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Caroline Budd, the child-like mentally ill woman locked up in solitary confinement for the last two weeks, has been released from jail after winning bail on Tuesday.
She has the emotional age of a 13 year old and will now live with her parents while her lawyers seek leave to appeal her Sept. 1 sex-crimes convictions.
Budd, 22, spent her time in solitary confinement reading children’s books and playing with a deck of cards.
Her legal team successfully won bail after arguing there are sufficient grounds for appeal; she’s not a flight risk; and it’s in the public interest to keep the developmentally delayed woman out of prison and in the community, where she can get treatment and not spend 23 hours a day in solitary.
Minutes after she was released from jail, Budd expressed deep relief, saying: “I thought I’d be forever cursed in there. I thought I was doomed.”
The Crown Attorney’s office unsuccessfully fought against her release, arguing that it was in the public’s best interest to keep Budd locked up and that setting her free would somehow throw the administration of justice into disrepute.
In a phone conversation with the Citizen while she was in segregation, Budd said: “I’m really traumatized and I don’t know what to. I don’t like it here. It’s disgusting in here.” In her first days of isolation, she said it looked “like the walls were crying.”
Budd and her controlling ex-boyfriend Anthony Comunale, 33, were convicted in Ottawa court in September for using teenage girls as sex slaves in her parents’ basement.
Related
The victims, both 16 at the time, testified at trial and gave horrifying accounts, with one saying she had been bound and gagged only to be repeatedly raped on Victoria Day weekend in 2014.
One of the girls testified that she screamed in pain and begged them to stop, but the couple just laughed. The girls were supplied with booze until they were falling-down drunk.
At her sentencing hearing on Sept. 1, court heard that Budd has a documented history of mental illness and had a chaotic childhood. She couldn’t read or write in Grade 2, and didn’t speak outside of school until she was age nine. She had been sexually abused as a child. She was ridiculed for her weight and school officials thought she was so “odd” they directed her parents to get her medical help. Bullied and teased so much in elementary school, she would often feign illness to miss class.
After hearing that Budd suffers from PTSD, extreme anxiety, ADHD and borderline personality disorder, and after defence lawyer James Harbic urged the judge to spare her a jail sentence in light of her emotional capacity, Ontario Court Justice Kent Kirkland still sentenced the young woman to prison for two years.
The judge sentenced her to prison after reviewing a report by a court-appointed psychiatrist who concluded that the “vulnerable” Budd would be “most at risk of being taken advantage of by other offenders due to her tendency to depend on others.” A psychologist also told court that Budd may have been coerced by her controlling ex-boyfriend.
But, Kirkland, 75, said any notion that Budd was coerced would be of little comfort to the two young victims whose pleas for mercy were ignored as they were terrorized in the basement.
Budd’s family hired Harbic to appeal the conviction and sentencing. Harbic, who was not the lawyer at trial, filed a notice of appeal on these and more potential grounds:
“There’s clear evidence that her incarceration is not in the public interest. She is innocent and should not be punished and detained pending appeal,” Harbic told the Citizen.
The lawyer noted that Budd’s lifelong history of mental illness wasn’t raised at trial, but only at sentencing.
Harbic said no public interest is served by “crushing emotionally challenged youths” with jail sentences, and it would do more harm than good to send a vulnerable young woman with no previous criminal record to federal prison.
Caroline Budd’s mom, Pauline Budd, had dropped her own life to keep her imprisoned daughter’s spirits up, as best she could, by clocking up to six hours on the phone every day. Caroline’s father and uncle also spent hours with her on the phone. They were thankful some of the guards afforded Caroline extended access to the phone in solitary confinement, where there was no TV or radio — just those children’s books and that deck of cards.
“We were her lifeline,” her mother said.
As her mother waited for her daughter to be released from jail, she was shaking. “I’m so happy. It’s a relief like you wouldn’t believe.”
In a letter of support for her release pending appeal, the executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, an advocate for female offenders, noted that the last two deaths at Grand Valley Institution — a women’s federal prison in Kitchener, Ont. — were preventable and predictable, and that Budd’s mental health would be better treated in the community, not prison. Kim Pate, the executive director, also highlighted the fact that Budd had abided by all of her bail conditions for a year before she was sentenced on Sept. 1.
Pate also noted that it would be in the public’s interest for Budd to be in the community instead of isolation.
“There is growing evidence that jailing individuals who may be adequately supervised in the community actually decreases their risk to public safety.
“Women with mental health issues — especially those who self-harm — usually end up in segregation. Often, they are isolated because prison authorities find it easiest to monitor and/or control them that way. Unfortunately, such isolation almost invariably exacerbates pre-existing mental health issues and too often creates new ones,” Pate wrote in the letter of support.
gdimmock@postmedia.com
http://www.twitter.com/crimegarden
查看原文...
She has the emotional age of a 13 year old and will now live with her parents while her lawyers seek leave to appeal her Sept. 1 sex-crimes convictions.
Budd, 22, spent her time in solitary confinement reading children’s books and playing with a deck of cards.
Her legal team successfully won bail after arguing there are sufficient grounds for appeal; she’s not a flight risk; and it’s in the public interest to keep the developmentally delayed woman out of prison and in the community, where she can get treatment and not spend 23 hours a day in solitary.
Minutes after she was released from jail, Budd expressed deep relief, saying: “I thought I’d be forever cursed in there. I thought I was doomed.”
The Crown Attorney’s office unsuccessfully fought against her release, arguing that it was in the public’s best interest to keep Budd locked up and that setting her free would somehow throw the administration of justice into disrepute.
In a phone conversation with the Citizen while she was in segregation, Budd said: “I’m really traumatized and I don’t know what to. I don’t like it here. It’s disgusting in here.” In her first days of isolation, she said it looked “like the walls were crying.”
Budd and her controlling ex-boyfriend Anthony Comunale, 33, were convicted in Ottawa court in September for using teenage girls as sex slaves in her parents’ basement.
Related
- Blatchford: Prison no place for mentally ill Ottawa woman convicted of keeping teen sex slaves
- Ottawa woman gets prison time for using teens as sex slaves
The victims, both 16 at the time, testified at trial and gave horrifying accounts, with one saying she had been bound and gagged only to be repeatedly raped on Victoria Day weekend in 2014.
One of the girls testified that she screamed in pain and begged them to stop, but the couple just laughed. The girls were supplied with booze until they were falling-down drunk.
At her sentencing hearing on Sept. 1, court heard that Budd has a documented history of mental illness and had a chaotic childhood. She couldn’t read or write in Grade 2, and didn’t speak outside of school until she was age nine. She had been sexually abused as a child. She was ridiculed for her weight and school officials thought she was so “odd” they directed her parents to get her medical help. Bullied and teased so much in elementary school, she would often feign illness to miss class.
After hearing that Budd suffers from PTSD, extreme anxiety, ADHD and borderline personality disorder, and after defence lawyer James Harbic urged the judge to spare her a jail sentence in light of her emotional capacity, Ontario Court Justice Kent Kirkland still sentenced the young woman to prison for two years.
The judge sentenced her to prison after reviewing a report by a court-appointed psychiatrist who concluded that the “vulnerable” Budd would be “most at risk of being taken advantage of by other offenders due to her tendency to depend on others.” A psychologist also told court that Budd may have been coerced by her controlling ex-boyfriend.
But, Kirkland, 75, said any notion that Budd was coerced would be of little comfort to the two young victims whose pleas for mercy were ignored as they were terrorized in the basement.
Budd’s family hired Harbic to appeal the conviction and sentencing. Harbic, who was not the lawyer at trial, filed a notice of appeal on these and more potential grounds:
- The judge erred in assessing the credibility of the complainants
- The judge erred in his assessment of case law on forcible confinement
- Erred by not allowing photograph and text evidence favourable to the defence
- That her sentence — a federal prison term — was excessive in light of her mental health
“There’s clear evidence that her incarceration is not in the public interest. She is innocent and should not be punished and detained pending appeal,” Harbic told the Citizen.
The lawyer noted that Budd’s lifelong history of mental illness wasn’t raised at trial, but only at sentencing.
Harbic said no public interest is served by “crushing emotionally challenged youths” with jail sentences, and it would do more harm than good to send a vulnerable young woman with no previous criminal record to federal prison.
Caroline Budd’s mom, Pauline Budd, had dropped her own life to keep her imprisoned daughter’s spirits up, as best she could, by clocking up to six hours on the phone every day. Caroline’s father and uncle also spent hours with her on the phone. They were thankful some of the guards afforded Caroline extended access to the phone in solitary confinement, where there was no TV or radio — just those children’s books and that deck of cards.
“We were her lifeline,” her mother said.
As her mother waited for her daughter to be released from jail, she was shaking. “I’m so happy. It’s a relief like you wouldn’t believe.”
In a letter of support for her release pending appeal, the executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, an advocate for female offenders, noted that the last two deaths at Grand Valley Institution — a women’s federal prison in Kitchener, Ont. — were preventable and predictable, and that Budd’s mental health would be better treated in the community, not prison. Kim Pate, the executive director, also highlighted the fact that Budd had abided by all of her bail conditions for a year before she was sentenced on Sept. 1.
Pate also noted that it would be in the public’s interest for Budd to be in the community instead of isolation.
“There is growing evidence that jailing individuals who may be adequately supervised in the community actually decreases their risk to public safety.
“Women with mental health issues — especially those who self-harm — usually end up in segregation. Often, they are isolated because prison authorities find it easiest to monitor and/or control them that way. Unfortunately, such isolation almost invariably exacerbates pre-existing mental health issues and too often creates new ones,” Pate wrote in the letter of support.
gdimmock@postmedia.com
http://www.twitter.com/crimegarden
查看原文...
