The 1963 robbery that led to the lash

Wagner

   Roger Picotte might have been the last Quebec prisoner to be sentenced to the lash.
   On a bitterly cold Saturday February 2,1963 (scroll left for the article) Picotte then 38, went with an accomplice to rob a grocery store at 1392 Craig E. (now St. Antoine E). It has now been demolished for the Ville Marie Expressway.
   Picotte herded up the employees and cleared out the cash. But when he asked an employee to empty his pockets, the employee refused. So Picotte shot three times into the huddled group, which included owner Albert Corbeil, 47, who caught a bullet in the thigh. Corbeil was so angered that he rushed the thieves with a 9-inch butcher knife, stabbing Picotte's partner in the back while other employees jumped on Picotte. The robber with the knife wound got away bleeding badly but escaping with $730. Two other employees also received superficial gunshot wounds but they were ok.
   Cops kept Picotte behind bars for nine months before he faced a trial. The prosecutor noted that Picotte had started his career in crime in 1941 when he was involved in a gun battle with police in which his brother-in-law was shot dead. The prosecutor asked for at least 25 years in prison.
   Judge Andre Sabourin sentenced Picotte to 20 years plus four strokes of the lash.
   Picotte refused to reveal the identity of his accomplice in the robbery.
   Here's a three-part series on the use of the lash as an instrument of punishment in Canada. Apparently it was sometimes an effective attitude-changer but oftentimes it did nothing good.
   The judge who sentenced Picotte to punishment by cat 'o nine tails was Claude Wagner, 38. He rode his tough-on-crime rep into provincial politics and became a federal Conservative MP and lost a leadership bid to Brian Mulroney. He died in 1979 of cancer at age 54.