- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,179
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
An Ottawa judge has stayed charges in a vicious 2016 attack because the case took too long to get to trial.
Brothers Ali and Meshari Albadry, and their brother-in-law Fahad Alzuwaid, were arrested on May 22, 2016 after an alleged family feud turned violent on the streets of Ottawa.
It was a Sunday afternoon when, police said, three men targeted a family rival in a violent car chase. In two cars, police alleged, they chased the third along several city streets — including Walkley Road, Ledbury Avenue, Kitchener Avenue, Bank Street and Alta Vista Drive — ramming his car at least nine times.
After his car spun out, and he emerged unharmed, police said, his attackers tried to run him over. The alleged victim tried to fight off his attackers but they started swinging a baseball bat, and one of them threw a brick at him, according to police.
The Albadry brothers and their brother-in-law were facing trial on criminal charges of dangerous driving, assault with a weapon and uttering death threats. But Ontario Court of Justice Judge P.K. Doody stayed the proceedings after defence lawyers successfully argued that unreasonable delays had breached their right to timely trial.
In its so-called Jordan decision, the Supreme Court ruled that unreasonable delay was to be presumed if proceedings topped 18 months in provincial court. In this case, it took 21 months from arrest to when the trial was finally scheduled to start.
The judge placed the blame for the delay squarely on Crown counsel. The Crown had originally wanted to prosecute the accused men jointly with a set of other defendants from another incident on another date that was linked to the alleged family feud. It took five months for prosecutors to finally file a joint information for all six accused.
The judge said prosecutors should have realized that running a joint case would require significantly more time for trial. “That decision made the delay worse, not better,” the judge noted.
Months later, the Crown then severed the case to speed things up, arguing in court that the decision to finally severe the case was reasonable because it was intended to reduce delay.
“I do not accept these submissions. It should have been obvious that adding multiple accused together on one information would complicate the proceeding,” the judge said in a recent decision.
Prosecutors also argued that the delay wasn’t unreasonable in light of the case’s complexity, but the judge noted that Crown prosecutors were the ones who took a simple case and made it complicated.
“The Crown cannot both create complexity and rely on it to justify an unreasonable delay,” Doody said.
The judge also said the Crown didn’t take necessary steps to ensure that a joint prosecution would move expeditiously and prosecutors never explained why it took five months for them to decide to join the defendants. Prosecutors finally severed the case to reduce delays caused by their own decision to join the defendants, but at that point, the “damage was done.”
Defence lawyer Lorne Goldstein represented Alzuwaid.
“This case shows that in the post-Jordan era, all parties must take responsibility for the consequences of their strategic decisions. Both Crown and defence get to make decisions that are not reviewable by the court. But decisions come with consequences and when those decisions add time, this is a possible result,” said Goldstein.
Because they won a stay, the accused men never got to testify in their own defence. All had pleaded not guilty.
In the successful Jordan application, Ali Albadry was represented by lawyers Samir Adam and Sarah Ahsan, and his brother Meshari was represented by Biagio Del Greco.
查看原文...
Brothers Ali and Meshari Albadry, and their brother-in-law Fahad Alzuwaid, were arrested on May 22, 2016 after an alleged family feud turned violent on the streets of Ottawa.
It was a Sunday afternoon when, police said, three men targeted a family rival in a violent car chase. In two cars, police alleged, they chased the third along several city streets — including Walkley Road, Ledbury Avenue, Kitchener Avenue, Bank Street and Alta Vista Drive — ramming his car at least nine times.
After his car spun out, and he emerged unharmed, police said, his attackers tried to run him over. The alleged victim tried to fight off his attackers but they started swinging a baseball bat, and one of them threw a brick at him, according to police.
The Albadry brothers and their brother-in-law were facing trial on criminal charges of dangerous driving, assault with a weapon and uttering death threats. But Ontario Court of Justice Judge P.K. Doody stayed the proceedings after defence lawyers successfully argued that unreasonable delays had breached their right to timely trial.
In its so-called Jordan decision, the Supreme Court ruled that unreasonable delay was to be presumed if proceedings topped 18 months in provincial court. In this case, it took 21 months from arrest to when the trial was finally scheduled to start.
The judge placed the blame for the delay squarely on Crown counsel. The Crown had originally wanted to prosecute the accused men jointly with a set of other defendants from another incident on another date that was linked to the alleged family feud. It took five months for prosecutors to finally file a joint information for all six accused.
The judge said prosecutors should have realized that running a joint case would require significantly more time for trial. “That decision made the delay worse, not better,” the judge noted.
Months later, the Crown then severed the case to speed things up, arguing in court that the decision to finally severe the case was reasonable because it was intended to reduce delay.
“I do not accept these submissions. It should have been obvious that adding multiple accused together on one information would complicate the proceeding,” the judge said in a recent decision.
Prosecutors also argued that the delay wasn’t unreasonable in light of the case’s complexity, but the judge noted that Crown prosecutors were the ones who took a simple case and made it complicated.
“The Crown cannot both create complexity and rely on it to justify an unreasonable delay,” Doody said.
The judge also said the Crown didn’t take necessary steps to ensure that a joint prosecution would move expeditiously and prosecutors never explained why it took five months for them to decide to join the defendants. Prosecutors finally severed the case to reduce delays caused by their own decision to join the defendants, but at that point, the “damage was done.”
Defence lawyer Lorne Goldstein represented Alzuwaid.
“This case shows that in the post-Jordan era, all parties must take responsibility for the consequences of their strategic decisions. Both Crown and defence get to make decisions that are not reviewable by the court. But decisions come with consequences and when those decisions add time, this is a possible result,” said Goldstein.
Because they won a stay, the accused men never got to testify in their own defence. All had pleaded not guilty.
In the successful Jordan application, Ali Albadry was represented by lawyers Samir Adam and Sarah Ahsan, and his brother Meshari was represented by Biagio Del Greco.
查看原文...
