"On May 19, lawyers representing all groups except the correctional service filed a joint submission urging Porter to seize videos showing Smith’s treatment at Joliette Institution in Quebec and one of her prison transfers in which she was duct-taped to the seat of a plane.
At Joliette, Smith was forcibly injected with a series of tranquilizers against her will and left strapped to a metal gurney in a wet gown without food or water for nearly half a day.
These events happened just a few months before Smith strangled herself with a piece of cloth. Before the inquest started, Porter said she found no “nexus” between what happened at Joliette and Smith’s death.
Smith’s family argued the events impacted her state of mind.
A panel of judges at Divisional Court agreed."
REPORTER DIANA ZLOMISLIC; THE TORONTO STAR;
PHOTO: Coroner's Court Exhibit; Ashley Smith inside her segregation cell at Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener four months before she died.
MARK CALENDER NOW: IMPORTANT JOINT NPR, FRONTLINE, PROPUBLICA INVESTIGATION OF CHILD DEATH CASES INVOLVING ABUSE, ASSAULT AND "SHAKEN-BABY SYNDROME." ASKS IF DEATH INVESTIGATORS ARE BEING PROPERLY TRAINED FOR CHILD CASES; FIRST OF THREE SEGMENTS ON "THE CHILD CASES" AIRS ON JUNE 28 AT 9.00 PM:
When a child dies under suspicious circumstances, abuse is often suspected. That's what happened in the case of six-month-old Isis Vas, whose death was deemed "a clear-cut and classic" case of child abuse, sending a man named Ernie Lopez to prison for 60 years. But now a Texas judge has moved to overturn Lopez's conviction, and new questions are being asked about the quality of expert testimony in this and many other similar cases. In this joint investigation with ProPublica and NPR, FRONTLINE correspondent A.C. Thompson unearths more than 20 child death cases in which people were jailed on medical evidence -- involving abuse, assault and "shaken-baby syndrome" -- that was later found unreliable or flat-out wrong. Are death investigators being properly trained for child cases? The Child Cases is the first of three magazine segments airing June 28 at 9 p.m. (check local listings);
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-child-cases/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND/PUBLISHER'S NOTE; Ashley Smith, 19, died in her prison cell at Grand Valley Institution near Kitchener, Ont., in October 2007 from self-strangulation. She had been transferred between federal institutions 17 times during her final 11 months, most of that time kept in segregation and often on suicide watch dressed in a highly restrictive gown. Jailed at age 13 for a crab apple-throwing incident in New Brunswick, Smith was eventually transferred to an adult facility after she kept getting into trouble behind bars by constantly kicking, grabbing and spitting at guards. Lawyer's for her family and the media have been presiding Coroner Dr. Bonita Porter's efforts to limit the scope and evidence to be called at the inquest which is currently on hold while Dr. Porter determines her next steps. The inquest is of interest to this Blog because it relates to the openness of public death investigations - and the necessity to ensure that deaths warranting inquests get full public scrutiny. Above all, it raises the question as to whether the Chief Coroner's Office realizes that it can only regain the massive amount of public confidence it lost as a result of its failure to reign in former pathologist Charles Smith - if it runs an open, transparent process. Whether it realizes it or not, one of the results of the Smith fiasco is that the media, by taking the Chief Coroner's Office to Court, is determined to vigorously exercise its watchdog function over the Chief Coroner's Office - after allowing this important public office to operate with minimal scrutiny for far too many years.
HAROLD LEVY; PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The high-profile coroner’s inquest into Ashley Smith’s prison death has been delayed once again — this time until September," the Toronto Star story by reporter Diana Zlomislic published on June 21, 2011 under the heading, "Ashley Smith inquest delayed until September," begins.
"The inquest, which began in May but was soon derailed by legal challenges on its scope and openness after hearing from just one witness, resumed for 41 minutes on Tuesday," the story continues.
"Smith, a mentally ill 19-year-old died in her segregation cell at Kitchener’s Grand Valley Institution in 2007 while she was on suicide watch. She had spent less than a year in federal custody and was transferred 17 times between prisons and correctional hospitals across the country, serving mainly in solitary confinement cells.
Presiding coroner Dr. Bonita Porter proposed the five-member jury, which has sat for just three days in the past two months, return on Sept. 12 as the proceedings were not scheduled to continue during July and August.
She also said she expected to deliver long-awaited rulings sometime next week on legal motions argued last month.
More than a dozen lawyers representing Smith’s family, government agencies, prison workers, special interest groups, the Toronto Star and other media convened at coroner’s court on Tuesday for a special hearing prompted by Porter on the issue of webcasting.
When the inquest resumes, Porter suggested the proceedings be broadcast live over the Internet. None of the parties objected.
Lawyer Joel Robichaud, representing the Correctional Service of Canada, asked Porter to consider delaying the feed so parties would have an opportunity to edit the video.
“Delaying the webcast creates an opportunity for an awful lot of objections,” said lawyer Howard Rubel, representing the prison workers’ union.
Coroner’s counsel Eric Siebenmorgen clarified the webcast would be a “one-time” event with no opportunity to download or archive the videos.
The outstanding legal issues Porter said she will resolve next week may lead to new witnesses being called to testify at the inquest.
On May 19, lawyers representing all groups except the correctional service filed a joint submission urging Porter to seize videos showing Smith’s treatment at Joliette Institution in Quebec and one of her prison transfers in which she was duct-taped to the seat of a plane.
At Joliette, Smith was forcibly injected with a series of tranquilizers against her will and left strapped to a metal gurney in a wet gown without food or water for nearly half a day.
These events happened just a few months before Smith strangled herself with a piece of cloth. Before the inquest started, Porter said she found no “nexus” between what happened at Joliette and Smith’s death.
Smith’s family argued the events impacted her state of mind.
A panel of judges at Divisional Court agreed.
The other legal motions relate to accessing exhibits filed in the open court and whether guards’ faces should be blurred in prison videos shown to the jury that are publicly broadcast. The Correctional Service of Canada argued the faces of staff should be obscured."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The story can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1012647--ashley-smith-inquest-delayed-until-september
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
