by Jones to Campbell. This along with forensic authorship analysis indicated that Campbell had written the message, not Jones, implying that Campbell had sent the message to himself using Jones's phone to make it appear that she was still alive.
I mentioned that convictions of murder in the UK when no body is found is rare, the reason is as follows;
On August 16, 1660, William Harrison left home in Campden, England, to do business in a nearby town. When he didn't return, his servant, John Perry, went to look for him. Perry found Harrison's shirt covered in blood, along with his hat, which had been slashed by a knife. Harrison, however, was nowhere to be found.
Authorities immediately suspected Perry, and likely tortured him for answers. He confessed to a conspiracy involving himself, his mother, and his brother. According to his statement, Perry claimed that it was his brother who had actually killed Harrison while attempting to rob him.
Despite the fact that all of Perry's relatives proclaimed their innocence, the entire family was convicted and hanged. Mrs. Perry, who'd also been accused of being a witch, was hanged first.
Two years later, however, William Harrison returned to England claiming that he had been abducted, taken to Turkey, and sold into slavery. He escaped when his master died, and his return was publicly lauded.
While Perry's trial didn't do John Perry (or his family) much good, it did have an impact on future cases. John Perry's story set a legal precedent in England – ‘no body, no crime’ - that has lasted for nearly 300 years.
In the United States however, no bodies doesn’t automatically mean, no convictions.
William Jackson Marion and Jack Cameron met at a Kansas boarding house in 1872. The two men became fast friends and traveling companions, using Cameron's team of horses to go from place-to-place to find work.
Along their journey, the two made a brief stop in Beatrice, Nebraska to visit Marion's in-laws before moving on. After a few days, however, Marion returned solo, sporting clothes that belonged to Cameron and driving Cameron's horses. Then he left town again.
Weeks later, the body of a man was discovered with three bullet holes in his head. He was also wearing the same outfit that Cameron had worn the day he left town. Marion immediately became the prime suspect and a manhunt began. After 10 years of searching, Marion was finally captured in Kansas.
The trial and conviction of Jack Marion was seriously abbreviated. Marion's verdict was read after just one hour of deliberation, and he was hanged for his crime on March 25, 1887.
Four years later, Jack Cameron reappeared looking for his old friend. Apparently, he had run to Mexico to avoid a shotgun wedding in Kansas, giving his horses and other possessions to Marion. Now he'd come back to reclaim them.
The story does end on a (slightly) positive note: Thanks to the work of Marion's grandson, Elbert Marion, Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey granted Jack Marion a posthumous pardon in 1987, 100 years after his execution.
In May of 1812, when Richard Colvin vanished, speculation amongst the townspeople of Manchester, Vermont, was that his brothers-in-law, Jesse and Stephen Boorn, were responsible. Without evidence of foul play, no charges were pressed.
Seven years later, the Boorn Brothers' uncle had a dream in which Richard said he'd been killed and his body buried in an old cellar on the Boorn farm. Upon excavation of the cellar, a penknife and a button were found, both identified as Richard's. But the "evidence" still wasn't enough to charge the Boorn Brothers. Soon after, when a barn on the Boorn farm burned to the ground, many believed it was arson to cover more evidence. But, again, no charges were filed.
Things finally came to a head, however, when a boy discovered bones under a tree near the Boorn home. While in custody, Jesse confessed that he and his brother had killed Richard. But before the trial began, a closer examination of the bones revealed they weren't even human, but those of an animal. The prosecution carried on, however, for they had the damning testimony of Silas Merrill, a forger, who was Jesse's cellmate.
Merrill said Jesse had implicated himself, Stephen, and their father in Colvin's murder. His testimony mentioned the suspected locations of the crime -- the cellar, the barn, and the tree -- all fitting together in a neat little package. For his cooperation in the case, Silas was set free.
As the evidence mounted, Stephen confessed as well, telling the same story as Silas, but without implicating his father. The Boorn Brothers were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1819. Jesse's sentence would later be commuted to life in prison, but Stephen was set to hang.
Rather than sit idly by, Stephen placed an ad in different newspapers explaining his predicament. The ad included a description of Richard Colvin. Amazingly, the thing worked! Someone actually tracked Colvin down, who was alive and well in New Jersey.
The same (no bodies, no conviction) doesn’t apply in China either.
Zhang Zaiyu disappeared from Hubei Province in 1994. A few months later, a woman's body was found in a lake and Zhang's family identified it as their missing loved one. Her husband She Zaiyu was arrested for murder.
For 10 days, She was reportedly denied sleep and received severe beatings until he finally confessed to the crime. Once in court, She said the confession had been coerced and that he was not guilty. He was sentenced to death in late 1994, but four years later his sentence was reduced to 15 years because the courts felt there wasn't sufficient evidence for the death penalty.
Then, in March of 2005, Zhang Zaiyu resurfaced in Hubei. Mrs. Zaiyu claimed to have suffered from mental illness and had wandered away from her home in 1994. She wound up in Shandong Province, living there and even marrying another man.
Her identity was confirmed through DNA testing and her first husband was released from prison 11 years after he had been convicted. He then sued the government and received 700,000 yuan (about $102,650) in compensation.
But more importantly, She's case - and that of Teng Xingshan -- helped bring about changes to the Chinese judicial system in 2005. Now, capital punishment cases are the sole authority of the Supreme People's Court, which requires more oversight and investigation before executions are carried out.
In April 1987, the dismembered body of a woman was dragged from the waters of the Mayang River in central Hunan Province. A young woman, Shi Xiaorong, had been declared missing shortly before the body was found, so police believed she was the victim.
According to authorities, the dismemberment looked "very professional", so local butcher Teng Xinhshan became a prime suspect. It was speculated that Teng had sex with Shi and killed her when she tried to steal his money. Teng claimed he had never met Shi, but was found guilty and sentenced to death anyway. He was executed in 1989.
Then, in 1993, Shi Xiaorong reappeared saying that she had been tricked and sold into marriage in March 1987. When Teng's relatives learned that Shi was still alive, they sued the judiciary. After the case was reopened, Shi testified that she had never even met Teng, and that he had obviously not killed her. Teng was posthumously exonerated in 2006.
In May 2009, Michael Thomas C.S. Rafferty, 28, and Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, both of Woodstock, were arrested and charged with the murder of 8-year-old Tori Stafford. Her body (at the time of this writing) has not been found. However, the evidence against them both is very conclusive. McClintic was video-taped walking the girl along the street. Rafferty is charged with the murder of the little girl and McClintic is charged with being an accessory to the murder. Both are charged with abducting the little girl.
There was a case in Toronto a number of years ago where the former boyfriend of a Bank of Nova Scotia Bank teller kidnapped her and murdered her. However when he was being tried for her murder, her body had not being located. The only evidence against him was that he was seen removing her from the bank. He maintained that he didn’t kill her and that he left her at another location and that was the last time he saw her. Despite his defence, he was convicted of her murder. Several years later, her body was found.
This is proof that there are obviously times when murderers should never escape the consequences of their crimes simply because no bodies of their victims were ever found.
Despite that, Moffit was charged with committing second-degree murder between May 1, 2007 and July 29, 2007. His lawyer LeRoy said during his argument, “It’s possible she’s living somewhere in North America after leaving Sarnia, or that something bad happened to her unrelated to Moffit because of her dangerous life as a drug addict.”
Shortly after people lost contact with the missing woman, Moffit told his sister that Mathieu-Read wasn’t coming back and admitted he’d killed her. But LeRoy noted that the sister’s story kept changing the more times she told it. He said that she is neither credible nor reliable, and her testimony doesn’t get the Crown’s case beyond the standard of a reasonable doubt.
The sister initially testified she had no memory of Moffit taking a borrowed wheelbarrow out of a truck he’d borrowed, but later said she remembered him taking it out. Then she testified she didn’t remember looking at the gas gauge after he borrowed the truck, but a short time later she said she had looked at the gauge.
On the evening the sister told police about Moffit’s confession, she led police officers to a comforter she said had been thrown in Perch Creek after Moffit disposed of the body. She also took them to a spot where they later found pants and boots, the court heard. She further testified her brother threw the items away while she drove him back to Sarnia after borrowing her truck. Despite the testimony of Moffit’s sister, the jury found him guilty of second degree murder after deliberating less than an hour.
This is not the first time that someone has been convicted of murder when no body was found however; conviction for a murder in the absence of a body is possible; although historically, cases of this type have been hard to prove as the prosecution must rely on other evidence, usually circumstantial.
More recently, absence of a body has been less of an obstacle to conviction for murder. For example, circumstantial evidence was originally deemed sufficient in the Australian ‘Dingo baby case’, and in others such as Bradley John Murdoch and the murder of Thomas and Jackie Hawks. In the 2002 murder of Danielle Jones, the required circumstantial evidence was provided by forensic analysis of text messages sent by the accused.
I should add however that in the famous ‘Dingo baby case’, years later, the clothes of the baby was found and it was established that the parents hadn’t killed their baby; as it was killed by a Dingo (wild dog) just as they had said to the police. They were immediately released from prison.
However, the possibility of the supposed victim turning up alive remains. In 2003, Leonard Fraser, having allegedly confessed to the murder of teenager Natasha Ryan, was on trial for this, and other murders, when she reappeared after having been missing for four years.
Bradley John Murdoch (born 1958) is serving life imprisonment for the July 2001 murder of English backpacker Peter Falconio in Australia. He was arrested in 2003 and charged with the murder of Peter Falconio on a remote part of the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek on 14th of July 2001. Falconio's body has never been found. Murdoch has maintained his innocence to this day.
During his trial, defence lawyers claimed that police procedures were not followed correctly, that the witness’ (Joanne Lees) testimony was inconsistent, and that it was impossible for him to have committed the crime. They said that Lees incorrectly identified the details of the vehicle Murdoch was driving. Lees also admitted seeing an internet photograph and article linking Murdoch to the murder before she was interviewed by police. Further, she received large sums of money for a TV interview and advance royalties for her book, No Turning Back. There was however, circumstantial evidence that was hard to disprove. Lee was the victim’s girlfriend and they were together when Peter and she were backpacking. Murdoch had raped her and his blood was later discovered on her clothes. He appealed to the highest court in Australia but his appeal was denied.
In 1999, 14-year old Natasha Ryan vanished from her Queensland, Australia home. No body was ever found, and, after years of searching, her family presumed she was dead. Their fears were confirmed in 2002 when incarcerated serial killer, Leonard Fraser, was secretly recorded in his jail cell confessing that Natasha was one of his many victims.
In the middle of Fraser's 2003 trial for the murder of four women, including Natasha Ryan, the authorities received a tip that Ryan had been living with her boyfriend, Scott Black, since her disappearance. They raided Black's house, which was less than a half-mile away from her parents' home, and found Natasha hiding in a wardrobe. The charges for Natasha's murder were dropped, though Fraser was sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences for the other three murders.
As for Natasha and her boyfriend, he was sentenced to one year in prison for perjury for claiming he didn't know Natasha's whereabouts. He was also fined $3000 and had to pay $16,740 of the costs accrued by police while searching for Natasha. Natasha only had to pay $1,000 fine for causing a false police investigation, though she sold her story to Australian tabloids for much, much more.
The murder of Danielle Jones was an English murder case where no body was found and the conviction relied upon forensic authorship analysis of text messages sent on the victim's mobile phone.
Jones' uncle, Stuart Campbell, a builder, was convicted of abduction and murder on 19th of December, 2002. Campbell was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder as well as 10 years for abduction.
The trial was unusual in the UK as prosecutions for murder without a body are very rare. The Crown's case rested upon several pieces of evidence. Jones had disappeared without contacting her parents and had been seen talking to a man in a blue Ford Transit van resembling Campbell's on the morning of her disappearance. The testing of blood-stained stockings discovered in the loft of Campbell's house found DNA matching both himself and his niece's; lip gloss used by Jones was also found in Campbell's home. A diary kept by Campbell revealed an obsession with teenage girls, with testimonies that Campbell had manipulated young girls into posing for topless photographs. Mobile Switching Center records demonstrated that Campbell's alibi of being at a D-I-Y store half an hour away in Rayleigh was false, and that Campbell's and Jones's mobile phones had been within the range of a single mobile phone mast at the time that a text message had allegedly been sent by Jones to Campbell. This along with forensic authorship analysis indicated that Campbell had written the message, not Jones, implying that Campbell had sent the message to himself using Jones's phone to make it appear that she was still alive.
I mentioned that convictions of murder in the UK when no body is found is rare, the reason is as follows;
On August 16, 1660, William Harrison left home in Campden, England, to do business in a nearby town. When he didn't return, his servant, John Perry, went to look for him. Perry found Harrison's shirt covered in blood, along with his hat, which had been slashed by a knife. Harrison, however, was nowhere to be found.
Authorities immediately suspected Perry, and likely tortured him for answers. He confessed to a conspiracy involving himself, his mother, and his brother. According to his statement, Perry claimed that it was his brother who had actually killed Harrison while attempting to rob him.
Despite the fact that all of Perry's relatives proclaimed their innocence, the entire family was convicted and hanged. Mrs. Perry, who'd also been accused of being a witch, was hanged first.
Two years later, however, William Harrison returned to England claiming that he had been abducted, taken to Turkey, and sold into slavery. He escaped when his master died, and his return was publicly lauded.
While Perry's trial didn't do John Perry (or his family) much good, it did have an impact on future cases. John Perry's story set a legal precedent in England – ‘no body, no crime’ - that has lasted for nearly 300 years.
In the United States however, no bodies doesn’t automatically mean, no convictions.
William Jackson Marion and Jack Cameron met at a Kansas boarding house in 1872. The two men became fast friends and traveling companions, using Cameron's team of horses to go from place-to-place to find work.
Along their journey, the two made a brief stop in Beatrice, Nebraska to visit Marion's in-laws before moving on. After a few days, however, Marion returned solo, sporting clothes that belonged to Cameron and driving Cameron's horses. Then he left town again.
Weeks later, the body of a man was discovered with three bullet holes in his head. He was also wearing the same outfit that Cameron had worn the day he left town. Marion immediately became the prime suspect and a manhunt began. After 10 years of searching, Marion was finally captured in Kansas.
The trial and conviction of Jack Marion was seriously abbreviated. Marion's verdict was read after just one hour of deliberation, and he was hanged for his crime on March 25, 1887.
Four years later, Jack Cameron reappeared looking for his old friend. Apparently, he had run to Mexico to avoid a shotgun wedding in Kansas, giving his horses and other possessions to Marion. Now he'd come back to reclaim them.
The story does end on a (slightly) positive note: Thanks to the work of Marion's grandson, Elbert Marion, Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey granted Jack Marion a posthumous pardon in 1987, 100 years after his execution.
In May of 1812, when Richard Colvin vanished, speculation amongst the townspeople of Manchester, Vermont, was that his brothers-in-law, Jesse and Stephen Boorn, were responsible. Without evidence of foul play, no charges were pressed.
Seven years later, the Boorn Brothers' uncle had a dream in which Richard said he'd been killed and his body buried in an old cellar on the Boorn farm. Upon excavation of the cellar, a penknife and a button were found, both identified as Richard's. But the "evidence" still wasn't enough to charge the Boorn Brothers. Soon after, when a barn on the Boorn farm burned to the ground, many believed it was arson to cover more evidence. But, again, no charges were filed.
Things finally came to a head, however, when a boy discovered bones under a tree near the Boorn home. While in custody, Jesse confessed that he and his brother had killed Richard. But before the trial began, a closer examination of the bones revealed they weren't even human, but those of an animal. The prosecution carried on, however, for they had the damning testimony of Silas Merrill, a forger, who was Jesse's cellmate.
Merrill said Jesse had implicated himself, Stephen, and their father in Colvin's murder. His testimony mentioned the suspected locations of the crime -- the cellar, the barn, and the tree -- all fitting together in a neat little package. For his cooperation in the case, Silas was set free.
As the evidence mounted, Stephen confessed as well, telling the same story as Silas, but without implicating his father. The Boorn Brothers were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1819. Jesse's sentence would later be commuted to life in prison, but Stephen was set to hang.
Rather than sit idly by, Stephen placed an ad in different newspapers explaining his predicament. The ad included a description of Richard Colvin. Amazingly, the thing worked! Someone actually tracked Colvin down, who was alive and well in New Jersey.
The same (no bodies, no conviction) doesn’t apply in China either.
Zhang Zaiyu disappeared from Hubei Province in 1994. A few months later, a woman's body was found in a lake and Zhang's family identified it as their missing loved one. Her husband She Zaiyu was arrested for murder.
For 10 days, She was reportedly denied sleep and received severe beatings until he finally confessed to the crime. Once in court, She said the confession had been coerced and that he was not guilty. He was sentenced to death in late 1994, but four years later his sentence was reduced to 15 years because the courts felt there wasn't sufficient evidence for the death penalty.
Then, in March of 2005, Zhang Zaiyu resurfaced in Hubei. Mrs. Zaiyu claimed to have suffered from mental illness and had wandered away from her home in 1994. She wound up in Shandong Province, living there and even marrying another man.
Her identity was confirmed through DNA testing and her first husband was released from prison 11 years after he had been convicted. He then sued the government and received 700,000 yuan (about $102,650) in compensation.
But more importantly, She's case - and that of Teng Xingshan -- helped bring about changes to the Chinese judicial system in 2005. Now, capital punishment cases are the sole authority of the Supreme People's Court, which requires more oversight and investigation before executions are carried out.
In April 1987, the dismembered body of a woman was dragged from the waters of the Mayang River in central Hunan Province. A young woman, Shi Xiaorong, had been declared missing shortly before the body was found, so police believed she was the victim.
According to authorities, the dismemberment looked "very professional", so local butcher Teng Xinhshan became a prime suspect. It was speculated that Teng had sex with Shi and killed her when she tried to steal his money. Teng claimed he had never met Shi, but was found guilty and sentenced to death anyway. He was executed in 1989.
Then, in 1993, Shi Xiaorong reappeared saying that she had been tricked and sold into marriage in March 1987. When Teng's relatives learned that Shi was still alive, they sued the judiciary. After the case was reopened, Shi testified that she had never even met Teng, and that he had obviously not killed her. Teng was posthumously exonerated in 2006.
In May 2009, Michael Thomas C.S. Rafferty, 28, and Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18, both of Woodstock, were arrested and charged with the murder of 8-year-old Tori Stafford. Her body (at the time of this writing) has not been found. However, the evidence against them both is very conclusive. McClintic was video-taped walking the girl along the street. Rafferty is charged with the murder of the little girl and McClintic is charged with being an accessory to the murder. Both are charged with abducting the little girl.
There was a case in Toronto a number of years ago where the former boyfriend of a Bank of Nova Scotia Bank teller kidnapped her and murdered her. However when he was being tried for her murder, her body had not being located. The only evidence against him was that he was seen removing her from the bank. He maintained that he didn’t kill her and that he left her at another location and that was the last time he saw her. Despite his defence, he was convicted of her murder. Several years later, her body was found.
This is proof that there are obviously times when murderers should never escape the consequences of their crimes simply because no bodies of their victims were ever found.
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