What is Justice?

I'm reading this book about the Leonard Lake & Charles Ng sex crimes in the late 70's and early 80's and it sparked a lot of unease.

To summarize, this pair of survivalists from hell built a torture chamber and snuff film parlor on a remote Northern California Ranch. It is estimated that between the pair, they tortured and killed over 30 people, including 2 babies under the age of two.

But back to my unease...

In 1985, a routine shoplifting call (Ng attempted to steal a vice from a hardware store) to the police resulted in Lake's capture. Ng disappeared leaving Lake to take the fall, where shortly after being arrested he swallowed two arsenic pills resulting in his death and sparking an investigation for more than just a shoplifting charge.

Ng fled to Calgary, where his sister lived, and where he was apprehended for shoplifting at a Hudson's Bay store, and subsequently shot a security guard trying to escape.

For 6 years Canada held him in either the Edmonton prison or in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and battled against the US justice system to prevent him from being extradited.

Why?

In 1976, capital punishment was removed from the Canadian Criminal Code. It was replaced with a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole for 25 years for all first-degree murders.

In addition, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that in extradition cases it is constitutionally required that "in all but exceptional cases" the Canadian government seek assurances that the death penalty will not be imposed, or if imposed not carried out. Mexico also abolished capital punishment in 1929, and passed a similar extradition treaty with the US.

I don't think I'm the only one that finds this mildly frightening. The 2 countries on either side of the American border have both not only abolished the death penalty for serious criminals, but we're both also willing to hold said criminals in our prisons using OUR nation's taxpayers money in order to ensure no harm comes to them.

So for 6 long years, Canadian taxpayers chipped in money to keep a wanted criminal behind our bars and away from the threat of losing his life. Eventually he was extradited back to the States, and when he got back he and his team of lawyers began to manipulate the legal system with endless delay tactics that included formal complaints for receiving bad food and bad treatment. Ng also filed a $1 million malpractice suit against lawyers he had dismissed at various times during his pre-trial hearings. Ng also wanted his trial to be moved to Orange County, a motion that would be presented to California Supreme Court at least five times before it was upheld.

After all the delays, Charles Ng finally went to trial in 1998, 13 years after he was arrested in Calgary. The jury reached a decision quickly, and he was convicted of 11 of the 12 murders he was charged with.

I love my country, but you have to imagine how it feels to come across the realization that we were such a compassionate nation as a whole that we allowed a calculating criminal to be our guest and helped him delay the process of justice.

So why are we (and more than seventy other nations) going through such great lengths to protect US fugitives from the US death penalty?

The term 'An eye for an eye' may sound archaic to some, but isn't proportionate punishment for inhumane crimes vastly preferable to opening our arms to a plethora of wanted criminals with the promise of a safe haven and lenient justice system?