On November 30, Justice James Brunton of the Quebec Superior Court reversed a lower court decision and removed the 14 post-incarceration conditions that had been imposed on schoolgirl killer Karla Homolka.
as expected, the public was outraged and so they should be. But some of this outrage was misplaced. Homolka had served her sentence and the conditions were not imposed as a punishment, although to those that are subject to these conditions they seem like punishment. Rather the conditions that were imposed under s.810.2 of the Criminal Code were placed upon her in order to protect the public. The issue before the court was not what she did in the early 1990s but whether or not she poses a danger now. The type of conditions envisaged under s.810.2 is similar to those that are placed upon accused who are granted bail and those people are presumed to be innocent.
Nor are the horrific details of her crime a reason to restrict her liberty after she had completed her sentence. While the facts of her crimes must be looked at when determining if she poses an immediate danger to society, the crimes, per se, are not the criteria that are to be used in making a decision under s.810.2. It cannot be assumed that Karla Homolka is now dangerous solely because of the nature of the crimes that she had previously committed.
In order to properly assess the court’s decision in removing Homolka’s conditions we have to ignore the emotions that are generated from the nature of her crimes and her seeming lack of remorse for what she has done including two brutal murders and the death of her own sister and simply examine what the court had to do.
Justice Brunton did not make a finding that Karla Homolka did not pose an imminent danger to society that would lead to the necessity of conditions being placed upon her. Rather, as judges are prone to do, he simply found that there was no sufficient evidence before him to conclude that she was a danger.
as Tim Danson, lawyer for the Mahaffy and French families has pointed out, Homolka called an expert witness at her s.810 hearing; the Crown didn’t call any.
Dr. Louis Morissette was called to give his expert opinion on whether Homolka posed an imminent danger to the public. In his opinion, Karla Homolka had shown no psychopathic tendencies. He referred to her relationship to convicted murder Jean-Paul Gerbet as essentially not a problem because Gerbet will be deported to his native France when he is eligible for release and therefore the relationship will go nowhere.
More importantly, Morissette’s opinion of Karla Homolka was that she was an abused wife, who was forced to do what she did by Paul Bernardo. Morissette’s response to the videotapes that show Homolka thoroughly enjoying herself throughout the brutal assaults was that battered women learn to be good actors.
Neither the Ontario nor Quebec prosecutors called any witnesses to rebut Morissette’s characterization of Karla Homolka as a battered wife and just another female victim of Paul Bernardo. Lawyers from two different provinces had applied in court for these extraordinary restrictions to be placed on Karla Homolka’s liberty after the completion of her sentence, but neither the Quebec or Ontario government thought it important enough to call medical witnesses. They threw in copies of old psychiatric reports, but did not feel it necessary to call actual expert witnesses to say that Homolka was in fact a willing actor in her crimes and therefore dangerous. When Homolka first came to the attention of the police she was treated by then NDP non-lawyer attorney General Marion Boyd as a poor battered spouse and the victim of Paul Bernardo, one of those awful white men. Tapes or no tapes she would never have been able to make "the deal with the devil" had she not been believed to be a victim. More than 12 years later, it appears that the authorities are still bending over backwards to portray her as a poor victim. There can be no other reason why the prosecutors failed to call any expert witnesses to contradict Morissette’s evidence other than the fact that they really accept the "Karla as victim" scenario. and it is, of course politically correct to relegate the then-young attractive woman is a victim. Ontario Tory critic Bob Runciman was right when he characterized attorney General Michael Bryant as blowing this case once again.
On December 6, the Quebec Court of appeal summarily dismissed an application for leave to appeal Justice Brunton’s decision confirming that the judge did not err in his finding that was based upon the evidence that was before him.
Runciman was also right when he said, "Mr. Bryant loves the limelight and loves to portray himself as tough on crime, but when the test came he and his officials once again proved they’re not up to the job".
It seems that there are some who want Karla Homolka to remain what she was when she first came to the public’s attention--nothing more than a poor battered wife.