"SMITH DIDN'T WORK IN A VACUUM. WHAT ABOUT THE CORONER? WASN'T THE CORONER'S OFFICE CONCERNED? DURING THE COURSE OF, IF NOT THE FIRST OR THE SECOND OR THIRD OF THOSE 24 YEARS, AT LEAST WELL INTO THE 15- AND 20-YEAR RANGE, WASN'T THE CORONER'S OFFICE A LITTLE CONCERNED ABOUT HOW EFFECTIVE SMITH WAS AT PROVIDING EVIDENCE THAT SUPPORTED THE CROWN'S CASE AND DIDN'T SUPPORT THE DEFENCE ARGUMENT? WHAT ABOUT HIS COLLEAGUES? WHAT ABOUT OTHER PATHOLOGISTS? WHAT ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE IN THE MEDICAL PROFESSION? WHAT ABOUT THE HOSPITAL FOR SICK KIDS, WHO KEPT HIM IN THEIR EMPLOY?
SMITH WASN'T A SOLO OPERATOR, AND ALTHOUGH SMITH HAS BEEN APPROPRIATELY CONDEMNED-I ONLY WISH HE COULD SPEND A PORTION OF THE JAIL TIME HIS VICTIMS HAVE-WE HAVEN'T RECOGNIZED THE CULPABILITY OF OTHER PLAYERS IN THE SYSTEM."...
"WHILE IT WASN'T GOUDGE'S JOB TO INDICT SMITH, HE, IN A VERY CAREFUL AND JUDICIALLY TONED COMMENT, DID AS MUCH. GOUDGE WROTE: "... SMITH WAS ADAMANT THAT HIS FAILINGS WERE NEVER INTENTIONAL. I SIMPLY CANNOT ACCEPT SUCH A SWEEPING ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE MORAL RESPONSIBILITY." IN OTHER WORDS, THE INFERENCE THAT YOU DRAW FROM THAT COMMENT IS THAT GOUDGE SAID THESE WERE INTENTIONAL AND THAT SMITH KNEW FULL WELL WHAT HE WAS DOING IN HIS ZEAL TO CONVICT PEOPLE, IN SMITH'S ZEAL TO PANDER TO HIS BOSSES, IN SMITH'S ZEAL TO BE SEEN AS A CAPED CRUSADER, IN SMITH'S ZEAL TO BE SEEN AS A FRIEND OF THE VICTIM, AND IN SMITH'S ZEAL TO BE SEEN AS A FRIEND OF THE POLICE AND THE PROSECUTION."
PETER KORMOS: ONTARIO LEGISLATURE DURING DEBATE ON REFORMS TO CORONER'S ACT;
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I am a huge fan of New Democratic Party justice critic Peter Kormos;
He has an enormous sense of justice, supreme intelligence, and the ability to articulate succintly to the people of Ontario the aspects of our justice system which trouble him;
Mr. Kormos was in top form when he addressed the legislature during the debate over the third reading of Bill 115 in which the McGuinty government sets out to reform the Coroner's Act because of the abuses committed by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and the findings of the Goudge Inquiry; Here are some of his remarks:
"Look, the elephant in the room is this fellow Charles Smith," Kormos told the legislature;
"The Goudge inquiry was all about this incompetent liar's contribution to the unjust conviction of countless people, many of them parents," he continued;
"I accept the Goudge recommendations. I'm confident because I've heard no criticism of them from the legal community. Members of the defence bar especially, similarly, support the implementation of the Goudge recommendations. But I have serious, serious concerns, notwithstanding what Goudge says. Charles Smith, a liar? Goudge said so. Incompetent? Goudge said so. A bit of a whack and a flake? Goudge said so. Not his words; he used far more judicial language, but I'll put it in language that perhaps we're all a little more familiar with.
This guy Smith, for 24 years, while working for the Hospital for Sick Kids just down the road, lied and bungled his way through countless prosecutions of people charged with injuring and, more tragically, killing children, babies-countless unjust convictions. We're not talking about people who are sentenced to a couple of weekends in the local lockup; we'r e not talking about people who are sentenced to house arrest; we're talking about people who, almost inevitably when you murder a child, are sentenced to penitentiary time, where they do what is called colloquially "hard time." Let me tell you, when you're a baby killer, you're pretty darned close to the bottom of the ladder. Even in protective custody, you're a victim. Some of those people have been successful in having their convictions overturned. None of them will ever be successful at having their losses restored.
What bothers me significantly is how Smith could flourish-he did for 24 years. Was his stellar batting record not of some concern to crown attorneys? Was his stellar capacity to indict and convict people accused of killing children not of concern to the police officers themselves, for fear that they had picked the wrong person to be charged? Was Smith's capacity to find criminal culpability with the named accused not of concern to judges?
Smith didn't work in a vacuum. What about the coroner? Wasn't the coroner's office concerned? During the course of, if not the first or the second or third of those 24 years, at least well into the 15- and 20-year range, wasn't the coroner's office a little concerned about how effective Smith was at providing evidence that supported the crown's case and didn't support the defence argument? What about his colleagues? What about other pathologists? What about other people in the medical profession? What about the Hospital for Sick Kids, who kept him in their employ?
Smith wasn't a solo operator, and although Smith has been appropriately condemned-I only wish he could spend a portion of the jail time his victims have-we haven't recognized the culpability of other players in the system. Smith was supported, nurtured, tolerated, reinforced, aided and abetted by any number of police officers, crown attorneys and judges; I have no hesitation in saying that. And bring on the e-mails, folks, because I have absolute confidence in that observation.
He was giving public testimony. He was appearing in front of judges who have heard case after case after case and who, one presumes, were highly experienced. What I find incredibly frightening about this is that it reveals that tunnel vision of the criminal justice system wherein the presumption of innocence is given but lip service. My fear is that Smith could survive 24 years of lying and cheating and misleading because people in the criminal justice system don't really believe in the presumption of innocence. In fact, the presumption is that if you have been charged, you must be guilty, and if not of the crime you're charged with, at least guilty of something: a very dangerous precedent.
Look at the Attorney General's tinkering with jury panels-"tinkering" is putting it mildly-and the Attorney General's office only stops doing it once it gets caught. Don't think for a minute that the rationale for background checks of potential jurors is so that the crown attorney can find the people who are the most neutral and unbiased. Bullfeathers; the crown attorney is looking for the people who are most likely to convict and wants to exclude those people who might be a little more tolerant and a little more inclined to the defence. If you believe anything otherwise, then you're from some other planet than this one.
While Goudge has addressed procedural means whereby we can incorporate oversight, he didn't address the culture in those Bay Street towers-the Ministry of the Attorney General, amongst others, is over there on that side road; is it Grosvenor where the coroner's office is?- the culture wherein these professionals support each other, cover up for each other, cultivate incompetence.
Mr. Dunlop was there; Mr. Dunlop has referred to some of the heartbreaking stories of families who lost a loved one: daughters, children, partners and parents. They told stories about coroners' offices that were oh, so high and mighty, that dismissed them with a little wave of the hand: "Go away, go away; you're bothering us." Is that a fair observation?
Mr. Garfield Dunlop: Yep.
Mr. Peter Kormos: Mr. Dunlop responds. Of course, they weren't speaking about all coroners. We only heard about the bad ones. Nobody came forward-because people aren't inclined to do that-with good stories about coroners or other officials who treated them with fairness, respect and dignity. We heard about coroners' offices that refused to listen to family members who had lost a loved one, who refused to embark on investigations and subsequent inquiries and who had an aloofness, an attitude of, "We know it all, and you're stupid." That's a dangerous phenomenon that Goudge, of course, didn't address.
While it wasn't Goudge's job to indict Smith, he, in a very careful and judicially toned comment, did as much. Goudge wrote: "... Smith was adamant that his failings were never intentional. I simply cannot accept such a sweeping attempt to escape moral responsibility." In other words, the inference that you draw from that comment is that Goudge said these were intentional and that Smith knew full well what he was doing in his zeal to convict people, in Smith's zeal to pander to his bosses, in Smith's zeal to be seen as a caped crusader, in Smith's zeal to be seen as a friend of the victim, and in Smith's zeal to be seen as a friend of the police and the prosecution.
Unless and until we move beyond this and address the culture in which Charles Smiths can be cultivated and can be nurtured, we are going to have more Smiths -notwithstanding all of the oversights that have been proposed by Goudge.";
The entire debate can be accessed by cutting and pasting:
http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?Date=2009-05-28&Parl=39&Sess=1&locale=en#P64_2504
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
