Police corruption case takes place outside of view of public
From the National Post:
Six veteran drug-squad officers from a [Metropolitan Toronto Police] unit led by Staff Sergeant John Schertzer were charged in January, 2004, with a total of 40-corruption-related offences, including perjury, theft and assault.The charges were announced after a nearly 30-month internal investigation led by RCMP Assistant Commissioner John Neily. The task force -- one of the most exhaustive corruption probes in Canada at a cost of more than $3-million -- recommended 12 officers be charged.
Well, as important as this case seems, it's taking a long time to come to trial. A year and a half later, the case is still not being tried, and it looks like more delays are likely, given that the defence lawyers are under attack:
The Crown provided several hundred pages of documents to the defence and the judge in April in a motion seeking to remove three lawyers for alleged conflicts of interest. The Crown did not file these documents with the court office as required by the rules of the Ontario Court of Justice.When the media requested access to the documents, the defence asked the judge to permanently seal them.
As seems typical in Canada, the judge ordered the dcouments sealed temporarily while he heard arguments. Then he ordered the arguments themselves sealed.
Then he threw everyone out of the courtroom.
Before the public was ordered to leave the courtroom Friday, the Crown said it had withdrawn its motion against two of the three lawyers. It is not clear from the publication ban whether the lawyers can even be named.It is unusual to seal documents and extremely rare to bar the public from a court proceeding. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed open courts are essential to maintain public confidence in the judicial system.
Given the subject matter of the case -- police corruption -- the question of public confidence become ever more important.
These are the charges that have been laid:
- giving false testimony
- conspiracy to obstruct justice
- falsifiying documents
- obtaining search warrants using fabricated information
- theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in money, jewelry, drugs, and guns (often from safety deposit boxes to which they had obtained keys)
- possession of illegal weapons
- money laundering
- extortion
- making threats to potential witnesses of physical harm and even death
- sexual assault (actually, this charge is unrelated to the drug case, but was laid against Constable Maodus in another matter)
- possession of cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy for the purpose of trafficking
The consequences of these officer's actions:
In the affidavits the task force concludes that 83 per cent of the drug charges laid by the unit headed by Staff Sgt. John Schertzer were later either stayed or withdrawn. 200 cases were dropped because of questions about the officers' credibility. Neily estimates that 2,100 prosecutions and 600 search warrants would have to be reinvestigated.
Now we have reason to be concerned about the defence counsel, but we can't hear why. The reason?
The judge ruled it was "too risky" to allow the public to stay in the court after defence lawyers suggested the media could hear information that might lead it to "taint" witnesses and impair the officers' right to a fair trial.
Oh, so this is to protect the officers, not the lawyers being subjected to the "removal of counsel" motion.
Right.
The good news is that on June 24, Judge Blacklock will issue a ruling on whether the court documents will remain sealed.
The bad news:
It is not known whether the public will be allowed in court to hear the decision.
Oh, for crying out loud.
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