Tori Stafford Murder Trial

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For those of you who don't know anything about this case, Wikipedia is a decent place to start: Murder of Victoria Stafford

And the verdict, announced today in The Toronto Star

Not sure if anyone outside of Canada even knows about this case, but it's the first abduction/murder type trial that I've really paid any attention to.

I remember when she was abducted, it was an incredibly slow time at work so I had a lot of time to spend on news sites. That whole summer I followed the story pretty carefully, and I know a lot of my friends did. I'd heard in the past of other murder trials and things like that, but I always just skimmed over the stories.

With this one, though, the intense media coverage kept it front page news the whole summer. Even over the past few months with the trial the daily updates were at the top of the story list on The Star's website. This is definitely a case of "missing white woman syndrome" but this honestly feels like my generation's (locally, at least) O.J.-type trial. Ask any of my friends and they can tell you the details of the case and a rough timeline.

It's just such a horrible thing. I really don't know why I'm posting this or what I'm hoping any of you will get from this. More than anything it just feels right to spread the news of the conviction of this sick bastard.

It's awful how slow the Canadian legal system is, I mean we are nine days short of the third anniversary of Rafferty's arrest. The trial didn't even start until March of this year for a murder from April 2009. It truly saddens me that her parents had to wait that long to get closure, but at least now they should hopefully have some.

 

I'm glad he was found guilty -- given that a lot of the Crown's case rested on McClintic's testimony, and the fact that she is a liar, killer, and all around despicable waste of skin, I was afraid the defense would be able to generate reasonable doubt on some charges.

The sad fact is, though, that the torment is NOT over for Tori's parents. Our useless legal system is slanted far, far too much in favor of the accused. Rafferty will be making appeals and such for the rest of his life, many of them groundless, but our system listens to each and every one for far longer than is reasonable or fair.

I wish we had the death penalty, I really do. This guy raped a 6 year old girl. There is nothing he can accomplish during the rest if his life that can balance something like that out. But the bleeding hearts hold sway and count the continuing existence of a child rapist as some sort of victory, the same bleeding hearts who don't give a care in the world for how that little girl felt in the last few minutes of her life.

And don't forget, the Canadian prison system is focused on rehabilitation, nit punishment. Rafferty -- and McClintic, for that matter -- will receive education and counseling. They will eat better than innocent poor people on the streets, and they will certainly have better accommodations. Bass ackward fools like the John Howard society will watch closely to ensure their rights are never violated. IMHO, after doing something so utterly disgusting, they should be stripped of all rights. But of course, we will never have the guts to do that in this gutless country.

 

Couldn't agree more. The fact that Karla Homolka has been walking the streets for almost seven years now really shows that. I consider myself liberal in almost every way, but crime is one area that I'm definitely not. The moment you decide to take a life you are giving up all your rights as far as I'm concerned. An eye for an eye may make the world go blind, but it feels damn good.

 

Truth be told, if it were not for the fact that I was in Canada last week, and we got a copy of the Toronto Star delivered to our hotel room every day, I would have no knowledge of this case at all. It received very little news coverage in the states.

 

It hasn't had any coverage here either (although that's not surprising).
However, I'm a great believer that the perpetrators of crimes like this should be locked in a room with a group of parents

 

Actually the John Howard Society is based on victim assistance in legal matters. There is another Society to help the violators, I don't remember the name because I didn't deal with them. As far as the John Howard Society, I've used their services. When a person has just come out of a very bad situation it can be very confusing and legal matters are something a lot of people don't know how deal with.

The woman I dealt with initially at the John Howard Society was very kind and compassionate and helped me almost not at all. I signed the papers so they could release information to me and then I went other routes and got the information I needed 10 times faster and much more comprehensive. In fact, the same day of the meeting with John Howard I stepped outside their office and looked at the names on the courtroom announcements and low-and -behold I saw the name of the person I was there about on it. He had been there the same morning basically in the same general area, and they didn't even have a clue.

Although their intentions are good, the John Howard Society is made up of volunteers and they are not allowed to give actual legal advice because they are not lawyers.

As far as Victim assistance in Canada goes. I was not even initially told that the perpetrator was not allowed to contact me and I am still hazy about my legal dangers as far as initiating a contact with him, which I had to do at one point for very necessary reasons.

 

All of my reading on the society has been that it focuses on prisoners and prison reform (read that, mollycoddling child rapists). I'm glad to hear that they have people who focus on helping victims. That's where they should be focusing their efforts.

 

Actually I never researched John Howard, but when I spoke to them they did tell me that they were help for the victim side and the other one (I still can't remember the name of it) was for the other side. I don't disagree at all with what you said, I just don't have a lot of knowledge about it other than what I have experienced.

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As far as having the death penalty in Canada I wholeheartedly agree with that. Why spend Canadian tax dollars educating a piece of scum and keeping it alive when those tax dollars could be spent in so many other areas to improve our way of life.

I REALLY like Silvery's idea too. Just make sure the room is soundproof with no surveillance equipment, and no questions asked afterwards.

 

I have no problem with locking incredibly heinous offenders up and throwing away the proverbial key. Constitutional rights (here in the US, at least) being what they are, it costs more to execute someone than it does to just lock him up -- and then there's that messy part that comes around when you execute the wrong guy. Yes, yes, I know what you're going to say every inmate says he's innocent, and that the vast majority are lying. Badly. This is absolutely correct. The problem I have with that line of reason is that some prisoners that profess their innocence aren't lying. Frankly, I'm more concerned about protecting the opportunity, however slim, for a wrongly incarcerated innocent man to gain a reversal of his sentence than I am about executing a murderer who will never threaten society again.

If we lock up the wrong guy and find out we made a mistake, we can give him back his freedom. We can't un-kill a dead man, though, and the death penalty doesn't really a bigger deterrence than life in prison -- people who commit capital crimes rarely plan to get caught.

Of course, we could always just reserve the death penalty for those instances in which the perpetrator's guilt is immutable, and I have no problem with that. In theory. Given that any legal system worth it's salt is already designed to err on the side of letting a guilty man walk as opposed to incarcerating an innocent, and given that this doesn't stop innocent people from being wrongly incarcerated in actual practice (although it certainly mitigates it), you'll have to forgive me for being a bit skeptical. I just don't think the limited net gain from the death penalty is worth the downside, regardless of the crime.

 

In Canada, "life" means 25 years. Actually, less, given double time for pre-trial custody. We also have concurrent sentencing, which means you could rape dozens of little girls, and get 25 years for each, but you'd still serve only 25 years in total. Criminals know this. They know that with a good sob story they can get reduced sentences.

I'm sorry, but I just can't get that little raped girl out of my head. I can't help but think that the only just punishment for that sort of evil is death. I'd settle for life behind bars, but Canada doesn't even do that. I don't think the system is a level playing field. It is far too slanted in favor of the child rapists and murderers.

 

I remember the case of Corrine Gustavson that was solved a couple of years ago when her killer all of a sudden felt guilty about what he had done and confessed his crime to a native elder while in incarceration. The ******* had had a fight with his girlfriend was trying to find her daughter and when he could not find the daughter of his girlfriend he found Corrine Gustavson instead. She died from the trauma of the sever raping he did to her. It was proven with DNA. I would really like to see that guy executed as well and there is no doubt that he is guilty.

I used to drive by the truck yard that they found her body in. It always made me so angry when I thought about what that bastard did to her.

 

But you see, Dice, once these little girls are dead the rehabilitationists no longer care about what happened to them. They are gone, and all that matters is the poor rapist and his sad upbringing. It is that mindset that makes it difficult for me to speak peaceably to them. I understand the whole "innocent man" thesis but we have so many checks and balances, and to get rid of a child rapist is worth the risk. Most "innocent" convicts are usually career criminals who don't care at all about their fellow citizens anyway.

 

LKD, I'm happy to respectfully differ on whether the potential up-side of the death penalty is worth the inevitability that someone who is innocent of the crime is put to death.

I will not, however, be willing to stand for your assertion that:

This simply isn't true. The people who advocate protecting the basic human rights of prison inmates are not the one dimensional cartoon villains you portray them to be. By calling them such, you cut off all possibility of rational discourse. In this manner you are no different than the child who puts his hands over his ears and screams in order to avoid listening to something he doesn't want to hear.

 

I call it like I see it. I know they are not cartoons; they are far too real, more's the pity. But I simply have never seen much concern for the victims from these folks. As I said, they rarely if ever take the victims or the crime into account. And you are right that I simply don't want to hear about their sad family lives or their unfortunate addictions. To me, all of that takes a distant second place to the fact that they rape children -- literally. There is no excuse for that sort of behavior. None.

 

Hey Drew - long time no see in the Alleys! How's it hanging buddy?

In the past week there was a news article that stated that in the last 20 years, over 2,000 people were released from prison because evidence later came out that they were not the perpetrators of the crime. So about 100 people every year. (I will concede that the prison population in the US is so large that 2,000 represents a tiny fraction, but I can't help but think that the 2,000 released weren't the only people who we put away who were innocent.)

A plurality of those released were exonerated by DNA evidence, although second on the list was a key witness recanting their testimony. Most of the recanted testimony were from minors, who stated that they were told by their parents or police to give a certain testimony during the trial, and it was only after they were older that they realized that an injustice had been performed.

I bring this up, because one of the cases highlighted was that of a guy who was imprisoned for over 10 years for raping two young girls, aged 7 and 9 at the time. It turns out that they both gave false testimony at the trial, because they were told to do so. It was only after they grew up that they realized what they had done, and came forward to say that the rapist was actually another family member - not the African American living next door. And the family member was then dead, so he never faced justice.

My personal opinion is that life in prison with no possibility of parole is worse than the death penalty. It basically is a death sentence, because you'll live out the rest of your life - potentially decades - in the miserable conditions of a prison. There is a hierarchy in prisons, and child rapists and murderers are at the bottom rung. One can argue that part of the justice they will receive will be handed out by their fellow inmates.

 

To be honest, this particular case had no DNA. That said, this guy has about a 2% chance of having been wrongfully convicted. So using those criteria, he should still be locked up for life (real life, as opposed to only 25 years).

But people like Bernardo, who made video tapes of himself raping and murdering young girls? To bring up the innocent man spectre is a straw man argument, because there is no doubt, none, zip, zero, zilch, that he is guilty. Same for Pickton -- the DNA proves he killed those women. In cases so heinous and so clear, death should be the penalty.

I am not fond of the idea of inmates serving justice on these guys. The State should be the one doing it, and doing it according to a strict set of guidelines. Prisoners should all be isolated in 5x8 cells so they can't hurt each other or collaborate to hurt guards. Their food should be the bare minimum to sustain life. No TVs, no college classes, no poker games, no fancy gyms, no day trips to the aquarium. Just sit and ponder as to why you ended up in this horrible, horrible place.

 

@ Drew - I agree with you in some way. I would never want to see a person pay for a crime that they wrongly committed.

However if a perpetrator confesses his guilt, passes a psychiatric evaluation, and has DNA evidence to back him up then he is guilty. If the crime is proven without any doubt then why should we waste tax money and funding for councillors etc. on someone who has already destroyed more lives than the single one he is living. I find it hard to believe that it costs more to execute them than keeping them alive.

@ Aldeleth - There are also a lot of people released from prison who will go out and re-offend despite years of corrective councilling and finding god. I'm sick of bad people winning while I am raising children and trying to protect them from a society that is getting harder and harder to deal with.


EDIT - sorry LKD, I'm not ignoring your statement, I just posted at the same time as you and missed it. I'll catch up next round.

 

Doesn't matter Aldeth! If you have been accused you are a horrible human being and deserve everything that is coming to you!

 

This is a problem with no good solution, imo. Being a murder victim = bad. Having your murder go unpunished = bad. Murdering somebody and getting a comfy retirement = bad. Being wrongfully killed by the state = bad.

btw, I would hazard a guess that even the most strident advocates of 'prison justice' would be horrified and eventually would pity even a child rapist/murderer if you had to, you know, actually see them being raped and sodomized by Big Bubba and the boys 749 times over the course of the 20 years they might survive in prison. Conceptualizing that type of justice doesn't usually square up well with real world realities, and for that I agree with LKD that it should be the state and the state alone which metes out the justice. Otherwise lynch mobs would be okay too.