Let’s build opportunity, not prisons
Globe and Mail Published Friday, Feb. 18, 2011 7:30PM EST
With Canada poised to spend untold billions of dollars expanding its prison system, it’s worth looking at what else that money might buy in national projects that invest in the country’s most important capital, its people.
Assuming Canada had extra billions in a time of large deficits, consider the birth bond – a government investment to be made each time a child is born. The investment would be held until the child turns, say, 18, and then made available for postsecondary education or an apprenticeship program. Canada has 370,000 births a year. How much could it afford to put into an ambitious investment for each newborn, instead of into jail expansion?
It’s hard to know for sure, because the federal government has refused to provide a detailed costing for several major crime bills. For instance, the Truth in Sentencing Act, which ends the near-automatic, two-for-one discount given to convicted offenders for time served in jail before trial (i.e. a year behind bars is deemed to be two years). An independent analysis, done by Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, projected the additional costs as high as (or higher than) $5.1-billion a year, by 2015-16, for Ottawa and the provinces. The total annual cost of the nation’s corrections system could be $9.5-billion or more, instead of $4.4-billion (as of 2009-10).
If Mr. Page is right, Canada could seed an education account for each newborn with $13,783. Outlandish? Maybe, but it makes more sense than prison expansion, if the government is intent on spending an extra $5-billion. Canada wouldn’t need a birth bond, anyway; net tuition paid by all students is $3.5-billion a year. Instead of Truth in Sentencing, the country could afford Free in University, with change left over.
Let’s assume, for the moment, Mr. Page is wildly out of touch, as Ottawa claims. The federal government’s published budget estimates for federal corrections show an annual hike of $861-million – 36 per cent – by 2012-13 (compared with 2009-10). Now assume, conservatively, that the provincial costs rise by the same amount as a result of the federal crime bills. For that $1.722-billion extra a year, what could Canada do that is forward-looking, and has a long-term economic payoff?
It could pour resources into research. Currently, the government spends about $3-billion on the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Canada could take the $1.08-billion given to the CIHR each year and double it, and still have $700-million to spend on an enormous expansion of subsidies for master’s and PhD students.
Even if all of the government’s criminal justice bills were sensible, taken individually (and frankly, we have no philosophical objection to Truth in Sentencing), the costs need to be known and weighed, on their own merits and against other uses for that money.
If Canada has money for an expansion of the jails, which is doubtful, it should think instead about ambitious ways of investing in productivity and people.
Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/lets-build-opportunity-not-prisons/article1913834/
Jury no-shows ordered to court to explain absences
Bob Mitchell
Staff Reporter
The look on their faces only told part of the story.
Scared, and nervous, 28 people slowly walked from the back of Brampton’s largest courtroom on Thursday to explain to a Superior Court judge why they ignored their jury duty summonses.
For many, it was like walking up the steps to the gallows. Had they known Justice Casey Hill’s reputation of being a no-nonsense judge, they would have perhaps been even more tense during their 60-foot walk to the podium.
One by one, Hill spoke with each person all of whom had been warned beforehand that they faced a possible charge of contempt and a fine if he wasn’t satisfied with their reasons.
“Honesty is essential,” Hill told them.
It was an extraordinary move by Hill. The judge had had enough. The no-shows were supposed to be among the 300 people on Panel 118 serving as the pool of potential jurors on the murder trial of Alvin Boyce of Brampton. None of them knew they could wind up on the jury in a lengthy homicide case.
The citizens’ absence from the panel forced a delay in jury selection, according to Hill.
Rather than issuing warrants or convicting 43 Peel residents in absentia for neglecting their civic duty, he asked that registered letters be sent on Jan. 28 ordering them to appear in his courtroom Thursday.
Six letters were returned because people had moved, including one person now living in the United Kingdom. In total, 28 people turned up.
Hill showed restraint and leniency. Instead of dishing out punishment, he treated it as a fact-finding exercise to determine how to prevent it from continuing.
“How are you today?” Hill asked an elderly woman wearing a black sweater over top a red blouse and clutching a piece of paper she had written with words explaining why she never appeared on Jan. 19.
“Terrified,” she answered. “Very nervous.”
“Well, we’ll see if we can do something about that,” Hill said as she passed the note to him explaining the stress she had been under at the time she received her jury notice.
Hill told the gathering their no-shows weren’t just an isolated matter. Based on data from the previous five months, between 11 and 21 per cent of prospective jurors have failed to show up for 42 different Brampton trials.
“. . . A systemic problem has emerged,” Hill said. “It’s important to recognize that jury service is a public duty and is not an invitation to attend or an option. It’s a court order with consequences for disobedience. Every person must attend without a reasonable excuse.”
Nine people still did not appear. According to Canada Post, the registered letters were delivered and signed for. Justice Casey Hill has asked for more information with an intention to ordering nine people to court at a later date for a hearing. A contempt conviction carries a fine of up to $1,000 and possible jail of up to 30 days.
Ironically, many of those in court on Thursday had excuses that likely would have got them off jury duty had they showed up as required and provided their reasons.
Several people said they were sick or had medical reasons for not attending, including a man with an “embarrassing hernia malfunction” and a woman who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks.
Others insisted they faxed doctors’ notes to the court, which for some reason never got filed.
One man was burying his mother in Romania. He faxed information to the court but never got a reply.
Others simply came clean. They simply forgot or misplaced the letter in the Christmas season.
In all, 81 people were excused for various reasons before the Jan. 19 panel date. Another 219 were expected to appear in court that day.
Instead, only 174 people showed. The court was forced to merge them with another panel, delaying jury selection.
“The consequences (no-shows) are significant,” Hill said. “The delinquency delayed Boyce’s constitutional right to a trial.”
Jury trials are a symbol of democratic institutions and of civilized societies, Hill said.
Justice MIA
What the law says: A person who does not appear after receiving a jury summons could be convicted of contempt and receive a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 30 days in jail.
What usually happens: Nothing
What happened this time: Justice Casey Hill asked that registered letters be sent to 43 residents of Peel summoning them to his courtroom to explain why they didn’t turn up
Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/article/940934–jury-no-shows-ordered-to-court-to-explain-absences
Ontario court interpreters failing tests
The use of interpreters in Ontario courtrooms could become a serious issue after about 40 per cent in the first group failed the new proficiency tests.
Ontario is testing all of its accredited interpreters.
The first group to take the tests didn’t fare well as only 46 passed, 69 were given conditional credentials and 77 failed. About 600 interpreters are still to be tested.
The results mean that in the Greater Toronto Area, for example, right now there is only one fully accredited Mandarin interpreter and one fully accredited Tamil language interpreter.
Selahedin Abubaker is one of the interpreters who failed. But he has been a court translator for more than 20 years, working on cases all over Ontario.
Abubaker says he is fluent in two languages spoken in Ethiopia, but as of this week the Ministry of the Attorney General says he’s no longer qualified.
No complaints
Abubaker says that over the past two decades he has never had a complaint about his work from “the justices of the peace, the judges, the clients.”
He says his exam was too academic and didn’t take into account the nuances of the languages he interprets.
“The speed and the pause of our language” are extremely important, he said, “and that doesn’t reflect what the test is all about.”
Stella Rahman, president of the Court Interpreters Association of Ontario, says the organization offered to work with the ministry to upgrade skills or train interpreters, but the ministry refused.
Courtroom co-ordinators have told Rahman they now have strict instructions to use interpreters from the accredited list first, then those with conditional credentials.
Rahman worries that some of those on the list have little court experience.
“Although the interpreter has passed the test, he or she is not competent to handle high-profile cases like murder trials,” she said. “But [the court co-ordinator's] hands are tied. He has to call on that interpreter.”
Bev Dowd, a Spanish interpreter who passed her test, says the fallout may be felt in the Ontario legal system for years to come.
Chaos predicted
“Lawyers are saying, ‘Maybe I’ll go back and say that wasn’t a good interpreter, the whole decision should be overturned.’ So it’s going to just create chaos,” said Dowd.
Some lawyers say there aren’t enough qualified interpreters.
Gary Anandasangaree, who represents many clients whose first language is Tamil, said the ministry’s decision could put a barrier between “people who are effectively the accused and the system.”
In a statement sent to CBC News, the ministry said it is recruiting new interpreters to help fill holes. And it defended the examinations.
“The new tests are specific to courts and are based on actual court documents and trial transcripts from Ontario court proceedings,” the ministry said.
“This approach ensures the tests match a realistic court interpreter experience and reflect the high level of skill and specialized terminology required for court interpretation.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/04/16/court-interpreters.html
Police Undermining Your Right To A Fair Trial
The RCMP is calling on the Harper government to find a way to ease disclosure requirements that force the Mounties to share all of the fruits of their investigations with defence lawyers, although such a move would face stiff opposition in legal circles.
The second-in-command of the RCMP said in an interview that disclosure obligations, which have steadily grown since a 1991 Supreme Court decision, had initially added 10 per cent to the cost of an investigation in terms of money and human resources.
That number has gone up to 40 per cent, Senior Deputy Commissioner Rod Knecht said, because police officers are spending more and more time filing paperwork in increasingly complex investigations. The 33-year veteran called the disclosure requirements a “huge challenge” to the police force, which would prefer to focus its energies on front-line policing.
“There is a cost to [disclosure], and there is a cost to public safety to that. In times of strict budgets and in the tough economic times that we are in, it’s really difficult,” said Deputy Commissioner Knecht, who oversees police operations as the most senior assistant to civilian Commissioner William Elliott. “We have to take a long, hard look at disclosure, and we have to find much better ways to deal with the disclosure burden that we currently find ourselves under.”
The comments are likely to ignite an intense debate between law-and-order supporters who want to speed up the pace of law-enforcement operations, and civil libertarians who believe police powers should be constrained to prevent abuses and wrongful convictions. The RCMP in particular has been under fire for years over a variety of actions.
Defence lawyer James Lockyer disputed the RCMP’s assertion that the rules are onerous, saying they simply require photocopying or scanning of pre-existing documents.
“The cost of disclosure is $5 in your average case,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Lockyer, a founding director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, said the rules flow from miscarriages of justice in which the Crown failed to disclose essential material to the defence. A high-profile example was Donald Marshall, who spent 11 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
“History tells us that that regime simply didn’t work,” Mr. Lockyer said.
In addition, there is no easy way to ease disclosure requirements that the Supreme Court imposed almost two decades ago in the case of William Stinchcombe, a lawyer facing fraud and theft charges. The court called for a new trial after determining that Mr. Stinchcombe’s legal team was not provided with copies of potentially helpful statements that his former secretary had provided to police, creating a precedent that is still a top-of-mind issue in legal circles.
The ruling removed the Crown’s discretion to determine what information to provide to the defence.
Deputy Commissioner Knecht said he agrees with the broad principle of disclosure, but he wants Canadians to be aware of the consequences of the current rules, including the impact on the RCMP’s $5-billion annual budget. He said it now takes two officers to process a single case of impaired driving, for example, which can paralyze detachments in isolated communities.
“We never want to see anybody go to jail that shouldn’t go to jail, we don’t want anybody charged if they shouldn’t be charged,” he said. “But the expectation is that there’ll be police officers out there 24/7 and they’ll be responding and be there all the time, when we’re not physically capable to do that any more.”
Deputy Commissioner Knecht is voicing a common concern among police officers, spies and Crown prosecutors, who would prefer more discretion when it comes to the disclosure of evidence.
“To my mind, there has to be a bit of a saw-off here. There probably is a better way for us to accomplish the goals that everybody wants us to accomplish,” Deputy Commissioner Knecht said.
Disclosure obligations continue to grow in Canada. In 2009, for example, the Supreme Court stated in a decision that a police investigator’s disciplinary record might have to be shared with the defence in some circumstances.
In major investigations, such as terrorism cases, police now transcribe and translate thousands of hours of intercepted conversations, leading to millions of pages of material that has to be provided to defence lawyers. While they sometimes don’t read all of the disclosed material, defence lawyers can seek more, or complain about a lack of disclosure in major trials, causing delays.
Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/rcmp-wants-less-strict-rules-on-disclosure-to-defence-lawyers/article1859397/
Texas man cleared by DNA after 30 years in prison declared innocent by judge
DALLAS - A Texas man declared innocent Tuesday after 30 years in prison could have cut short his prison stint twice and made parole — if only he would admit he was a sex offender.
But Cornelius Dupree Jr. refused to do so, doggedly maintaining his innocence in a 1979 rape and robbery, in the process serving more time for a crime he didn’t commit than any other Texas inmate exonerated by DNA evidence.
“Whatever your truth is, you have to stick with it,” Dupree, 51, said Tuesday, minutes after a Dallas judge overturned his conviction.
Nationally, only two others exonerated by DNA evidence spent more time in prison, according to the Innocence Project, a New York legal centre that specializes in wrongful conviction cases and represented Dupree. James Bain was wrongly imprisoned for 35 years in Florida, and Lawrence McKinney spent more than 31 years in a Tennessee prison.
Dupree was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980 for the rape and robbery of a 26-year-old Dallas woman a year earlier. He was released in July on mandatory supervision, and lived under house arrest until October. About a week after his release, DNA test results came back proving his innocence in the sexual assault.
A day after his release, Dupree married his fiancee, Selma. The couple met two decades ago while he was in prison.
His exoneration hearing was delayed until Tuesday while authorities retested the DNA and made sure it was a match to the victim. Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins supported Dupree’s innocence claim.
Looking fit and trim in a dark suit, Dupree stood through most of the short hearing, until state district Judge Don Adams told him, “You’re free to go.” One of Dupree’s lawyers, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck, called it “a glorious day.”
“It’s a joy to be free again,” Dupree said.
This latest wait was nothing for Dupree, who was up for parole as recently as 2004. He was set to be released and thought he was going home, until he learned he first would have to attend a sex offender treatment program.
Those in the program had to go through what is known as the “four R’s.” They are recognition, remorse, restitution and resolution, said Jim Shoemaker, who served two years with Dupree in the Boyd Unit south of Dallas.
“He couldn’t get past the first part,” said Shoemaker, who drove up from Houston to attend Dupree’s hearing.
Shoemaker said he spent years talking to Dupree in the prison recreation yard, and always believed his innocence.
“I got a lot of flak from the guys on the block,” Shoemaker said. “But I always believed him. He has a quiet, peaceful demeanour.”
Under Texas compensation laws for the wrongly imprisoned, Dupree is eligible for $80,000 for each year he was behind bars, plus a lifetime annuity. He could receive $2.4 million in a lump sum that is not subject to federal income tax.
The compensation law, the nation’s most generous, was passed in 2009 by the Texas Legislature after dozens of wrongly convicted men were released from prison. Texas has freed 41 wrongly convicted inmates through DNA since 2001 — more than any other state.
Dallas County’s record of DNA exonerations — Dupree is No. 21 — is unmatched nationally because the county crime lab maintains biological evidence even decades after a conviction, leaving samples available to test. In addition, Watkins, the DA, has co-operated with innocence groups in reviewing hundreds of requests by inmates for DNA testing.
Watkins, the first black district attorney in Texas history, has also pointed to what he calls “a convict-at-all-costs mentality” that he says permeated his office before he arrived in 2007.
At least a dozen other exonerated former inmates from the Dallas area who collectively served more than 100 years in prison upheld a local tradition by attending the hearing and welcoming the newest member of their unfortunate fraternity. One of them, James Giles, presented Dupree with a $100 bill as a way to get his life restarted.
Source:http://ca.news.yahoo.com/texas-man-cleared-dna-30-years-prison-declared-20110104-080607-533.html
