It’s the first day of school in Saskatoon. Police are reminding drivers to watch for youngsters crossing streets and parents to double check that their kids aren’t inadvertantly wearing gang colours.
Community outrage is growing over the release of three teenage girls accused of having kicked and beaten a 60 year old Florence Frenchman to death in her North Battleford home. In the words of their defence lawyer Ron Piche (who succeeded in getting a publication ban, so of course, no one is allowed to know who, or where they are.)
“If there is a trial, it could take a year or more before it begins, Piche noted. “I don’t see (their release) as undermining confidence in the justice system,” he said. “Are you going to keep an accused in custody that long?” Piche said.
Uh. Yes?
Or, if that isn’t possible, may I propose a compromise? Let’s share this societal responsibility for youth crime – place one out of every three or so of these anonymous young offenders charged with violent offenses in the guardianship of the judge who has done the releasing. That is, they must live in their home. Board a few with the Justice Minister, too.
Oh, and defense lawyers. Don’t let them off the hook for arguing for their release.
Of course, Saskatchewan isn’t the only place with these problems – in Toronto they’ve begun to crack down hard on their Jamaican gang gun violence, with plans to slap them with Victim Impact Statements.
Speaking of gangs and street violence – the good Reverand and civil rights leader Al Sharpton was last seen fleeing the scene of Cindy Sheehan’s vigil near Crawford, TX.
In a hurry to get to New Orleans, no doubt.
I have mixed feelings on this. First off, I feel the publication ban is a bad, bad, bad thing. (I can’t emphasize this enough.)
But if our justice system truly believes in innocence before being proven guilty, I don’t know why anyone should be held for a year (A YEAR!) of their lives without being convicted. I guess the problem is the speed of the justice system itself. I know it looks all cut and dried when watching the news (and it probably is) but I also know that if I was wrongly accused, I wouldn’t want to spend a year in jail. There has to be a better compromise somewhere here.
A BC pig farmer named Willy Picton would undoubtedly agree with you (no cheap shot intended), but isn’t the real problem rooted in the fact that criminal trials, even minor ones, are typically delayed to this extent? Isn’t that the problem that should be addressed?
I happen to know a newly minted young Mountie disgusted because, after a one-year delay in a relatively minor driving violation charge, the case was dismissed when the defence lawyer brought up the issue of identification, and neither she nor a colleague who had served some papers on the defendant could physically identify him, even though his identity (due to a driving ban previously imposed) was never in doubt.
I thought publication bans were virtually automatic for young offenders, at least on information that could identify the accused. I was actually surprised to see the name of the victim released, assuming from the initial reports she was a grandparent or foster parent or such.
99% of all lawyers give the rest a bad name.
(After being cheated by a law firm here in Toronto, I complained to the Ombudsman of Ontario- who advised me to report this to the Law Society of Upper Canada. The Law Society advised me to hire another lawyer and sue the first one !?!)
Duh!
Delays in criminal trials are frequently at the request of lawyers, ( why get paid to defend someone in court the one time, when you can stretch it out for months and years?). The United States has one lawyer for every five hundred citizens- we have more than that in this country.
I just looked up some stats and it looks like we have about 1 lawyer for every 477 people. I might be wrong about that though.
I agree that the way to go about things is to make the justice system faster. I’m all for holding people without bail for serious offenses but only if it’s for a reasonable amount of time.
Trudeaupia is an ongoing social experiment being committed by an intelligentsia with no accountability upon a populace with no recourse.
Once you acccept the premise expressed in the most profound single phrase uttered in American musical theater – WestSide Story’s young hoodlums smirkingly claiming “we’re depraved on account o’ we’re deprived – you will be left with cases such as this one.
Most if not all of the suggestions made here would be endorsed by many if not most of the Canadian population. So what’s the next step, he asked sarcasticallly – a petition to GG Jean from her loyal subjects?
I think making the judges the legal guardians of the kids they release is a good idea.
My view is that Canada has one thing going for it in respect to trying to avoid an epidemic of juvenile crime: Canada still has a comparatively small population, and it could be easier to get arms around the problem before it spirals out of control.
However, I don’t see that happening. Canada is trying to deal with these issues with leniency and appeasement and psychobabble.
In the US things started off with the Bloods and the Crips. A little later in Chicago the Gangster Disciples became so large they started trying to run criminals for office.
Because juvenile crime of such proportion was essentially a new phenomenon for the United States, we did not have a legal system that was adequately prepared to deal with it. Our juvenile system was constructed to incarcerate offenders who stole hubcaps and got into fistfights and burglarized convenience stores.
Suddenly we had thousands of young people involved in organized crime situations that involved levels of violence previously not associated with kids, at least not on a large scale.
By the time the liberals got through with hand-wringing, psychologizing and looking for the root of the problem, we had a huge and serious gang problem fueled by drug profits, clogging our prison systems and terrorizing law-abiding citizens.
This Jamaican Posse problem you have is typical. If Gagliano’s goombahs need to remove someone who is threatening the Librano take, they will very carefully arrange for him to disappear, without witnesses. If the Jamaican Posses want to off someone, they’ll simply take out everyone in the restaurant.
My recommendations for trying to get control of this problem are:
1) Keep recidivists locked up and you’ll eliminate half of your problem in a couple of years, because most of these crimes are committed by 2nd and 3rd time offenders.
2) Encourage law-abiding citizens to own handguns and use them for protection, because it really discourages the bad guys.
3) Construct something like the RICO statutes and whenever one of these young killers is found to be in a criminal enterprise, then everybody connected with the enterprise goes down.
4) Make it illegal for people to be a member of a gang, so that if you so much as catch someone who is a member, they have a price to pay.
5) Do whatever you have to do to discourage the exploitation of young people in criminal activities by rap artists and other purveyors of cultural toxicity by making it impossible for such sentiments to reach a target audience.
I agree with dave. I once overheard a coffee meeting between two lawyers who were actually talking about how they could stretch out some cases so they could charge more time. I listened to them comparing their client lists and discussing how much they thought each client could pay. If it was decided they could pay for more time then they figured out ways to charge that time. Don’t ask for names. Actually, I’ve forgotten them.
Sleezy lawyers don’t help but the whole system is broken in my opinion. It starts with the politicians who make the laws that let criminals out on the street, and then the judges who are appointed by these same politicians. I’d hate to be a cop and regularly see these creeps put back on the street after I’d risked my life putting them behind bars.
I agree with Greg (outside Dallas). All five points. But I wonder why the US is having so many problems. I don’t know how they handle #1. But #2 does discourage the bad guys I guess, and I’m for that. RICO doesn’t help much for the creeps who are on the street. It only really targets the big guys. #4 would work and I also agree with #5.
A few comments on this subject.
First, I am a defense lawyer and can claim some first-hand knowledge of the system.
Second, the theory behind publication bans was to try and ensure that the accused, especially if being tried by a jury, got a trial by a panel that had not been unduly influenced by pre-trial publicity. I think that is less effective today with all the various forms of media and generally speaking I believe jurors take their role extremely seriously and do try and judge a case fairly and impartially. You have to ask for a publication ban, it is not automatic. The prosecution may ask for one if to name the accused will reveal the identity of the victim.
As for Young Offenders, that legislation places an outright ban on publishing the name of the offender. Personally, I don’t have a problem with naming the accused.
Third, if the presumption of innocence is that important, then why should an accused be incarcerated pending his trial. At that point he has not been proven guilty. If the law required that an accused be routinely detained pending trial should the accused be compensated for loss of his liberty, income and expenses if the state fails to prove his guilt?
Fourth, as to the problem of delay in the court system, if you want to make the wheels turn faster then you have to be prepared to commit the resources to reduce the delay. This entails more judges, courtrooms and court staff. This means money. Politicians of all stripes are well aware of this but will not make the committment for fear of alienating the taxpayer. The courts send that message to government when they dismiss cases for delay. Don’t blame the courts, they don’t fund the system.
Fifth, in response to Drained Brain’s post. Why the hell couldn’t the officers identify the accused as the one they served. That’s part of their basic training. Maybe they should go back to depot for upgrading or remedial instruction. Don’t blame the lawyer for taking advantage of their incompetence.
Six, guns are inanimate. They require a person to pull the trigger. I support responsible gun ownership (yeah I’m one of those crazy westerners) and believe that many criminals would think twice of doing a B&E if they thought they could wind up staring down the barrel of a gun.
Finally, long sentences do not necessarily work. The war on drugs south of the border is a case in point. Sentencing is very much tailored to the individual offender because, like the rest of us, each is an individual.
Your comments are generally sensible, so I’ll ask you to take off your defense lawyer’s spectacles as you read my response to your question:
“Why the hell couldn’t the officers identify the accused as the one they served.”
Because it was a traffic stop in one of the busiest detachments in the country that occurred more than one year before the trial and because the defendant had made changes to his appearance in the interim – not that his lawyer would have made such a dastardly suggestion.
Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner represented the “Chinese community” in Oxnard California and once way back in the 1920s supposedly packed a courtroom with ethnic Chinese, leading to the acquittal of the individual he was defending from a gambling charge because the police couldn’t pick out the defendant.
If you were defending me I would want you to pull that and any other trick from your bag to get me off the hook without question! The point is that it’s ridiculous and indicative of a serious problem that there’s a delay of more than one year between a traffic stop and a trial.
Greg(outsideDallas), Once again I like most of what you propose, except for the handgun in every home. The public is not conditioned to use a handgun against another human. Makes them a victim of the intruder by the very handgun that is supposed to protect them.
A can of * bear stopper * should be in everyone’s night table. It’s effective without being lethal and much more likely to be used in self defense.
Most people just can’t pull the trigger on a baby faced 19 year old intruder. The kid may be a vicious snake, but simply does not look like it. 73s TG
Simple solution to the problem with violent crime by youth…make Life mean Life, even for young violent offenders. Get rid of concurrent sentencing…pay for one crime at a time.
The emphasis should be on making punishments fit the crimes committed. This way maybe the young won’t be so tempted to grow up by doing “adult” crimes and will stick with stealing hubcaps and fist fights.
Simple solution to the problem with violent crime by youth…make Life mean Life, even for young violent offenders. Get rid of concurrent sentencing…pay for one crime at a time.
The emphasis should be on making punishments fit the crimes committed. This way maybe the young won’t be so tempted to grow up by doing “adult” crimes and will stick with stealing hubcaps and fist fights.
Good comments all around. I am in ageement with Greg regarding the idea of responsible gun ownership as a deterrent to crime. BTW, a shotgun would work much better than a handgun. Easier to aim, less worry about penetrating walls with the right shot size, etc.
For Tony, the good part is that if such action became commonplace (not even universal), it would get rid of a lot of amateur B & E’s. That’s not to say the hardened career thieves would always be deterred by the thought of facing a gunowner, but it would be better than the current fear-free environ in which these worms operate. Those citizens uneasy with the thought of guns in the house would likely receive some benefit from would-be looters weighing the likelihood of them having a firearm.
Martin B. Excellent point. Why give criminals a bulk rate on committing crimes? This isn’t Costco.
John,
I always enjoy your interesting points.
These gangs are often like the Hell’s Angels. After WWII, the Angels were just a bunch of vets who wanted to get drunk, raise hell, and tell society to stick it.
Now, however, they’re a sophisticated crime network with chapters all over the world. They have their own shipping network, and it is rumored that the Angels are in possession of an atomic bomb.
A lot of gangs who have gotten beyond phase 1 have criminal political connections to drug/revolutionary movements in Mexico and South America. Drugs have allowed them to become criminal entrepeneurs. After 9-11 I sent a letter at the request of someone who works in one of our senator’s offices describing a connection between sympathies that existed between al Qaeda and the New Afrikan movements, like the black Muslims. Prisons like Fulsom and others become think tanks in afffiliation with large gang membership throughout our big cities.
Gangs like the bloods and the crips send people around the country to do feasibility studies on small and mid-sized towns: Do they have adequate law enforcement? Is it easy to get in and out for distribution purposes? Are they up to speed on gang problems?
If it looks like a ‘go’ they will target the commuinity for drug distribution. They’ll get a bunch of young, disaffectied kids and jump them into the gang, and then put them to work selling to other people in the neighborhood. This is the kind of thing that awaits Canada if Canada does not act swiftly and agressively.
Tony,
when Florida was beset by local thugs who attacked tourists as well as citizens, Florida enacted a right-to-carry law. A lot of crime melted away quickly.
Not everyone carried a gun, but the thing was that the bad guys never knew who was and who wasn’t. That’s the deterrent. The bad guy wants to move on someone, but who knows? They may drop him where he stands.
Greg, point taken, but in Howard Society Canada there is the *use of excessive force* thing.
Blowing away a B&E artist in Canada is Excessive Force…eh?
Wonder if the charge ever sticks and what the penalty is likely to be. 73s TG