REGINA – They agreed that what Robert Latimer did was wrong, but whether he should spend 10 years in jail for it divided people at a demonstration outside a Regina courthouse the night before Latimer’s appeal.
“I think the 10-year sentence should stand, but I think he should spend his time on his farm,” said Pamela Cowan, whose daughter has cerebral palsy. She said Latimer has a family to support and throwing him in jail would just make his family suffer more than it already has.
And she suggested the lack of support services in rural areas for people who care for disabled people might have been one of the factors in Latimer’s mind when he dealt with his severely disabled daughter, Tracy.
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But Lynn Phillips, whose daughter also has cerebral palsy, rejected Cowan’s call for Latimer’s time to be spent on-farm.
Cerebral palsy sufferer Jamie Ellis said his own feelings are mixed. “Maybe Mr. Latimer thought that he would put his daughter out of pain, but on the other hand I can still see the cruelty behind this,” he said.
The demonstration was organized by two groups that are intervening in the appeal of Latimer’s conviction and sentence. They want both to stand.
Latimer, a farmer from Wilkie, Sask., was convicted of killing his daughter Tracy with carbon mon-oxide gas. She had cerebral palsy, was in constant pain and killing her was the only humane way to stop her torment, Latimer’s lawyer argued after his client was charged.
Latimer was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 10 years – the minimum sentence possible.
Latimer’s appeal of both conviction and sentence was presented Feb. 23. No decision is expected immediately.
At the demonstration, which took the form of a candlelight vigil for Tracy, Cowan argued that Latimer’s decision regarding his daughter was wrong, whether or not he felt he was helping her.
“We don’t know what Tracy wanted from life,” she said. “She couldn’t tell anyone that she wanted to die because her life was unbearable and that’s the point. A parent can’t be allowed to condemn a child to death.”
But Cowan said she felt great sympathy for what the Latimer family has gone through and said she “wouldn’t be surprised” if the strain of taking care of Tracy pushed Latimer into a decision she thinks he had no right to make.
“Parents in rural areas don’t have accessibility to the rehabilitation centres, and there just isn’t any funding for respite services,” she said.
