Not criminally responsible: What Matthew de Grood ruling means
In 2014, Matthew de Grood stabbed five people to death at a Calgary house party — Lawrence Hong, 27, Joshua Hunter, 23, Kaitlin Perras, 23, Zackariah Rathwell, 21, and Jordan Segura, 22.
On Wednesday, de Grood was found not criminally responsible on five counts of first degree murder.
While there is no dispute about who commit the crime, both the Crown and the defence agreed that de Grood was in a psychotic state at the time and unable to tell right from wrong. Archie Kaiser, a law professor who holds a cross-appointment in the psychiatry department at Dalhousie University, calls such verdicts "special" as they find someone neither guilty or innocent.
Instead, the verdict says that the person committed the act, but is not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.- Archie Kaiser
What happens when someone has been found NCR is treatment as opposed to punishment. While a board still has to review de Grood to determine what's appropriate for his treatment, Kaiser says he will likely go to a psychiatric hospital where they will decide what to do based on the public's safety, his mental condition and the possibility of reintegration.
"With those guiding principles in mind, they choose whether the person will ultimately be discharged absolutely, or be discharged on conditions, or be remanded," Kaiser says.
However, there have been cases where such reviews have not been adequate in keeping the public and victim safe, says Toronto-resident Katherine Newman. Seven years ago, Newman was attacked by a delusional man, Bartosz Gajewski, who was found NCR. She recently learned that Gajewski has been given eight-hour passes and has been in an area within walking distance of her home.
We know of countless individuals that have committed extremely serious, violent crimes, and have been designated NCR, that have been released back into the community in a very, very, very short period of time.- Joe Wamback, co-founder of the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation
Joe Wamback co-founded the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation with his wife after his son was beaten nearly to death. Wamback has been lobbying the federal government to toughen crime laws since charges against the three teens involved in the attack were dropped or reduced.
Wamback says there needs to be more accountability when it comes to monitoring those who have been found NCR. He notes that while the recidivism rate is lower for those found to be NCR, it's not low enough and more responsibility needs to be placed on the shoulders of those supervising their treatment and release.
This segment was produced by The Current's Julian Uzielli, Hamutal Dotan and Lara O'Brien.