June 14, 2022
Toronto Star – Rachel Mendleson (Star) and Steve Buist (Hamilton Spectator)
Toronto police reviewing officers’ conduct in nearly 100 cases following Torstar investigation into Charter violations – One officer was disciplined in Waterloo, where the force was unaware of six rulings in which judges found officers committed serious Charter breaches
The article follows an expose of cases in which police misconduct resulted in discredited evidence and cases thrown out directly because of the police evidence. Often, in those cases, the rulings of judges did not come back to the police services and offending officers were not discipline. The offences often continued to occur and taint more cases. “The police forces were previously unaware of these cases where judges had determined their officers breached the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which makes it unlawful for police to use brutality against us, randomly search our homes or detain us without good reason.” https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2022/06/13/toronto-police-reviewing-officers-conduct-in-nearly-100-cases.html Related article: CBC News – Wallis Snowden Edmonton mayor demands 2 probes into police actions in lead-up to Chinatown killings – ‘This situation was not a one-off, or a mistake,’ says Amarjeet Sohi (Mayor of Edmonton) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/chinatown-homicides-justin-bone-edmonton-1.6484913 Related article: CBC News – Jackie Hong Gun, drug charges stayed against Yukon man after RCMP’s ‘profound failure’ to respect Charter rights – Jonathan Baglee was arrested in 2019 when police entered his home without a warrant https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-firearms-charges-stayed-baglee-charter-rights-1.6485421 Related article: CBC News – New details emerge in homicide of 13-month-old Saskatchewan boy https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2042835523563
Toronto Star Editorial (June 13, 2022)
Police must be told when courts condemn their violations of rights – ‘A Torstar investigation shows police forces and officers directly involved often don’t even find out about court rulings condemning their conduct.’ “Since 2017, judges have issued rulings about such violations of rights at a rate of two a week. They have identified nine police forces as violating rights on a systemic basis… police forces and the officers directly involved often don’t even find out about court rulings condemning their conduct… The consequences of all this are serious. There are, first of all, the violations of rights, sometimes involving physical abuse, that are visited on too many people, and disproportionately on poor, Black and Indigenous people.” https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2022/06/13/police-must-be-told-when-courts-condemn-their-violations-of-rights.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a06&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=404CAADEF7EB839FC77B1B04F0C251E1&utm_campaign=top_129278
The Lawyer’s Daily – Jeffrey Hartman
Rot in jail: A roundup of recent happenings
The article, prompted by the Canadian Prison Law Association, raises concerns around the appropriate control of Corrections Canada and the defence of CSC in lawsuits. “The CPLA notes that the position taken by Department of Justice lawyers representing CSC in litigation needlessly and unfairly disregards the legislation and/or Charter rights of people in prison, and the long-term broader interests of Canadians. We will encourage the Ministry to consider how counsel are instructed when responding to litigation brought by some of the most marginalized members of Canada.” (Readers may also find helpful the list of related articles at the bottom of Hartman’s.) https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/criminal/articles/37193/rot-in-jail-a-roundup-of-recent-happenings-jeffrey-hartman?nl_pk=40ed8ea4-637a-4d76-870f-04f0eeae7de8&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=criminal
CBC News – Karen Pauls
How intervening early on the ‘pathway to violence’ could help prevent mass shootings – Researchers who catalogued mass shooters say common traits include trauma, isolation and suicidal tendencies
The CBC report is from the Minnesota Violence Project which was set up by survivors of a 2005 school shooting. The Project established a data base for these incidents and is now able to do some comparisons around the various shooters and their tendency to declare their intent previous to the incident. The researchers – Jillian Peterson, a forensic psychologist and criminologist at Hamline University and James Densley, a criminologist at Metro State University – have identified not surprisingly, first and foremost, an extreme amount of childhood trauma, and a number of other common factors, including that the shooters are 98% male and likely former students at the school. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mass-shooter-profile-research-early-intervention-1.6482884?cmp=newsletter_CBC%20News%20Morning%20Brief_6775_574396
Toronto Star – Emma Teitel
Why Toronto paying $1 million for rent-a-cops to spy on public parks just doesn’t add up – If you don’t oppose employing private security in parks on purely moral grounds, you should oppose it on purely financial ones.
This discovery has implications not just for tax payers already paying through the nose for police surveillance and removal of tenters from city parks but equally for the rights of those without housing and the quiet political decision to pursue them, perhaps to the point of criminalizing homeless people for being homeless. “According to reporting by the Star’s Ben Spurr, city staff have awarded $1 million in sole-sourced contracts to private security companies so they can roam downtown parks this summer and alert the city when tents go up. The object of the security project is to prevent the emergence of homeless encampments like the one Toronto police raided in Trinity Bellwoods Park last summer… But the method involved in carrying out this project is arguably shady. The city says everything it’s done to award the contracts is above board. The arrangements were made “following the rules,” Mayor John Tory said this week… But according to Coun. Gord Perks (Ward 4, Parkdale-High Park) the city may have taken advantage of a loophole in the system.” https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2022/06/11/why-toronto-paying-1-million-for-rent-a-cops-to-spy-on-public-parks-just-doesnt-add-up.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a02&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=404CAADEF7EB839FC77B1B04F0C251E1&utm_campaign=top_129278
BBC News (US Desk) – James Clayton
What a San Francisco vote says about the US left – Parts of San Francisco have been in a state of emergency this year. The city’s drugs and homelessness crisis has divided Democrats – and this week helped bring about the political demise of one of its most prominent politicians.
This article presents a very visceral view of the circumstances that produced both the recall of Chesa Boudin and the split within San Francisco’s Democratic Party represented by Mayor London Breed, herself a product of the neighbourhood that claimed the life of her sister to an overdose of fentanyl. The article speaks to a number of issues besides law and order, and even the city’s focus on justice reform and housing. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61763912 Related article: Washington Post (US) – Katrina vanden Heuvel Why prosecutorial reform will outlive Chesa Boudin’s recall https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/14/boudin-recall-prosecutorial-reform/?utm_campaign=wp_opinions_pm&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_popns&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3719805%2F62a8e1ef956121755ab8d88f%2F597720279bbc0f6826c0ca16%2F26%2F64%2F62a8e1ef956121755ab8d88f
CBC News – Wayne Thibodeau
Former P.E.I. director of child protection comes in for ‘substantial criticism’ in Supreme Court ruling – ‘People need to take a hard look at the actions in this case,’ says law professor
The Child Protection custody ruling raises issues around the weight of the decision-making influence over the immediate relations of the child, specifically a father who did not know the child had been born, and a grandmother who raised the child in the light of a mother suffering mental illness. “In this case, the director removed the child from the maternal grandmother and sent the child to the natural father who had not much — well, no relationship with the child at first — and they plainly put their thumb on the scales in favour of the natural father and against the maternal grandmother.” The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the biological tie should have minimum influence. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-court-ruling-director-child-protection-custody-child-1.6484525 Related report: Hill Times (Canada) – Kevin Philipupillai Advocates call for federal commissioner for children and youth, after UN report expresses serious concerns https://www.hilltimes.com/2022/06/13/advocates-call-for-federal-commissioner-for-children-and-youth-after-un-report-expresses-serious-concerns/367015?utm_source=Member+-+Hill+Times+Publishing&utm_campaign=deaeb873ad-Todays-Headlines-Members&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_207adb2c89-deaeb873ad-92601080&mc_cid=deaeb873ad&mc_eid=08d51c9f28
The Sentencing Project (US) – Richard Mendel
Data Reveals Violence Among Youth Under 18 Has Not Spiked in the Pandemic – Pervasive discussions about adolescent crime have revitalized calls for punitive approaches to youth justice that don’t work
The alleged increase and runaway elevation of crime by youth in the US seems more political bluster and scare tactics than real. This latest report from the Project sees no increase and to the contrary of the widespread media reports an actual decrease in youth crime. “The share of crimes in the U.S. committed by youth has fallen by more than half over the past two decades and continued to fall for all major offense categories in 2020 (the most recent year for which data is available). Additionally, the overall number of offenses categorized by the FBI as violent (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) committed by youth declined in 2020.”