Pubdate: Fri, 17 Oct 2003
Source: Annex Guardian (CN ON)
Copyright: 1996-2003 Metroland Printing, Publishing and Distributing
Contact:  http://www.insidetoronto.ca/to/annex/
Feedback: http://www.insidetoronto.ca/to/contct/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2316
Author: David Silverberg

OUTSPOKEN LAWYER, EDUCATOR PENS FIRST BOOK

Law professors don't usually wear shirts emblazoned with The Simpsons 
family. But Alan Young, who teaches at Osgoode Hall and University of 
Toronto, is far from the average educator, considering how he slams the 
justice system in his debut book 'Justice Defiled: Perverts, Potheads, 
Serial Killers & Lawyers'.

A resident in the Spadina and Dupont area, Young regards his profession 
with as much disdain as an innocent prisoner. Young believes he is not 
alone, writing "we hate criminal justice because it has demonstrated 
absolutely no interest in acquiring even a kernel of insight into predatory 
crime, and remains impotent to curb the tide of modern, senseless violence."

The harsh words are no surprise to any follower of Young's career. The 
former lawyer has given half a million dollars of pro bono counsel as he 
sought to defend underground hobbies from becoming demonized. Pro-pot 
activists hailed Young as the voice responsible for establishing a 
medicinal marijuana program in Canada. Sex trade workers applauded his work 
with fetishists and "dungeon masters" (remember Terry Jean Bedford?) while 
free-speech advocates counted themselves lucky to have nabbed eloquent 
Young - he stood up for booksellers with an inventory of weed magazines and 
2 Live Crew albums.

Toronto lawyer Paul Burstein says Young is one of the best orators he's 
ever heard.

"He can easily adopt to any audience," Burstein adds. Combined with a 
reading roster ranging from Nietzsche to Frank Zappa, Young is worldly 
enough to apply his book's premise to every Canadian.

"We have issues of misplaced priorities," he explains, his hands dancing as 
he speaks. "We criminalize pleasures like pot-smoking and prostitution, 
which draws money away from dealing with serious crime."

Young would like to see the justice system take power away from legal 
professionals and put it back into the hands of community representatives.

"I don't like our jury system of pulling names out of a hat, asking these 
people who know nothing about law to come up with an informed verdict, and 
ending up with nothing learnt about the process." He finally exhales. "And 
we contribute little to repairing the problem."

In his 18-year career as lawyer for the fringe, Young knows first-hand the 
frustration of his job. Other lawyers will understand his anger, he says, 
but he doesn't expect a system reform yet. Too many people won't take 
kindly to his indictment.

"This is my suicide note," Young admits without a hint of fear. He says 
this book had to be purged, especially with his higher literary aspirations.

"I want to establish credibility as a good writer," he says. "I might 
continue this tradition of literary non-fiction." Young attaches "literary" 
to Justice Defiled because he wrote the book in the voice of an imaginary 
character - a vicious convict jaded by the system. After penning 30 
academic articles and a biweekly newspaper column, Young realized this 
off-kilter narrator is his Mr. Hyde.

In the book, Young mixes acidic commentary with educated analysis. He 
writes "The real problem of pursuing moral hygiene as a state objective is 
that it has distracted the state from effectively pursuing its one true 
objective - protecting citizens."

In conversation, Young is as lucid as his narrator.

"For lawyers, it's emotionally draining to deal with real human drama. So 
the law transforms crime into recognizable categories, but if we ever want 
to get out of the revolving door of processing criminals, we have to get 
our hands dirty with real human conflict."

The author has probably some of the dirtiest hands in the business, and the 
payoff often makes him grin.

"I'm glad I essentially converted the federal government into a drug 
trafficker," he boasts, and the claim is justified because he went to bat 
for AIDS patient Jim Wakeford in 1999, leading to the first medicinal 
marijuana program in the country.

And although Young's legal team recently lost the battle to repeal 
marijuana prohibition, the war to decriminalize the plant is ongoing, Young 
asserts. As expected, Young ties it into legal immorality.

"Lawyers always talk about the stupidity of the marijuana law, but they're 
not saying anything publicly. I've taken the burden of that attention." 
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