- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,281
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
Crown and defence lawyers spent Tuesday, the first day of suspended senator Mike Duffy’s criminal trial, sketching out the cases they expect to build over the next 40 days of proceedings.
Today sees the first real testimony, from the first witness called by Crown prosecutors.
Who we’ll hear from
Mark Audcent, the former law clerk of the Senate. He spent more than 30 years on the Senate’s legal staff and was its top law officer from 1996 until he retired last May. Much of the Senate law clerks’ work is helping draft bills; they’re also the Senate administration’s legal department.
What he’ll talk about
The fine points of the law on where senators reside are fundamental to the Crown’s case against Duffy. The question of whether Duffy, a longtime Ottawa resident, was eligible to sit as a senator for Prince Edward Island isn’t on the table in his criminal trial, but Crown attorney Mark Holmes said in his opening statement that Duffy feared losing his Senate seat if he conceded that P.E.I. wasn’t his primary home.
Audcent is expected to testify to what the Senate’s rules on residency are and what senators are told about claiming living expenses when they’re in the capital.
What else lies ahead
Duffy and his wife may testify. Speaking up in his or her own defence is always a chancy decision for an accused person. The accused in a criminal trial can’t be compelled to testify by the prosecution, but if the defence lawyer chooses to have him or her take the stand, the Crown gets a chance for a cross-examination, challenging the things he or she said.
Duffy has spoken a lot in his own cause, particularly in two stemwinder speeches in the Senate in late 2013, but has since clammed up on the instructions of his lawyer, Donald Bayne. On the first day of the trial, however, Bayne said that both Duffy and his wife Heather will explain his residency and expense claims.
He asked the judge to exempt Heather Duffy from a standard requirement that witnesses-to-be stay out of the courtroom before they testify, so she could supply moral support to her husband and be available in case he suffers a medical emergency. She’s a nurse and Duffy’s health, especially his heart, is notoriously bad.
Several witnesses will appear via video. Most of the time, court witnesses testify in person. But given the far-flung nature of the case against Duffy – it includes investigators and Duffy contractors in Prince Edward Island, and potentially people who will talk about his visits to places as far west as British Columbia – multiple witnesses are expected to testify over video links.
That even includes Gerry Donohue, a Duffy friend who the Crown alleges parcelled out improper payments out of Duffy’s Senate office budget. He just lives in Carp, west of Kanata, but his health is apparently so poor that he’ll testify from his home.
Others will fly ‘under the radar’. Holmes has offered Judge Charles Vaillancourt a list of the witnesses he intends to call, grouped into several categories related to the charges Duffy faces. He handed it up to the bench Tuesday as a memory aid, not as an exhibit – which means it’s not part of the public record and not available for anyone but the judge and the clerk to see.
It includes the names of witnesses whose names haven’t yet emerged in the years leading up to the trial and who might, Holmes worries, find reporters camped out on their doorsteps if their names are released now.
Related
What happened on Day One
Duffy entered a plea
“I’m not guilty, Your Honour,” Duffy said in a strong clear voice. He faces 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery.
Documents were dumped
Though hundreds of pages of letters, affidavits, emails and other records were already made public in the lead-up to the trial, the actual start of proceedings prompted hundreds more to be tabled into evidence by the Crown.
They’ve entered seven different books of exhibits, each pertaining to different elements of the charges. The records include expense forms Duffy filed to the Senate for trips the Crown alleges were personal business, to copies of contracts Duffy had with a friend of his, which the Crown alleges were essentially fronts for Duffy to funnel money.
Duffy’s Senate eligibility was questioned
The basic issue at trial is whether Duffy committed criminal acts in the way he handled his expenses while a senator and in the subsequent repayment of those expenses by way of a payment by the prime minister’s former chief of staff.
But the Crown raised another question: whether Duffy ought to be a senator at all. He was appointed to represent Prince Edward Island, but the Crown suggested that by virtue of where he was mainly living – a suburb of Ottawa – it may not have been constitutional for the prime minister to appoint him to represent the island.
The defence threw cold water on the proposition, noting that both the prime minister and his office have said many times that Duffy was indeed eligible to be the senator for P.E.I.
– With files from the Canadian Press.
查看原文...
Today sees the first real testimony, from the first witness called by Crown prosecutors.
Who we’ll hear from
Mark Audcent, the former law clerk of the Senate. He spent more than 30 years on the Senate’s legal staff and was its top law officer from 1996 until he retired last May. Much of the Senate law clerks’ work is helping draft bills; they’re also the Senate administration’s legal department.
What he’ll talk about
The fine points of the law on where senators reside are fundamental to the Crown’s case against Duffy. The question of whether Duffy, a longtime Ottawa resident, was eligible to sit as a senator for Prince Edward Island isn’t on the table in his criminal trial, but Crown attorney Mark Holmes said in his opening statement that Duffy feared losing his Senate seat if he conceded that P.E.I. wasn’t his primary home.
Audcent is expected to testify to what the Senate’s rules on residency are and what senators are told about claiming living expenses when they’re in the capital.
What else lies ahead
Duffy and his wife may testify. Speaking up in his or her own defence is always a chancy decision for an accused person. The accused in a criminal trial can’t be compelled to testify by the prosecution, but if the defence lawyer chooses to have him or her take the stand, the Crown gets a chance for a cross-examination, challenging the things he or she said.
Duffy has spoken a lot in his own cause, particularly in two stemwinder speeches in the Senate in late 2013, but has since clammed up on the instructions of his lawyer, Donald Bayne. On the first day of the trial, however, Bayne said that both Duffy and his wife Heather will explain his residency and expense claims.
He asked the judge to exempt Heather Duffy from a standard requirement that witnesses-to-be stay out of the courtroom before they testify, so she could supply moral support to her husband and be available in case he suffers a medical emergency. She’s a nurse and Duffy’s health, especially his heart, is notoriously bad.
Several witnesses will appear via video. Most of the time, court witnesses testify in person. But given the far-flung nature of the case against Duffy – it includes investigators and Duffy contractors in Prince Edward Island, and potentially people who will talk about his visits to places as far west as British Columbia – multiple witnesses are expected to testify over video links.
That even includes Gerry Donohue, a Duffy friend who the Crown alleges parcelled out improper payments out of Duffy’s Senate office budget. He just lives in Carp, west of Kanata, but his health is apparently so poor that he’ll testify from his home.
Others will fly ‘under the radar’. Holmes has offered Judge Charles Vaillancourt a list of the witnesses he intends to call, grouped into several categories related to the charges Duffy faces. He handed it up to the bench Tuesday as a memory aid, not as an exhibit – which means it’s not part of the public record and not available for anyone but the judge and the clerk to see.
It includes the names of witnesses whose names haven’t yet emerged in the years leading up to the trial and who might, Holmes worries, find reporters camped out on their doorsteps if their names are released now.
Related
What happened on Day One
Duffy entered a plea
“I’m not guilty, Your Honour,” Duffy said in a strong clear voice. He faces 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery.
Documents were dumped
Though hundreds of pages of letters, affidavits, emails and other records were already made public in the lead-up to the trial, the actual start of proceedings prompted hundreds more to be tabled into evidence by the Crown.
They’ve entered seven different books of exhibits, each pertaining to different elements of the charges. The records include expense forms Duffy filed to the Senate for trips the Crown alleges were personal business, to copies of contracts Duffy had with a friend of his, which the Crown alleges were essentially fronts for Duffy to funnel money.
Duffy’s Senate eligibility was questioned
The basic issue at trial is whether Duffy committed criminal acts in the way he handled his expenses while a senator and in the subsequent repayment of those expenses by way of a payment by the prime minister’s former chief of staff.
But the Crown raised another question: whether Duffy ought to be a senator at all. He was appointed to represent Prince Edward Island, but the Crown suggested that by virtue of where he was mainly living – a suburb of Ottawa – it may not have been constitutional for the prime minister to appoint him to represent the island.
The defence threw cold water on the proposition, noting that both the prime minister and his office have said many times that Duffy was indeed eligible to be the senator for P.E.I.
– With files from the Canadian Press.
查看原文...
