LAWYER SUSPENDED AFTER SMUGGLING DRUGS INTO JAIL

OTTAWA -- The Law Society of Upper Canada has given a one-month suspension
to a local family law practitioner convicted of smuggling drugs to a
prisoner in the city's provincial jail.

Rose-Lyne Marie Gauthier, a sole practitioner, was given the suspension
July 13 for conduct unbecoming after an agreed statement of facts was
presented to a law society discipline panel.

On March 26, 2002, she pleaded guilty in Superior Court to helping an
inmate receive a syringe of cocaine and THC that was smuggled into the
local jail in a chocolate bar. She was put on 24 months' probation and
ordered to perform 180 hours of community service.

Gauthier admitted that her behaviour, as set out in the agreed statement of
facts, constituted conduct unbecoming a barrister or solicitor.

The majority of the Law Society panel accepted the position of the
society's counsel that Gauthier be suspended for the month of August and
pay $1,000 in costs to the law society.

Gauthier's suspension has revived the dispute between the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union and the province's lawyers over lawyers' rights to
unfettered visits with inmates.

In April, Miles O'Reilly, an Oshawa, Ont.-based sole practitioner, was
charged with smuggling marijuana to a client at the Maplehurst Detention
Centre. In 2002, over a period of several weeks, guards caught 10 lawyers
smuggling contraband into the Toronto (Don) Jail.

OPSEU demanded strip searches of lawyers and successfully argued to have
lawyers' visits to the Don suspended until the security issues were
resolved. Toronto defence lawyer Austin Cooper opposed the union. He argued
successfully in Divisional Court that accused people's rights to council
outweigh the risk caused by a few lawyers acting improperly.

On Nov. 15, 2002, Justice Michael Dambrot ruled that management must permit
criminal lawyers to meet face to face with their clients. Guards, however,
can now strip-search inmates after lawyers' visits, although an OPSEU
spokesman said staff do not always have time to do it.

Barry Scanlon, chair of the OPSEU Corrections ministry employee relations
committee said: "The vast majority of criminal lawyers are honest,
law-abiding professionals. If additional staffing and resources are needed
to protect the staff at our jails, the ministry must act immediately to
address this. The ministry created the atmosphere for these types of
problems to occur. It's time they took the responsibility."

Daniel Brodsky, a Toronto practitioner who has handled many high-profile
cases involving clients who score high on tests of manipulation skills,
said most lawyers can't fathom why a practitioner would risk his career to
smuggle contraband. Manipulative clients, he says, can spot the lawyers who
are vulnerable.

"Lawyers are just people, and people can end up in bad situations. In some
cases, you get a client who offers a private retainer to a lawyer who needs
money, and the lawyer takes it. Trouble can happen when you have a
vulnerable lawyer who is extraordinarily manipulated," said Brodsky.

Gauthier, who was called to the bar in February 1998, usually practised
family law, but, on Oct. 21, 2000, she was asked by Ottawa lawyer Diane
Magas to deliver a psychiatric textbook to Richard Condo, who was being
held in the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Detention Centre. Condo was waiting
for a dangerous offender application hearing after being convicted of a
serious assault on his wife and threatening her lawyer, Tom Curran.

Gauthier had represented Condo, whose criminal record dates back 30 years,
briefly in 2000 to help him find counsel for the dangerous offender
application hearing and in obtaining psychiatric assistance. Magas and
Condo had a long-term relationship so she did not represent him.

According to the agreed statement of facts at the discipline hearing,
Gauthier was phoned at 6 p.m. on Oct. 21, while she took her son and father
home from her son's hockey game, and told to pick up the textbook at a
convenience store. She drove to the store with her father and son in the car.

A store clerk gave her the book, a chocolate bar, and a bottle of Pepsi to
take to the detention centre, the agreed statement of facts said.

At 7:20 p.m., Gauthier went to the detention centre. She told the door
officer she was a lawyer and wanted to meet with Condo. She was refused
access because officials had suspended visits to Condo as jail staff had
received a tip he was going to receive a delivery that night, the statement
of facts says.

A short time later, Gauthier received a call from either Magas or Condo
asking why she had not seen Condo. Gauthier called the jail to ask why she
had been refused admission, then spoke with Condo. The inmate said two
other prisoners on his wing needed counsel on family law matters and she
should return to the detention centre that night to see them.

"Ms. Gauthier understood that the primary purpose of the visit was to
deliver the textbook, but hoped the meeting would result in new clients,"
the agreed statement of facts said.

Told by jail staff that there was only 25 minutes left in the professional
visit time, Gauthier asked to see Michael Baron. She signed into the jail
at 8:10 p.m.

Mark Laurin, a guard assigned to monitor the visit, watched through a
one-way mirror in the central control area as Gauthier put a Pepsi and a
chocolate bar from her bag on the desk.

"[Laurin] did not observe her place any papers on the interview room table.
Ms. Gauthier maintains she had a book, which she placed on the interview
table as well," said the agreed statement of facts.

"Mr. Laurin observed Mr. Baron remove his arms from his jumpsuit and lower
it to his waist. He then observed Mr. Baron reach for something under the
desk, reach with both hands to the area of his anus, and then sat down,
rocking back and forth, as if he was placing something into his rectum."

Laurin then saw Baron pull on his jumpsuit and within seconds leave the
room. The guard saw Gauthier sit and watch but do nothing.

"She did not appear to react to his conduct and made no attempt to
terminate the interview early," the statement says.

Laurin called jail officials and asked Baron be sent to a dry cell. Moments
later, operations manager Mike Woods confronted Gauthier with Laurin's
observations and said Gauthier's visiting privileges were cancelled.
Gauthier denied the events described by Laurin had taken place.

Meanwhile, guards strip-searched Baron and found a piece of cellophane in
his jumpsuit. Baron was placed in a cell without a toilet or sink. Later,
they found an empty syringe that tested positive for trace amounts of
cocaine and THC.

On Jan. 29, 2001, Gauthier was charged with trafficking cocaine. Later,
five counts were added under the Controlled Substances Act. After a
preliminary hearing, at which Gauthier was ordered to stand trail on all
five of six charges, Gauthier pleaded guilty to one count and the others
were withdrawn.

The agreed statement of facts presented at trial said Gauthier "knew or, at
the very least, was willfully blind to the import of Baron's conduct in the
interview room. . . . Nevertheless, she continued the pretext of the
lawyer-client meeting in a lawyer-client interview room to enable him to
hide the chocolate bar and its contents."

At her trial, Gauthier apologized "to the members of the profession for the
embarrassment that I may have caused them in the public - in the public's
eyes."

Gauthier could not be reached for comment after the discipline hearing.