ALBERTA JUDGE QUASHES CHARGES IN MEGA-TRIAL

EDMONTON -- The collapse of a high-profile drug-trafficking case is a
damning blow to the trend of mega-trials involving several defendants,
lawyers and observers said yesterday.

An Edmonton judge threw out charges against 11 people accused of conspiring
to sell cocaine, saying the lengthy delay in trying the case -- chiefly
because federal prosecutors and the RCMP were slow in disclosing evidence
to the defence -- violated their Charter rights.

"The right to a fair trial encompasses the right to a reasonably speedy
trial. In this case, that right has been compromised, largely by Crown
action," Madam Justice Doreen Sulyma of the Court of Queen's Bench wrote in
a decision released Monday.

The complex case, which began four years ago and had not yet progressed to
the point of calling a jury, cost taxpayers dearly: The federal government
spent an estimated $20-million in fees for defence lawyers and the Alberta
government paid $2-million to build a high-security courtroom.

In September of 1999, police arrested and charged 36 people across Alberta
with membership in organized crime and conspiracy to traffick cocaine. Most
spent six months to a year in jail before they were released on bail.

After a year and a half of legal wrangling, the defendants were split into
two groups. Over time, several people either pleaded guilty or the charges
against them were stayed, eventually leaving a group of eight defendants
and another of 11, whose charges of gang membership were stayed by the
Crown in 2001, while the conspiracy charges remained.

The prosecution of the group of eight, who are accused of being members of
an Asian gang, continues; however, their lawyers have asked that the case
be dismissed because of similar delays.

"I've said from the beginning that too many people were charged with too
many charges, and put all together it becomes unwieldy," said lawyer Hersh
Wolch, who represented one of the accused in the case that was thrown out
this week.

The matter has once again shown that so-called mega-trials -- wherein
several people are tried together -- are inherently problematic, observers say.

"I think the whole idea of the mega-trial is quickly going the way of the
dinosaur," said Sanjeev Anand, a law professor at the University of
Alberta. "It's just too difficult to manage . . . and the prospect of the
whole thing collapsing under its own weight is simply too real of a
possibility."

Similar cases have run into difficulties in Quebec and in Manitoba, where
prosecutors accepted plea bargains in a case involving suspected members of
the Manitoba Warriors gang.

"There are lessons that have been learned over and over by the state. I
think that there need to be changes," said Larry Fleming, a lawyer who was
involved in the Edmonton case.

Prof. Anand said the culprit is not the federal government's antigang
legislation, but the way the Crown pursued the case.

Rather than prosecute several people at once, he said, it would have been
more effective to try three or four people at a time and then use
convictions to get some of the lower-level criminals to provide evidence in
exchange for lighter sentences.

"In the short term, unfortunately, what the collapse of this trial will
mean to organized crime is that it's going to be very difficult to get
people to turn over because the minute that you say, 'Well, we're going to
charge you under the organized-crime legislation,' individuals will say,
'Well, fine. Go ahead. We're going to beat this rap,' " Prof. Anand said.