If you have to commit murder, you may want to consider re-locating to the Northwest Territories (NWT) in Canada. Claude Harry, 37, murdered a man but received less than five years in jail despite a record of 21 prior crimes (19 of which were violent crimes).
Harry pleaded guilty to manslaughter (down from second-degree murder) after he killed Angus Kikoak, 45, in December 2009 in an unprovoked attack at a party in a hotel. He punched Kikoak six times in the face — causing bleeding in the brain and the rupturing of an artery.
N.W.T. Supreme Court Deputy Justice Rene Foisy decided that the guilty plea had to be taken into consideration and also gave him credit for double the time in custody. The result? He will be out in roughly three years. That is less than some car theft cases in the states.
Source: CDC found on Reddit.
I could not help but read all the above comments on the murder/killing in the NWT by a Claude Harry,i happen to reside in the community it happened and just so you all understand,there are countless community members here who are very outraged at such a short sentence, we also feel very strongly he should of been sentenced to 20 years minimum,some of us feel he should of been deemed a dangerous offender given his previous record for violence.As for his victim i can tell you this he was a genuinely nice guy liked by all who knew him and did not deserve what happened to him,as for harry pity him not he got off with one of the most dumbest sentences i have ever witnessed.and i for one just hope this idiot never comes back here once released.
frank
This is one of those cases that makes me wonder if there is something the reporter is not telling us.
I can’t imagine what could make the sentence logical but I refuse to get excited about it yet. This sentence makes no sense.
Wait until you do get a story that you take the time to look into and find out just what was really going on….really….
I would have never thought in a thousand years that corruption could be that bad & widespread…even as we have Chicago as an example…
Even at least one of the papers printed stuff that they KNEW to be lies…and the authorities were like 12 legged cats in a litter box…
Unfrickenbelievable
On the plus side, with this kind of temperament, their could be a future for him as a CIA contractor.
Zoe Brain, You’re on to something I agree. I also did a search on the men involved bt it got out of hand real fast. The big question mark to me was the low level of murders in the NWT’s. The NWT’s have the highest rate of murder according to one study I saw but the number is low in actual incidents because the area is sparsely populated. It doesn’t make sense that it would be treated lightly.
What I found was that the area has a large population that is Native American and from several peoples/tribes and alcoholism is a problem. The only picture of the assailant I found was small and fairly indistinct and I looked for his picture because I was also thinking about NA on NA crime which may also be treated differently than other possible configurations.
What I did run across while searching was a number of sites asking for information regarding missing women and some of the sites asking for petitions to be signed to send to the NWT authorities demanding an investigation into missing women. Missing women aren’t a high priority from what I read.
Native Alaskans have many of the same problems with their state and Federal government, native population’s resources being exploited and the natives then re-settled, alcoholism, high domestic violence rates, Alaska is the rape capital of the US, poverty; it’s a long-standing problem in Alaska and apparently the NWT shares much of this history.
My search quickly devolved into quicksand. Thanks for your comment. I was bothered by what I was reading and couldn’t help but think that “Alaska” could be plugged in anywhere that “NWT” was stated in my search materials being familiar with Alaska’s treatment of the Native Alaskan population.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005818
http://www.infosource.gc.ca/inst/ian/fed03-eng.asp
If any of the settlement act’s in the NWT resemble “The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act” the First Americans in the NWT got screwed royally.
“This is one of those cases that makes me wonder if there is something the reporter is not telling us.”
Maybe the Indigenous surname of the victim had something to do with it.
The follow-up story gives more details:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2011/02/09/nwt-inuvik-harry-sentence-reax.html
“In August 2002, Harry was convicted of assault causing bodily harm for attacking his wife while she was asleep. He told the court he didn’t remember biting his wife’s nose with enough force to disfigure her. He was sentenced to 16 months in jail.
During that trial in 2002, Judge R.M. Bourassa declared that Harry was “unable to control himself, control his drinking, and now has reached the point of depravity of biting flesh from a person’s nose. One wonders how depraved a person can become.”
“I can well understand some people looking at this and saying or considering locking away the man and throwing away the key,” Bourassa added.
“He is dangerous. His conduct over the past years has shown a habit of drug and alcohol abuse and acts of violence.”
At Harry’s latest court appearance on Monday, Foisy said he was legally obligated to accept the terms of a joint submission made by the Crown and defence, requesting between 3½ and six years in jail.
Defence lawyer Steven J. Fix told CBC News that the sentence handed to Harry is not unusual in the Northwest Territories.
“Sentence ranges are set by Parliament and then by court precedent. That was the range for similar types of crime in this jurisdiction,” Fix said outside court.
Despite the repeated crimes Harry has committed in the past, Fix claimed his client will retire to a cabin and live peacefully after he is released from jail.
Fix said the beating death of Kikoak was “mostly fuelled by alcohol — something that Mr. Harry is intent on dealing with, and I’m sure he will.”
The sad truth is that there is racism in the way that Indigenous people are treated. Usually that’s to their disadvantage, but when there is so much alcohol-fueled violence endemic in a community, then normal sentences may not be appropriate.
Personally, I’d lock him up permanently in a place with no access to intoxicants, where he’ll no longer be subject to drunken rage. He’s a danger to society, but probably only when drunk.
We face similar issues in Australia. Until a thousand years have passed, and the indigenous gene pool no longer contains a majority of people especially susceptible to alcohol (due to exposure over centuries having culled the herd, as happened in Asia and Europe – though we still have many), then we’ll still have such issues.
And until we stop racist double-standards, we’ll still have judges and prosecutors trying their best to be fair to everyone under these tragic circumstances, and failing. Because society at large cares little about what one Drunken Injun does to another.
This is one of those cases that makes me wonder if there is something the reporter is not telling us. I used to get really upset when I would read about things like this until I came across a web site that had background information on some of the most egregious sounding sentences and law suit settlements. There were a few real head scratchers in the bunch but the majority of them made sense when you heard the entire story.
I can’t imagine what could make the sentence logical but I refuse to get excited about it yet. This sentence makes no sense.
21 prior convictions and he gets 3 years for intentionally killing someone??? Someone remind me to stay out of the Northwest Territories. How can this guy not be in jail for life already, with 19 convictions for violent crimes? Wow!
Actually, Jonathan, one need not go anywhere near that far to get a mere slap on the butt for homicide.
The fact is, nobody on the planet gets away with more murder than physicians, and the U.S. has reached the ignoble distinction of leading the charge:
At Redding California Medical Center, two heart surgeons went on a chest-cutting rampage until they were caught. They performed more than 700 unnecessary operations on patients, some of whom died. What happens when “normal” people stab others in the chest and rob them of $40,000? Now tell me what happened to these pirates in lab coats.(they got fined)
In Tennessee recently, Visu Vilvarajah, MD and his wife, also a doctor, have been convicted of drug-running. This particular medical maniac got a slap on the tush, after murdering his wife and his mother-in-law; was relicensed (of course) and immediately started pushing narcotics, which killed even more people. (He got probation)
I could name 1,000 more, but you get the idea. So here’s my question of the day:
“In what country is “health care on steroids” the 3rd leading cause of death?”
Answer:
I presume it was a mere mistake…..
Foisy also allowed Harry to receive double credit for the time he’s served in custody. As a result, Harry has three years left in his sentence.
Arghhhhhhh….