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Death Penalty Debate
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Canada's last hanging
Broadcast Date: Dec. 10, 1962
Their crime: murder. Their punishment: death. Shortly after midnight on Dec. 11, 1962, two cop killers face death by hanging. The execution at Toronto's Don Jail will be Canada's last. Ronald Turpin, 29, was convicted of shooting a Toronto police constable. Arthur Lucas, 54, was convicted of murdering an FBI agent.
A group of vocal protesters gathers outside Toronto's Don Jail to contest the hanging. (poor audio)
"Men are dying for mere vengeance," one protester tells a CBC reporter, "when it's not going to accomplish any good at all."
A last-minute appeal for clemency fails. Turpin and Lucas become the last two punished by death in this country. But the law is still on the books.
Canada's last hanging
• Ronald Turpin was convicted of killing a Toronto police officer. The officer had pulled Turpin over for a broken tail light while he was fleeing a robbery.• Arthur Lucas, originally from Georgia, was convicted for the murder of an undercover narcotics agent from Detroit. The killing occurred in Toronto.
• The temperature the night of the protest was about –12 degrees Celsius.
• Turpin and Lucas could hear the protest going on 180 metres outside their cells.
• Protestors' signs read: "Public murder."
• The two men ate the same last meal: steak, potatoes, vegetables and pie. The meal was served on paper plates.
• After the hanging, all death sentences in Canada were commuted to prison terms.
• As consolation, Turpin and Lucas were told they'd likely be the last people to hang in Canada. Turpin answered: "Some consolation."
• On the night of his death, Lucas told Chaplain Cyril Everitt: "We is lucky ... if we were on the street, I could be killed by a car and I wouldn't be ready to meet my Maker."
• Shortly before Chaplain Everitt died in 1986, he told a reporter he had kept a secret about the execution for 24 years. Everitt said Lucas's head was "nearly torn right off." The hangman had miscalculated the convict's weight.
• The bodies of Turpin and Lucas were not embalmed and were buried side-by-side in Toronto. Tombstones and plaques were not permitted.
Canada's last hanging
Medium: Television
Program: CBC News
Broadcast Date: Dec. 10, 1962
Duration: 1:14
Last updated:
Dec. 4, 2008
Capital Punishment is a good thing to re-instate. Taxpayers should not have to pay for murders and serial sex offenders to live better than our citizens. It is not a big deterent but there are many lives that will be saved from destruction, costing more in mental health, health care and other services for the victims and victim families.
Submitted by: star planet
I am a reluctant US citizen who wishes he were living in Canada as the death penalty is barbaric and has no place in a civilized society. Obviously the US is pretty barbaric and I am ashamed of it. I am disappointed to read that there is support for it in Canada. Please note that most nations have abolished the death penalty and it is, after all, revenge, and that is it. As a Christian, I realize that revenge is not a correct motive. I pray that your country continues to stay civilized.
Submitted by: Thomas W. Billing
Capital Punishment has no place in the modern world. It does not deter criminals - we have seen in Canada that when compared to our closest retentionist state, the USA, that since abolition our rates of violent crime have dropped considerably compared to the US in the same time period. We know that in the US it costs millions of dollars more to have a death penalty and the damage done to society, to the families of the victims and to the families of the condemned, not to mention the irreparable damage to the innocent, cannot be undone. It's time the US, Iran, Japan and China move into the modern age and abolish the death penalty.
Submitted by: A Harris