Grandpa Was a Hanging Judge

One of the last to send criminals to their death in Canada

I never met my maternal grandfather. I have only seen him in pictures.

He died when my mother was seventeen, long before she married my Dad. I have a fleeting idea of him from conversations with my mother, her siblings and their spouses. Their memories of him are recounted with reverence but their accounts are brief.

His name was René Danis. He was a proud French Canadian and came from a family of strivers. His brothers, Elzéar and Lorenzo, would become Catholic priests. Lorenzo was a co-founder of the University of Ottawa. [1]Another brother, Rodolphe, would join him in the legal profession and, like René, die an early death.[2]

René died of a massive heart attack in his fifties. Among the contributing factors in his early demise were smoking and stress. He was also known to enjoy a good meal— a trait that has made its way through the family tree.

Before health problems took their toll, he was a promising athlete. A skilled and sought after tennis player, he was entered into the Cornwall (Ontario) Sports Hall of Fame. [3]

He encountered anti-French discrimination in his work as a lawyer and across Ontario society at large. Not wanting to see his children suffer similarly, he insisted that English would be the language of the household.

He served as an Ontario Supreme Court Justice from 1952–1960 [4] — a unique honour among Franco-Ontarians. His assignments saw the family move to Toronto, Cochrane and Cornwall. The family home in Cochrane is now headquarters for the Knight of Columbus. He would also travel to other Ontario locales and preside over their courtrooms.

French Canadian Catholics had big families in those days. My mother had three brothers and three sisters. My late grandmother, Geneviève, was a homemaker. Mass, Sunday School and all of the sacraments were part of Catholic family life. Ontario Catholics had their own schools to ensure a faith-based education. Family meals consisted of traditional French Canadian dishes including tourtières. [5]

Wanting to learn more about my Danis roots, I took to the internet. I soon learned that René Danis was one of the last judges in Canada to apply the death penalty. [6] At this time in Canada’s justice system, the death penalty was carried out by hanging.

Judge Danis presided in the case of Eric Kaipiainen. The Port Arthur, Ontario man was accused of murdering his child in 1952. He subsequently attempted suicide. The jury returned a guilty verdict and assessed the death penalty. Judge Danis made a recommendation for mercy and a second trial for sentencing was held. As a result, the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment.

He ruled in the case of Marvin McKee. The accused was on trial for allegedly shooting and killing two men in Huntsville, Ontario in 1959. A penalty of death by hanging was assessed and carried out in Parry Sound, Ontario on February 9, 1960.[7]

The death penalty soon fell out of favour with the voting public. It became difficult for judges to get guilty verdicts from juries in murder cases where the death penalty was possible. In an act of Parliament, Canada ended use of the death penalty on July 14, 1976. [8]

Members of the Danis family were among the first French settlers to arrive in Canada. They settled in Fort Ville-Marie as part of “Le Grande Recrue de 1653”. This recruitment effort brought French settlers to populate and defend the settlement against attacks from the Iroquois. Those selected had to be skilled in trades necessary to build and expand the city that would become Montréal. These pioneering settlers are immortalized in a plaque at Château Ramezay in Old Montréal.

Only three of René’s children are alive today including my mother. As we have laid four of his children to rest in the past two years, I find myself wishing I had spent more time exploring this rich family history.

With sincere thanks to Robert Bérubé for his contributions to this article.

[1] https://med.uottawa.ca/en/news/founding-faculty

[2] http://www.glengarrycountyarchives.ca/Glengarry_pdf/The-Glengarry-News/1951-1960/1951/Oct/10-05-1951.pdf

[3] https://cornwallsportshalloffame.com/inductees/danis-rene/

[4] https://www.ontariocourts.ca/en/formerjudges/

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourti%C3%A8re

[6] https://www.ubcpress.ca/asset/9552/1/9780774817530.pdf

[7] https://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/p000001052.pdf

[8] https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2016/07/14/history-july-14-1976-canada-votes-to-end-the-death-penalty/