Capital Punishment within the short story, ‘Two Fishermen’
Capital punishment, also known as the death sentence was completely removed from Canada’s criminal code in 1976, 42 years ago. In Canada, capital punishment was sentenced to those who committed murder, treason or rape. Canada’s only method of execution for capital punishment was death by hanging and a total of 710 people were executed. At first, the hangings took place publicly but were later moved to jails. The first method of hanging was called hoisting where the convict would be hoisted in the air with the noose tightening around his neck, strangling him to death slowly. However, this method was slow and inefficient so they developed a new method where they would drop the convict and the noose would snap their neck, separating it and killing them instantly. This was much more efficient and some would say more humane. In 1914 the abolishment of capital punishment began when a private bill was enacted. The first real big change was not until 1966 where a debate was held in the House of Commons and some restrictions to capital punishments were changed. In 1976 capital punishment was finally removed from the criminal code but it was still in effect for the military. Later in 1987, capital punishment tried to comeback into Canada’s criminal code but was shut down by the house of commons in a vote. Finally, all ties to capital punishment in Canada’s criminal code was abolished in 1988, and now the maximum punishment is 25 years to life in jail without parole for first degree murder.
If the short story “Two Fishermen” took place in Canada, it most likely would have happened between the years of the 1930’s -1970’s. The story would have had to take place during the times of cars, capital punishment and the executions inside of jails, in Canada. In Canada, public executions ended around 1870’s and were moved to jails where they were much more private. In the short story, Smitty gets driven away in a car from the jail, after the execution to get away from the protesters. In Canada, cars became more common around the 1930’s after World War Two ended. The last execution in Canada was in 1962 where two men were convicted of murder. Although the last execution in Canada was in 1962, capital punishment was not taken out of the justice system until 1976. If the short story took place in Canada it most likely would been in a small town, near a lake. The story describes a town with dirt roads, old rustic buildings, a lake Michael and Smitty go fishing on.
In the short story “Two Fishermen”, Thomas Delaney is convicted for murder and was executed for killing the man that raped his wife. I do not believe that Thomas Delaney deserved the death penalty because he was defending and protecting himself and his wife. In the story, Thomas Delaney caught Mathew Reinhart while he was molesting his wife and stepped in to protect her. While Thomas was defending his wife, he also took a bad beating which means he was also defending himself. Since Thomas was defending his wife and himself, I believe capital punishment was not necessary and was too harsh. I believe Thomas was acting out of self-defense and should not have been given the death penalty. At most, I believe Thomas should have only received some jail time because none of this would have happened if Mathew Reinhart did not molest his wife.
Cites
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-capital-punishment-in-canada-508141
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Canada#Methods
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/capital-punishment-in-canada-1.795391
http://www.canadiancar.technomuses.ca/eng/frise_chronologique-timeline/1920/
http://www.amnesty.ca/our-work/issues/abolish-the-death-penalty/death-penalty-in-canada
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/capital-punishment/
https://blog.huroncounty.ca/museum/the-last-public-hanging-in-canada/
proof read by Kyra Soo
(Death by hanging is the most common method of execution in America)
