Canada Court Rejects Leniency in ‘Mercy’ Death

Canada’s Supreme Court on Thursday refused leniency for a so-called mercy killing and ordered the imprisonment of a man convicted of murdering his disabled daughter.

The country’s highest court, unanimously rejecting the arguments of Robert Latimer that he had asphyxiated his 12-year-old daughter, Tracy, in 1993 out of love and necessity, upheld the legal requirement for second-degree murder of a life sentence with no parole for at least 10 years.

Tracy had suffered from severe cerebral palsy, and Latimer’s lawyers said she had been in constant pain, but the case prompted heated debate over whether the killing of disabled people should be treated differently.

“In considering the defense of necessity, we must remain aware of the need to respect the life, dignity and equality of all the individuals affected by the act in question,” the court ruled in its 7-0 decision.

“The fact that the victim in this case was disabled rather than able-bodied does not affect our conclusion.”

A shocked but defiant Latimer, 47, said at his Saskatchewan farm--where he has been free on bail pending the court ruling--that he had no regrets.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, before driving to town with his wife and turning himself in to prison.

Latimer said the judges and the government were in effect promoting “torture, mutilation, forced feeding, just so that some poor little child can survive a few more days and to endure that much more torture.”