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speakup

Yesterday's powerfully rendered stories by colleague Craig Babstock on the sentencing of drunk driver Valmont LeBlanc have raised questions among many in Moncton about the adequacy of the Criminal Code of Canada in dealing with drunk drivers who kill people.

However Craig's sidebar story on Page A-4 explains this perceived inadequacy very well.

In a nutshell, even though the maximum penalty for this crime is life in prison, courts are bound by case law and the appeal process.

Clearly penalties for this particular variety of killer are gradually increasing but if the last, similar case in Canada produced a sentence of four years, the judge in the next case can shoot for five and hope for the best, but not life or even 10 years in prison because a defence lawyer, who is only doing his or her job, will certainly appeal the sentence as too harsh and will almost certainly win.

By the way judges are human too and nobody likes to build up a record of consistently having either rulings or remedies overturned in the higher courts.

This is, to be painfully understated, cold comfort to the little boy and girl who have been orphaned by Mr. LeBlanc and whose statements yesterday brought many of us to tears of sorrow, sympathy, outrage and frustration.

However I note in yesterday's reportage that although Mr. LeBlanc took a very long time to express his own sorrow (he might have done so more effectively by pleading guilty and insisting on going to penalty phase immediately rather than a year and a half after committing his horrible crime) he did finally apologize yesterday for what he did.

Well done.

But I note also that Mr. LeBlanc on one hand says he would also be willing to exchange his own life for those of Greg and Laura O'Dell, yet on the other hand now considers his own life to be "worthless."

Therefore, his statement that he would be willing to exchange his own life, which in his own opinion is worthless, for the highly worthwhile lives of the people he killed could be perceived as an insult to his victims and to all members of the extended O'Dell clan which, this week at the very least, should include every single member of this community.

Of course, it is not really an insult because the "offer" is in the first place meaningless to the point of absurdity.

Nothing can restore the lives of the O'Dells, so Mr. LeBlanc is effectively off the hook on his offer to give up his own worthless life.

I must emphasize again, however, that the worthlessness of Mr. LeBlanc's life is a matter of opinion; it is his own and I happen to disagree with him.

I think after Mr. LeBlanc pays his formal debt to society he can pull his life together.

We know little of him, but do know that in October of 2006 he could afford a van and a great quantity of beer, enough to almost triple his legally acceptable blood-alcohol level during the course of a long day of driving around.

So presumably he held down a job. After he serves his time he should get another job.

He should devote the rest of his life and all of his resources, excepting that part which he will need to house and feed himself enough to keep working, to the financial support of the children he orphaned and injured on a cold October highway.

Perhaps the childrens' grandparents and other supporters will not be willing to accept this money, but I ask them here, with all the respect I can muster, that they consider this offer from Mr. LeBlanc should it be made. I would go so far as to suggest that one among you contact Mr. LeBlanc in this regard.

I would even go so far as to suggest that one among you ensure this contact and co-operation from Mr. LeBlanc -- if he does not extend it himself and thus prove his offer was insincere -- through the civil courts.

Indeed, you have suffered enough and should not be made to suffer more by continued contact, even minimal contact, with he who has hurt your family so deeply.

The criminal courts are bound by the gradual processes set before them by the law of the land, but action in the civil courts could expedite this process if the penalties found there were the tougher of the two, so I ask this of you for the good of our community.

And yes, also for the ultimate good of Mr. LeBlanc.

n City Views appears daily, written by various members of our staff. Rod Allen is an assistant managing editor with The Times & Transcript. His column appears every Thursday.