Robert Latimer
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Robert Latimer is a Canadian farmer sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for ten years for the murder of his daughter, Tracy, which occurred on October 24 1993. This act sparked a significant national controversy on the ethics of mercy killings, and two Supreme Court decisions, R. v. Latimer (1997), on section 10 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and later R. v. Latimer (2001), on cruel and unusual punishments under section 12 of the Charter.
Latimer says that he killed his daughter because she had severe mental and physical disabilities and ongoing health problems as a result of cerebral palsy and he believed that the next surgery she was to have, to remove a permanently disconnected hip, would only add to her suffering. He is seeking a reduction of his sentence (having served three years as of 2004).
Supporters of Latimer said that this was a mercy killing which should not be punished as harshly as other murders. (10 years is the minimum sentence for murder). The jury that convicted him felt that he should spend one year in jail and another under house arrest at his farm near Wilkie, Saskatchewan.
However, disability rights advocates said that killing a severely disabled child like Tracy should carry the same penalty as killing a non-disabled child. To do otherwise would devalue the lives of disabled people and also increase the risk of more such killings by their caregivers.
Robert Latimer is currently serving his sentence in a minimum-security facility on Vancouver Island.