I have to admit I’ve been afflicted with a strange lethargy when it comes to writing lately. It’s not that I haven’t had things to write about, in fact there has been no shortage at all. But while I work up the will to get more writing done, here is my favourite court story.
When I was in La Ronge I was in court a lot. A high volume of files, including a lot of arguably the most contested charge of all, impaired driving, meant that I spent a good deal of time there. I enjoyed trials and found that I learned something from every one, and that my education there served me well in all of my future postings. One day, while I awaited one of my trials I watched this little drama unfold.
Ms. X had been charged with mischief from an incident in Stanley Mission where a window had been broken. Her legal aid lawyer, lets call him Mr. Black, was one of my favourite lawyers, even though more than a few members didn’t like him (as a lawyer, he is a very personable guy). I enjoyed working with him because he’d only take something to trial if he had a defense, and he would tell you what that defense was. That way you could do some further investigation, and if warranted withdraw the charge. The prosecutor is incidental to this tale, but the judge was one I didn’t particularly enjoy working with, due to what I perceived as a particular lack of a use of either logic or law in coming to her decisions.
At any rate, the crown’s case was pretty straight forward. There was one witness and her testimony was basically that she was awakened in the early morning by someone knocking on her door. When she answered the door Ms. X was standing there, intoxicated, and she asked for someone who didn’t live there. She was told that that person wasn’t there and the witness went back inside. When she got back inside Ms. X. began pounding on the door. She opened up a window to tell her to go away and when she did saw Ms. X kick out a ground floor window. The crown basically asked a few house keeping questions regarding identity etc and closed their case.
When the Judge asked Mr. Black if he had any cross examination of the crown’s witness, he stood and said he had no questions for her. It was now time for Defense’s case and again Mr. Black stood and advised the Court that he was calling no witnesses. In other words the only evidence entered in court was that straight forward case of the Crowns.
The judge had a puzzled look on her face and the interchange that followed went like this:
Judge: "I’m curious Mr. Black, why we are bothering to have a trial on this matter?"
Mr. Black: "I can answer that your Honour. Back in the initial court appearance my client, Ms. X, entered a guilty plea on this matter. She also told your Honour that she could remember nothing of the incident. You wouldn’t accept her guilty plea and that’s why we are having a trial."
I quickly left the court room as it is considered very poor form to laugh in court, especially at the Judge who is trying your next case.
Comments
5 responses
Hehehee – keep up the fine writing, Clare!
Love it! Thanks for making me laugh.
Good one, Clare!
But I do have some sympathy with the judge’s refusal to accept the guilty plea–though having done so she should have at least remembered that she did. Do we have a “no contest” plea in Canada? Seems like this is a good case for it. I am assuming that the defendant’s attitude here was something like: “I don’t remember doing this, but I have no problem believing that I did.”
Thanks all,
I don’t agree with you in this case Pamela, although there is a place for the non-acceptance of guilty pleas. This was quite simply a waste of valuable court resources because someone, who accepted what she did, couldn’t remember. She was well represented by a competent attorney, and there was good evidence against her. There are thousands of cases where people are too drunk to remember what they did, and if everyone of those went to trial it would take away from people who legitimately have defences. Drunkenness itself is a defence in a select few cases (mostly involving cases where intent needs to be proved). We don’t have a “no contest” plea here in Canada and, as for myself, I can’t see the point of them. They really are no different than someone who pleads guilty for reasons other than guilt (and there are a myriad of reasons why people do that) and I think that is wrong also. I’m not sure but I think the utility of a “no contest” plea is more for protection in the civil side of things, where someone can argue when they’ve been sued that while they’ve been convicted of an offence in the incident they weren’t guilty, they just didn’t want to fight the charge.
I think that the type of incident where a non-acceptance of a guilty plea would be more appropriate would be where there is more circumstantial evidence of a weak nature. For example where police would find someone passed out at a crime scene, but not much else leading directly to them.
Not sure if this makes sense or not, hopefully it does.
I agree time was clearly wasted in this case–I just had a legalistic (or logical) shiver about the truth of the statement of pleading guilty to doing something you don’t remember doing. But I do agree that if you have adequate representation, things all seem to be above board, in general it does make sense for the judge to accept your plea. It is funny that the judge who set the case in motion was surprised by the inevitable result.
We really don’t want cases like this one to go to trial. Just this week, and not for the first time, a case almost exactly like this was reported in the Police Blotter in my local paper. Nothing like alcohol to get you wanting to talk to someone RIGHT NOW! while preventing you from being able to find the right house.
On reflection not sure what I think about “no contest.” Does seem different from a guilty plea to me, but I don’t know much about how it’s used in the US–you may be right that its use has to do with civil implications.