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The review board now says it will consider whether Mr. Li is well enough to leave the hospital altogether and move into a group home. Mr. Li’s medical team has told the board that he is at extremely low risk of reoffending, knows the importance of taking his medication regularly and has not had a hallucination in over a year. The group home to which Mr. Li would be transferred is staffed around the clock and he would be under constant supervision to ensure he is taking his medication.

Such a decision would be bound to be controversial. In recent weeks, many people have come out in opposition to his release — including Mr. McLean’s mother, Carol de Delley, who posted a message about the hearing on Facebook: “Please start thinking about yourselves and your families and communities because he’s going to be out, he could become your neighbour.”

Such fears are wholly understandable. There will always be concern for community safety whenever a violent offender, however well rehabilitated, is released. Yet there is no just alternative.

To be found not criminally responsible, a person must be suffering from a mental disorder rendering him “incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.” It is not in dispute that at the time Mr. Li killed Mr. McLean, his actions were the result of schizophrenia, not a conscious disregard for the difference between right and wrong. Should the board eventually agree with Mr. Li’s doctors that he no longer presents a threat to others, it would be unjust to keep him confined to a medical facility any further.

There is no easy or ideal way to reintegrate not criminally responsible offenders into society. But justice requires us to make the attempt: To square the concerns of the community with the right of an individual whose mind was once hijacked by a disorder to live something approaching a normal life.

National Post