Questions and Answers with Chad Barton

On Tuesday I posted my review of The Goodbye Man. Tonight I am posting a letter with questions I put to the author about criminal law issues. His answers are in bold. On Saturday I will put a post of my thoughts on the questions and answers.

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Chad

As you will see from my review I do not agree with Jack Steele’s vigilante approach to justice. I did appreciate the chance to read your book. I would like to give you the opportunity to expand upon your views. For my blog I have chosen not to conduct oral interviews. I have preferred to send written questions and invite authors to have time to reflect before responding. I hope you will answer the following questions, which include some comments, so I can put the answers up in a further post. Sometimes I do a third post containing my thoughts on the answers.

My questions are:

1.) Do you believe in the death penalty?

Yes

2.) If you do, what crimes should carry the death penalty?

Pre-meditated murder, rape, murder of a child.

3.) Should there be discretion for a jury on whether to impose the death penalty?

Yes

4.) Do you believe citizens should be able to conduct vigilante justice?

No

5.) If you do, who selects the vigilantes?

N/A

6.) If there should be vigilantes do they act in groups or as individuals?

N/A

7.) In the book there is reference to a law imposing mandatory maximum sentences which I understood provides that individuals convicted of abusing children should receive mandatory life sentences without possibility of parole. Do you support such a law?

I do support it when child molesters are sadistic and violent.

8.) If you do, what is the nature of the abuse which draws a mandatory maximum sentence?

Murder and rape

9.) Would a teacher having sexual intercourse with a young teenage student draw the mandatory maximum?

No

10.) Would it matter if the teacher were male or female?

No

11.) Would a doctor or priest fondling several young boys receive the mandatory maximum?

Yes

12.) Would a man or woman who sexually rubs a child one time while impaired by alcohol receive the mandatory maximum sentence?

No

13.) As stated in the review, in my experience, most abuse cases involve family members. Does it make a difference if the case is the abuse of one member of a family?

No

14.) Should there be a mandatory maximum sentence for children who abuse elderly parents?

I do not have an opinion

15.) Do you believe an abuser can ever be rehabilitated?

Not a violent, sexual sadist

16.) Should a family be allowed to forgive another family member who is an abuser and, after the abuser has served a term of imprisonment, reconcile so they can resume life together?

No opinion

17.) My province of Saskatchewan struggled with the case of a father who killed his severely disabled (cerebral palsy) 12 year old daughter by carbon monoxide poisoning because he said he could no longer stand to see her suffering. Is he a monster who should be executed?

No

Thank you for considering the questions.

Yours truly,

Bill Selnes