The first words out of my mouth were something to the effect of, “They can't even decide if they can pay for the upcoming trial, and now they are thinking of appealing when he has already been convicted!?” (expletives left out).
Mr. Frey laughed and said to his wife, whom I am a big fan of, that they had quite successfully gotten my “knickers in a knot” and chuckled at my incredulous, profanity-riddled, passionate outburst.
I then realized this was not, in fact, about me, but about them, and so I asked the obvious question: “Do you care if he is guilty of first degree or second degree?”
“Nope,” both of them replied. "He is going away for the rest of his life,” they said. Musing that they felt they “got justice, but not accountability,” the Frey's also spoke of fears that there is “nothing to win, but everything to lose” if an appeal into his conviction goes through.
So what is Mr. Oppal up to? (Mr. Oppal, of course, being our province's Attorney General who would ultimately be the final say in this kind of thing).
Here is what I could glean as of last night: Wally Oppal, as of Jan 3, 2008, was saying he thought an appeal by the Crown was unlikely and a request for appeal by the defense was in fact anticipated.
Oppal was also saying on December 10, 2007 that “public interest” would dictate whether Pickton would go on trial for the next 20 charges.
On January 6th 2008, it came to light the papers would be filed on January 7th, 2008 on behalf of the Crown to start an appeal of Pickton's second degree guilty verdict, because the Crown feels that the jury should have come back with a first degree conviction.
WHY?
I am not going to pretend I have a blazing clue what the judicial process will be to appeal his convictions, but the bottom line in most conversations I had last night seem to be that this is a ridiculous point to get caught up on. He is in jail forever.
A first degree conviction will not impact on where he will serve out his time, will not change the fact that he has been found GUILTY, and will have no more of an emotional impact for the families. The families of the women he has been convicted of killing seem to be indifferent to first or second degree - is it perhaps just the egos of those in charge that need to be placated at the taxpayers expense? Is this why the possible appeal?
If there is a general consensus that a crazy amount of money has been spent on this case and the next case is, in fact, in jeopardy just because of money. Where is the logic on spending however much money it would take to appeal a conviction!
If they happen to have some extra money left over in their budget from the trial of the first six women, give it to detox beds and recovery beds, or put it towards the next trial but do not fluff up your tail feathers trying to get a first degree conviction while sacrificing any other victim's day in court. It seems like a stupid thing to get caught up on, so let's focus on the next case.
If Crown works as hard as last time and gets 20 more convictions against Pickton, do any of us really think it will matter if it is first or second degree? Canada's worst serial killer is behind bars for life. Let us celebrate he is there, not suck the victory out of the conviction by focusing on the trivial.
I could be wrong. Today I could learn some really important information that will change my mind as to why we need to focus on the degree in the conviction, but the families point is it does not matter and I choose to side with them.
