Don’t let death become an easy way out for criminals

Daniel Hume was never going to walk free. Convicted of vile sex crimes and handed a 30-year prison sentence, he was due to die behind bars. And last week, he did—although not from natural causes. 

Hume became the first prisoner in NSW to access Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD), thereby ending his life with the approval of the state. 

Of course, VAD is a deeply contested moral issue that sits at the intersection of law, medicine, and ethics. There are divergent perceptions: supporters see it as an act of compassion and personal autonomy, while opponents argue it undermines the value of life, and conflicts with justice or religious principles. 

Whatever one’s views about VAD (and I have long opposed it), assisted dying is now on the statute book in NSW. What matters now is how it’s used — and in this case, it was used badly. 

Hume’s death raises serious questions. Not just about his rights, but about ours. About the rights of victims. About the meaning of justice. And about whether the state still believes a sentence handed down by the courts ought to be served. 

According to Justice Health, Hume had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had only months to live. But he was also only ten years into a thirty-year sentence. He wasn’t just dying: Hume was serving time. 

And many people, including the victims of his crimes, now feel cheated by his early and planned death. That’s entirely reasonable. 

VAD laws were never intended to short-circuit justice. Yet that’s exactly what’s happened here. Hume’s application was approved by the state’s VAD Board without any input from Corrections. 

Victims weren’t consulted. There was no transparency, no public scrutiny and no regard for the principle that justice must be seen to be done.  

In effect, the state has allowed Hume to skip the final chapter of his sentence. That’s not compassion — it’s capitulation. 

Let’s be clear: no one is suggesting that terminally ill prisoners should be denied medical care or basic dignity. But VAD is not the same as palliative care. 

Nor is it simply a ‘gentler death’. VAD is an active decision to bring life — and in Hume’s case, punishment — to an end. And in prison, where the state is responsible for both punishment and care, that distinction matters. 

After all, we don’t allow prisoners to choose their sentence. So why allow them to choose the endpoint? 

It also puts prison authorities in an impossible position. How do they enforce punishment when another arm of the state is quietly cancelling the sentence?  

And how are frontline staff meant to uphold public expectations of justice when VAD becomes a backdoor release program for those with the right paperwork? 

We also need to ask what precedent this sets. If one dying prisoner is granted early release by syringe, why not others? 

If VAD becomes an unofficial escape route from a life sentence, how long before we see lawyers making end-of-life applications on behalf of their criminal clients? 

And let’s not forget the cost argument. 

Of course, some might say Hume’s death saved taxpayers money in the long run. Maybe it did. But that’s not how justice works. We don’t hand out lighter sentences to save money. 

Nor do we close trials early because the prison budget is tight. So we shouldn’t fast-track death for convenience either. 

Besides, once cost becomes part of the logic, we’re in dangerous territory. It’s a short step from saving money on palliative care to asking whether some lives — especially those behind bars — are simply too expensive to maintain. That’s not just bad policy. It’s bad ethics. 

This is a slippery slope, and we’re already on it. 

The bottom line is this: VAD should never be used to get around a prison sentence. If someone is terminally ill, they will die soon enough. 

The state has no business helping them jump the queue — especially when victims are left in the dark and the justice system is left looking weak. 

If we are going to allow VAD in prisons at all — and my own view is that we should not — it must come with strong rules. Corrective Services must be involved. Victims must be informed. And the public must know when it happens. 

The current system has failed on all three fronts. No consultation. No accountability. No public visibility. And that kind of failure doesn’t just affect one case – it chips away at trust in the whole system.  

For laws like VAD to retain their legitimacy, especially in morally contested terrain, they must be seen to operate with rigour and restraint.  

The government cannot outsource its moral responsibilities to a medical panel. These are not just healthcare decisions. They are decisions about punishment, justice – and public confidence in the law. 

Parliaments must now confront the hard reality: introducing VAD was not the end of the ethical debate: it was the beginning of a much bigger one. Now we need to draw clear boundaries around where and how this law is applied.  

And we need to do it before another high-profile case like this undermines confidence not only in VAD – it undermines confidence in the justice sys tem itself.

Because when the state quietly lets a convicted sex offender die early—and calls it compassion—we are entitled to ask: compassion for whom? 

Peter Kurti is Director of the Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society program at the Centre for Independent Studies, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Australia