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.