Jury has been deliberating since Friday; returned verdict today; guilty of first degree murder on all four counts:
Jury in “honour killing” case finds Shafia family guilty of 1st-degree murder
Wondering - what is a likely sentence? I know Canada doesn’t have the death penalty but do you have life without possibility of parole or sentences mandated as consecutive?
First degree murder (which the three of them got) is an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. And no, it’s not consecutive, so they can each start applying for parole (doesn’t mean they’ll get it) in 25 years even though 4 victims were involved.
Is that because consecutive is not legal or just for this case? And, was this the max they could have gotten for four murders? thx - Liz Breckow
The court and jury seem convinced of their guilt. There is a huge amount of recorded conversations of the convicted that leave little doubt about their opinions, yet in court they all claim to be innocent.
The father has even been recorded calling his deceased daughters “whores”. Why do they bother with such a charade? If they really believe this was a just action why would they claim to be innocent. I do not understand these people.
It is a horrifying crime for which no punishment could be too harsh.
Yes, this is the maximum that could be given in this matter. Consecutive sentences are legal, but in this matter (life without parole for 25), consecutive sentences wouldn’t do much–after all, each of the accused has only one life. Each can apply for parole after 25 years; but as has been said, it is not automatic.
We do have “dangerous offender” status, where a person can be jailed indefinitely, but such a status would not apply in this matter. It cannot be applied for first-degree murder (which these convictions are); but moreover, is generally used for repeatedly committing particularly violent and/or sexual crimes.
nm
Nor do I. This exchange was particularly memorable:
*In a direct response to a question from prosecutor Laurie Lacelle, Shafia [the father] said, “To kill someone, you can’t regain your respect and honor. Respected lady, you should know that. In our religion, a person who kills his wife or daughter, there is nothing more dishonorable. How is it possible that someone would do that to their children, respected lady?”
“You might do it,” Lacelle calmly replied, “if you thought they were whores.” Shafia had used that term in a conversation captured by wiretaps.*
Boom!
But . . . but . . . I thought that the Soviet of Canada had been overrun by Sharia Law, which is one reason that the Defenders of Truth, Justice, and the American Way in (parts of) the US have been trying to enact legislation to outlaw it!
Seriously (for me, at least), kudos to the prosecution and the jury. The conviction can’t restore the lives that were destroyed, but at least it lays the groundwork* for putting these wastes of protoplasm where they can’t do further harm.
*Phrased that way because I don’t know what avenues for appeal they may have.
I’m so glad that’s over. I don’t remember the last time something in the news has upset me so much or so frequently - you couldn’t open the damn paper without having something break your heart just a little bit more - and good luck finding the resolve to no read the details.
I remember reading excerpts of texts from Zainab Shafia to her school crush just before the murders. “it was my dream to marry u n I did it once soooo nw even one day if sum thing happens to us like dead i wnt die with out my dream being full filled i love u much n thanx 4 loving me the same way” Just so fecking sad, it boggles the mind.
They can rot in prison.
According to the current story in the Globe and Mail, they do plan to appeal.
“Avenues of appeal” aren’t much different from the United States–they can appeal to a provincial Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court, if they want. But any appeal is not a do-over–the facts have been found at trial, and an appeal is for arguing law. So, if an error of law was committed, there can be an appeal. Of course, even if an appeal occurs, the appeals court may dismiss it.
As I understand it (and of course your understanding of this is greater than mine), it’s not applied to those condemned to life in prison, since they’ll be subject to supervision for the rest of their lives anyway, even if they’re paroled. It’s mostly a means to ensure that someone whose prison term has a definite end might still be supervised past its end.
As for this trial, from what I’ve seen (and I haven’t been following it that closely; I’m only going with what I saw in the media), I’m not sure I’d have condemned the wife for first-degree murder. I think it’s clear that Shafia didn’t ask for her permission to kill his daughters and first wife, and he might not even have told her exactly what he was planning to do until after the fact. Now she may very well be guilty of something (complicity after the fact, or perjury maybe), but as for first-degree murder I think a reasonable doubt could have been raised.
Now as for Shafia and his son, though, I have no doubt that they’re guilty. And I must admit that I didn’t understand their lawyer’s strategy. Why bring Shafia to the witness bar when his testimony seems to have gone like this:
[ul]
[li]I didn’t kill them, but[/li][li]they’re a bunch of little sluts who sinned against their family and their God, and they deserved to die anyway.[/li][/ul]
I mean, did the lawyer really think that’d help his case?
If I had been his lawyer, I would have advised a ple of diminished responsibility on grounds of having been saddled with a name like Shafia.
On a more serious note, while I have (from bitter experience) learnt that newspapers are a notoriously bad and incomplete source of information, if the Guardian is to be believed, the main evidence seems to be recordings made saying that the person deserved to die, which while certainly a henious opinion to hold, does not show that they infact, did kill the persons.
Lawyer might not have had any choice. Accused people make the ultimate choice, and people as entitled and sanctimonious as this accused often insist because they think they can talk their way out of anything.
On the other hand, given the reported state of the evidence, it may have been necessary in order to put his explanation for the otherwise damning words on the tape. They called some expert to try to say that that sort of language doesn’t always mean what it appears to mean, and to run that line, it would have been necessary to call the accused to “confirm” that if that line of defence was to have any practical credibility. Sometimes things are so bad you don’t have much choice but to put the client in and cross fingers.
For those who have not been following the trial/story, this piece from the Globe and Mail beautifully summarizes many of the outrageous and bizarre statements and actions by the defendants. Outrageous really is the operative word.
Well, that, and they bought a car they day before the murder, and pushed it into the canal in a place where it couldn’t plausibly have accidentally gone, in the process breaking the headlights (leaving shards of plastic at the scene) and scraping the paint on their Lexus. And then told a whole bunch of completely inconsistent lies trying to cover their tracks. KarlGauss’s link has a fair summary.
But yeah, aside from all that evidence, there’s not a whole lot of evidence.
There is no need to be snarky. KarlGauss’s link was not there when I posted.
Having read the above link, well yes now it makes much more sense.
Sorry, I intended no snark, though I can see how you read it that way.
