Lay off the limb

OPINION: As things stand, the most lovable part of Graeme Burton is his part-titanium right leg. Frankly, the less of that man that is pure Burton, the better.

The convicted double murderer, just recently convicted of the attempted killing of another prison inmate, received an artificial, taxpayer-funded leg.

The original was amputated after police did us all the service of shooting him down to put an end to a rampage near Lower Hutt in January 2007.

The greater part of Graeme Burton deserves sour infamy. The replacement limb does not, and neither does the state, which stumped up with $10,000 to pay for it.

Some will beg to differ, on two grounds.

It could hardly be easier to imagine more gratifying uses for that money; a host of ways in which those thousands could have improved the lives of people who, by any sane standards, are hugely more deserving.

Secondly, there's the issue of natural consequences; he brought it upon himself.

But in the end, people generally get it that you don't want to respond to our most monstrous crimes with gratuitously monstrous punishments. Most people (not all) do understand that any halfway decent society must resist the temptation to seek mean ways to reciprocate the brutality of its worst offenders.

If we treat Burton as subhuman, then we are perilously close to mirroring his own scorn for the rights of others.

There's nothing especially extravagant about the fake limb. The question, really, is whether he should have been left to get around on a crutch. There are practical issues with this.

By all accounts he is not only physically strong, but also co-ordinated. Given his propensity for extreme violence, we're not being fatuous when we suggest that this might constitute arming him.

The leg was paid for through ACC. As corporation spokesman Laurie Edwards points out, everyone in New Zealand is covered by ACC.

This rather skirts the reality that not every eventuality qualifies for coverage. Lines are still drawn to determine what gets paid and what doesn't. Judgments are still made and, in recent times, as many an ACC claimant can attest, they are being made against toughening criteria.

The Government is considering a bill that would rule out compensation for people injured while committing a serious crime, unless it was treatment to maintain life or rehabilitation to "restore function."

A leg would seem to qualify – though we're not doctors, and the Government has said it would be up to doctors, in individual cases, to determine such boundaries.

Assuming, which we find ourselves doing, that from a medical perspective this one is an easy call, it takes little imagination to picture more difficult calls. The bill will be contentious.

Graeme Burton must be denied his freedom, as punishment and for the protection of others. Even within a prison, he must be further contained and constrained because of the risk he poses to all around him.

Is the leg more than he deserves? Yes.

Is it more than we should provide for him? No – not unless we are to tend towards the views of the more unlovely Islamic states that feel their offenders can be deprived of both life and limb.

- © Fairfax NZ News