Justice tempered by mercy

Apr 22, 2018 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols

Something doesn’t seem right here! That must have been the reaction of some persons who read and heard about the recent conviction of a 25 year-old woman for the death of her two young children, and the subsequent 98-year jail sentence handed down to her by a judge. Others were undoubtedly less perplexed; they felt she got her just deserves for an act considered the most inexplicable of all crimes – infanticide – in this case the death of her own toddlers.
Yet others would point out that in certain instances, justice can, and should, be tempered by mercy when and where it appears appropriate or advisable. I often find myself in this last category. The judge whose pronouncement sent that woman’s senses reeling in the High Court two weeks ago did maybe what he felt was right. But was justice served?
The following are the musings of a layman, and includes some maybe unanswerable questions.
In a world of growing lawlessness and angst, the justice-tempered-with-mercy crowd seems like a group of bleeding-heart nitwits, particularly when appealing against penalties for such a crime as premeditated murder or, in this instance, manslaughter.
Few would disagree that the act committed by Hofosawa Rutherford was premeditated. But exactly what does that word mean, and who can enter into the mind and heart of a woman to determine to what extent its meaning is translated into the act as it occurs? No one. Yet justice must be served, condign with the crime. Such application dates back to antiquity or, if you believe the chronology of the Judeo-Christian bible, at least several thousands of years. That’s a whole heap of precedence.
Justice, like human nature, is imperfect; (as we understand imperfection) the same with human behaviour. An alleged criminal, a jury and judge are all human and subject to errors in perception and judgement. So when one stands in judgment over another he/she has to be very careful, and take into consideration the fallibility of human beings, and being human.
But yet again one would add that justice must be evenly applied and the weak and defenceless protected by those with the power to do so. I would never want to be a judge but if I were, I would agree that based on the evidence provided in the case of Ms. Rutherford, guilt was duly established and a conviction warranted. However, on the matter of punishment, I would be very much inclined to consider her general upbringing, her state of mind not only at the time of the incident but in the days or weeks prior to it, and making certain assumptions, temper justice with mercy.
In this case, as in a few others that have stirred my interest, there seems to be little, if any, mitigating factors for the judge to consider a more lenient sentence. A plea of temporary insanity or some kind of mental confusion did not appear to have been made by the defence, maybe because premeditation seemed to be fairly well-established by the prosecution, and there was nothing to indicate that the woman suffered from any mental illness.
Accepting that the scenario of buying cold medication from a roadside vendor who sells rat poison and innocently feeding same to her children is far-fetched, shouldn’t one then consider and link possible motive with at least a transient state of mental disorientation? It is that far-fetched to think that Ms. Rutherford was so overcome by an unbalanced mind that she could be held only partly responsible for her actions?
According to Wikipedia, defences such as temporary insanity, irresistible urge, and diminished responsibility due to mental illness have been argued in courts with varying degrees of success although most are very hard to prove. This is especially so when, as in this case, the accused shows, or had shown, no outward signs of mental illness, and had never been psychologically evaluated or diagnosed with such. But could it not have been even considered?
Evidently it wasn’t, and Ms. Rutherford, at the age of 25 (just 21 when the act was committed) will spend almost 100 years behind bars, out of the reach of children, or others categorized as vulnerable. She may also be out of the reach of mental/psychological evaluation and if need be, proper rehabilitation. An appeal may be pending, and there’s also the question of parole, but based on the evidence so far, her future appears bleak indeed.
Rumours and hearsay have been spreading about motive, and if there is a degree of truth in some of them, Ms. Rutherford could be considered a calculating and cold-blooded killer. Yet this little thing keeps bothering me, and Facebook tells me I’m not the only one. That thing is even if she is guilty as charged, isn’t a sentence of 98 years a too-harsh and somewhat arbitrary punishment, especially when it is alleged that there isn’t much in terms of sentencing guidelines for judges to follow in Guyana?
Whom does it serve to have a young woman spend the rest of her natural life in prison, even for so heinous a crime? Given a lighter sentence of say 30 years, how likely is it that upon release she would kill again? She was quoted as repeatedly saying she was ‘stressed’ and ‘had problems’. Before sentencing, she expressed remorse and shed tears. Is it an impossibility that these were genuine – a reflection of a burdened life and an unbalanced mind? Just asking.
The woman’s probation report suggests that she is poorly-educated and was at 21, an unemployed single parent, notwithstanding her two children having a supportive father, but who lived abroad. Whatever prompted her actions on that fateful day four years ago, it is quite likely that events over an extended period of time contributed to what she did to her children and possibly tried to do to herself. (Of course that is if she actually did ingest the poison herself; there seems to be doubt in some persons’ minds as to the truth of this assertion)
At the end of it all, the question still lingers as to whether or not she was in full control of her mental faculties when she rat-poisoned her children. How many of us can know for certain one way or another?
Compassion and mercy are remarkable instruments of humanity. The first means literally to ‘suffer together’ and inclines one to do something to relieve the suffering of another. Lack of compassion in an individual could be a sign of psychopathy that can be treated with compassion in another.
Could Ms. Rutherford have had some unrecognized form of psychopathy deserving of compassion? Mercy, closely related, is both the disposition and the act of forgiving, and consequently alleviating physical and mental anguish, particularly when one has the power or authority to do so. Could mercy have been shown to Hofosawa Rutherford? I think the answer to both questions is a resounding ‘Yes’ because, like it or not, even the most repugnant but remorseful killer is a human being.

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