On Milgaard's Compensation of $10 Million |
|
By Mario deSantis, June 14, 1999 |
|
I am appalled at the opinion regarding David Milgaard's compensation of $10 Million expressed | |
by Mr. Marvin Wiebe of Codette, Saskatchewan. David Milgaard was imprisoned wrongly for | |
twenty-three years, and courageously, he always maintained his innocence. David was raped | |
in prison, suffered the injustices of a right wing Saskatoon police force, and the deplorable | |
behaviour of his two prosecutors: Bobs Caldwell and Serge Kujawa. Only through the | |
unconditional love of his mother Joyce, David was eventually able to get out of prison and be | |
exonerated from a murder he didn't commit. | |
Our social and economic system is based on values and justice, not on money. We have the | |
responsibility to know why such a miscarriage of justice occurred and make sure it will not | |
happen again; yet, Mr. Wiebe labels Joyce as a "Gold Digger" and the compensation as an | |
injustice. Mr. Wiebe goes on with his insults by mentioning that while Third World derelicts | |
were starving, David was having free board and room at the expense of Canadian taxpayers | |
throughout his imprisonment! To show his outrage, Mr. Wiebe states that the $10 Million | |
settlement translates to roughly $1,200 per day. | |
I have a word for Mr. Wiebe, I would like him to have a better deal than David's, that is getting | |
$1,200 per day while in prison for the next 100 years. I was forgetting a small item the money | |
would be paid, as per David's case, at the time Mr. Wiebe gets out of jail! | |
References: | |
[1] |
Milgaard payout rich settlement, Opinion by = Marvin Wiebe, The Nipawin Journal, June 9, 1999, Nipawin, Saskatchewan |
[2] |
When Justice Fails:The David Milgaard Story, by Carl Karp and Cecil Rosner, McClelland & Stewart, 1998 |