Pubdate: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB) Copyright: 2008 The Edmonton Journal Contact: http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/134 Author: Paula Simons, Staff Writer FIRST, LET'S BLAME ALL THE LAWYERS Justice Minister Panders To Fear Of Crime By Pinning Court Delays On Defence Counsel It was a great piece of political theatre, diversionary magic David Copperfield himself would envy. The day after the news of the reused syringe scandal broke, Ed Stelmach held his regular Tuesday press conference. But no one got a chance to ask about the High Prairie hospital. Instead, the premier, flanked by a phalanx of police chiefs and officers in dress uniforms, announced plans to fight gang crime by putting more cops on the street. It was a dramatic display, especially given the premier was really re-announcing previous funding commitments. Yet hiring officers is only one part of the equation. Alberta's courts are so backed up, 56 per cent of prisoners in provincial custody haven't even been convicted; they're in remand awaiting trial. If they are convicted, their sentences are often reduced, because they get double credit for time in overcrowded remand centres. It's sentence first, verdict afterwards. The province has hired 62 more Crown prosecutors since 2006; another 28 are promised over the next two years. But though the province pledged more money to the system last year, Alberta Justice can't hire Crowns fast enough. Bad as things are in Edmonton or Calgary, filling positions in places like Fort McMurray and Peace River is even harder. "I don't think we've ever had the number of prosecutors as was the goal or plan," says David Torske, president of the Alberta Crown Attorneys' Association. "We hire two and lose one. In the rural offices, people are worked off their feet." At Tuesday's press conference, Justice Minister Alison Redford blamed the backlog not on overtaxed courts but on defence lawyers, who, she suggested, exploit procedural redundancies in the Criminal Code to delay trials. "Our courts are very well-resourced," said Redford. "We have the judges who can do the work. We have the prosecutors who can do the work." The problems, she claimed, stem from Criminal Code rules that she said give the defence a strategic advantage. "Frankly, defence counsel is very good at using those." That's not how Mona Duckett sees it. A respected defence attorney and the past-president of the Law Society of Alberta, Duckett blames delays on a shortage of judges, courtrooms and prosecutors. This August, she says, she tried to book a court for a three-day preliminary inquiry, only to find that the earliest court date was in May. In the meantime, her client is in remand. Even when she has clients who want to plead guilty, she says, it can take more than a month to hear from backlogged Crowns about plea agreements. "This crap about saying it's defence counsel that's holding up the system really gets under my skin," says Brian Hurley, president of the Criminal Trial Lawyers' Association. "To suggest that we want our clients to sit in jail for weeks and months is outrageous." Hurley says the real culprit is poor courtroom scheduling. More trials could be booked, he says, but that would require more Crown prosecutors, and more prep time for them. "I hoped Ms. Redford would be above this kind of political BS, but clearly, she isn't," says Hurley. "It's very unfair to see the government undermining its own judicial system with this kind of garbage. To score political points by undermining public confidence is despicable." But Redford stands by her comments. "I'm not going to let defence counsel get away with saying that there's not enough Crown prosecutors, or that they don't know what they're doing. If we need time to prosecute well, then we're going to take that time," she told me Wednesday. "There are defence counsel who can find a tremendous amount of strategic advantage in keeping their clients in remand." Redford says she respects the work criminal lawyers do. But she says it's her job to ensure people are effectively prosecuted, and her job to respond to public fears about violent crime. But it's not her job to pander to those fears. Are defence lawyers getting guilty people off? Are some taking advantage of the remand backlog to give their clients an advantage when it comes to sentencing? Of course they are. And that's their job. In our adversarial justice system, it's the responsibility of defence lawyers to give clients the most zealous representation possible, using all the legal tactics at their disposal. The protections of the Criminal Code and the Charter of Rights aren't mere inefficiencies or technicalities. They're designed to ensure that the state cannot imprison someone until and unless the Crown proves its case beyond any reasonable doubt. The bar is set so high, which means some people who are guilty do go free. But frustrating and frightening though that may be, it's better than a system where the innocent end up in jail, or where cops and prosecutors don't follow the rules. Defence lawyers make easy targets. But beating up on them is just another distraction. As long as so many Albertans buy illegal drugs, drug gangs in this province will flourish. Arrest, convict and jail one gang, and another will take its place. Until we're willing to tackle drug abuse and addiction as a public health issue, not just a crime, we'll keep running a Red Queen's race, running faster and faster to stay in the same place. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin