Ex-MP Jaffer appears before parliamentary committee
"… we are being completely hung out to dry without any real evidence that we have done anything wrong."
Rahim Jaffer's complaint may be worthy of debate but certainly the rancorous treatment he received at the parliamentary committee was predictable.
The Commons committee consisted of a group of federal politicians circling the wagons with a palpable sense of anger that Jaffer had soiled their collective reputations. Assertions and slights ("You left with a feeling of no synergy and a pocketful of cocaine…") were disguised as probing questions. Jaffer's effort to stem the swelling tide of slurs was feeble.
It is incomprehensible that Rahim Jaffer didn't bring a lawyer to the committee hearing. Jaffer was conspicuously unprepared, his opening statement was condescending and with every answer that followed his credibility withered.
Robert Baltovich sues for $13 million in wrongful conviction for murder of Elizabeth Bain
"(They) were the result of the reckless, bad faith, negligent and intentional acts and omissions of the defendants."
A virtually unprecedented feature of Robert Baltovich's lawsuit is that it includes his defence counsel at his murder trial as targets. His statement of claim alleges that his lawyers failed to review all of the evidence that supported Baltovich's innocence even though their client insisted that he was innocent of the crime. However, in fairness to Baltovich's defence counsel, there were two important developments that only emerged after the original trial. The first was the theory that Paul Bernardo was the real killer of Elizabeth Bain. The second, bearing on the credibility of a crucial eyewitness, was the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in 2007 that posthypnosis testimony is invariably inadmissible.
The Ontario government and the two police officers in charge of the investigation were included as defendants in Baltovich's lawsuit. Noticeably absent was the immunized trial judge whose flawed jury instructions were severely criticized by the Ontario Court of Appeal and led to a new trial being ordered. The Court found that the trial judge's charge to the jury was unfair and unbalanced demonstrating "contempt for the defence position."
U.S. Supreme Court strikes animal cruelty depiction ban
"Most of what we say to one another lacks ‘religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value' (let alone serious value), but it is still sheltered from government regulation."
Chief Justice John Roberts offered this insight about the parameters of free speech in an opinion released this week by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court struck down a "substantially overboard" federal law banning videos of animal cruelty. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the law enacted by Congress created "a criminal prohibition of alarming breadth" and that it was not appropriate to rewrite the law to make it conform to constitutional requirements. He added that the Supreme Court "would not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the Government promised to use it responsibly."
The same suggestion of prosecutorial restraint was made by the government during the oral argument of Conrad Black's appeal. Justice Stephen Bryer observed during the hearing that people sometimes joke that it would be simpler to have only one criminal law: " ‘It is a crime to do wrong.' Sometimes adding, ‘in the opinion of the Attorney General.' "
The pardon of Karla Homolka
"But that, my friends, is how the laws have been written over the past few decades. Written when soft-on-crime attitudes were fashionable and concern for criminals took priority over compassion for victims."
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was introduced "over the past few decades" and perhaps Prime Minister Harper's portrayal of a fashion catalogue of soft laws extends to the nation's constitution as well.
The Prime Minister's statement relating to the "deep" problems with the pardon system followed the news of Graham James' pardon and the rampant speculation surrounding the possible pardon of Karla Homolka. The Harper government, of course, had an opportunity to rewrite the laws for pardons a few years earlier but instead chose to amend the process with some administrative tweaking.
Tories again vow to kill 'faint hope' clause
"We agree with Canadians a life sentence is supposed to mean life, not early parole."
Justice Minister Rod Nicholson led the support for the Harper government's re-introduction of legislation to expunge the faint hope clause permitting some convicted murderers to apply for early parole.
If the Minister of Justice is proposing that a life sentence in Canada means life in prison in every case, his view is completely at odds with the present state of the law. Whether the charge is first or second degree murder, release on earlier parole always remains a possible option. The same holds true for a sentence of life imprisonment for a charge such as manslaughter.
The faint hope clause, which would be more appropriately described as the nearly impossible hope clause, is consistent with a bedrock principle in Canadian criminal law that a life sentence doesn't dictate life in prison. No head butting allowed in Chicago courtroom
"It's like boxing — there are rules… those rules are enforced by the referee, not by the boxers. I am that referee, no one else. I will not permit the legal equivalent of head butts."
U.S District Judge James Zagel's warning was made after former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, like a dueling swordsman, made a feisty public challenge to the United States Attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, to play every recording made by federal investigators at his upcoming trial. On the following day, Blagojevich's lawyers asked Judge Zagel to subpoena President Barack Obama to be a witness at the trial in June.
