STORY: "Canada's top court weighs legal loopholes in Mr. Big sting operations," by reporter Douglas Quan, published by Postmedia News on May 15, 2014.
SUB-HEADING: "The Supreme Court of Canada is expected to rule at any time on the case of Nelson Lloyd Hart, who was the target of a Mr. Big sting following the drowning deaths of his two daughters."
GIST: "Legal
observers are eagerly awaiting a Supreme Court of Canada decision that
could rewrite the rules for “Mr. Big” stings, the controversial
undercover police operations designed to draw confessions from suspects. In
the past, the country’s highest court has dealt only with narrow legal
issues arising from these cases, experts said. Now, it is being asked to
consider directly whether the elaborate stings — which, critics say,
are “breeding grounds” for potential false confessions — should be used
by police and their results used in court. “All these arguments
are coming to a head. They’ve been sort of nibbled at in other courts,
but this is the big showdown,” said Toronto criminal lawyer Russell
Silverstein, a director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly
Convicted. In a Mr. Big operation, officers posing as members of a
criminal organization befriend the suspect — typically a murder suspect
— and then gain the suspect’s trust with money, booze and
companionship. They get the suspect to carry out jobs for the group and
slowly involve him in staged criminal acts, such as money laundering and
drug trafficking. Eventually, a meeting is set up with the
group’s boss, Mr. Big, designed to get the suspect to cough up details
of a past crime. The suspect might be told that police are onto him and
he needs to tell the boss everything. Or the suspect could be told he
needs to share his past because it’s the only way the organization can
ensure his loyalty......... Various legal challenges have tried
to argue that confessions from Mr. Big stings are unreliable because of
the level of inducement and coercion. But the arguments have
generally failed because courts have said key protections — such as the
constitutional right to remain silent or the common law rule that says
confessions must be voluntary in order to be admissible — apply only in
cases where a suspect was in detention and confessed to a person he
believed to be a person of authority, such as a cop. This legal
loophole has allowed Mr. Big operations to skirt legal protections and
given police leeway to use all sorts of ploys to get confessions, said
Timothy Moore, chair of psychology at York University. “There’s nothing
they won’t do to try to get their psychological hooks into their
target.”........Hart’s
lawyers, Robby Ash and James Merrigan, replied that the degree of state
control over Hart was comparable to being in detention; thus,
protections against self-incrimination should’ve kicked in. They
said Hart’s confession came after “significant psychological coercion.”
When Mr. Big refused to accept Hart’s explanation that the death of his
daughters was an accident, his choice was clear. If he stuck to
his original story, he risked serious injury or death, or, at best,
“crushing poverty and social isolation” and renewed heat from the
police. “If he lied and ‘admitted’ to the ‘murder’ his current lifestyle
would continue and even improve.” Police actions were so
egregious at one point that they would “shock the community,” the
lawyers added. After witnessing Hart suffer a seizure one day, police —
bent on getting a confession — continued to have Hart perform his role
as a driver for the group, putting public safety at risk, they said.
The entire story can be found at: http://www.theprovince.com/news/national/Canada+court+weighs+legal+loopholes+sting+operations/9838759/story.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
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/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
I look forward to hearing from readers at:
hlevy15@gmail.com.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
