Update: Province backs down on cameras in courts

UPDATE: The province is backing off its push to have court cases of accused Stanley Cup rioters broadcast.

This just hours after a judge threw out the application against the first person to plead guilty in the June 15 smashup.

A statement from Attorney General Shirley Bond says if it’s a choice between transparency and timely justice they will go with the latter and have dropped the broadcast request.

NDP Justice Critic Leonard Krog isn’t surprised by the province’s decision, and says now is not the time to televise court cases.

“It’s worthy of study, but not at a time when you don’t have the resources to successfully prosecute those cases that are in the system,” he says.

He is pleased with the decision, but says the whole ordeal has cost tax payers too much money.

“In the meantime, we have wasted a great deal of taxpayers’ money and court time pursuing applications that weren’t likely ever to succeed… [and] delayed the sentencing of an individual in this particular case who wants to plead guilty and get on with their life.”

EARLER:
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – As expected, a judge has dismissed an application to televise the next court date for the first person to plead guilty in the Stanley Cup riots.

The decision comes one day before the sentencing of Ryan Dickinson, a 20-year-old from Coquitlam who pleaded guilty to participating in a riot and breach of recognizance.

Crown counsel’s Neil MacKenzie says prosecutors have been directed to make a broadcast application for each rioter that passes through the court.

He says it’s possible, based on today’s ruling, that judges will now quash every attempt to put cameras in the riot courts, but that doesn’t mean they’re giving up.

“Each case has to be looked at on it’s own particular circumstances,” says MacKenzie.  “This is obviously, if not a unique situation, certainly a rare situation to have this number of files for the Crown to process.”

Provincial court judge Malcolm Maclean agreed with Dickinson’s lawyer, Greg Delbigio, who argued there wasn’t enough information around security, cost, resources, and the technology that would be used.

“Undoubtedly — and the judge raised this — … for each one of these applications there’s court time and there is cost associated with that and then potentially a delay associated with that as well,” Delbigio points out.

On Friday, Judge Mclean said an application to broadcast the sentencing smacked of political interference. He had concerns about the costs, the safety for courtroom staff and whether it would affect witness statements.

News1130 Legal Analyst Michael Shapray doesn’t disagree with the judge and adds the issue raises some important questions for the legal system.

“Would a judge potentially say, ‘I’m going to give the person a lesser sentence, because they’ve been subjected to this additional level of public scrutiny and public shaming?'”

He adds the only person pushing for the cameras seems to be Premier Christy Clark. 

“The application itself seems to be unusual with respect to how these cases are normally run and it doesn’t seem to have the support of the prosecutors who are prosecuting these cases,” Shapray says.

Shapray and others in the legal community call the broadcast issue an unnecessary distraction.  The government can and likely will apply to broadcast each and every riot related proceeding, but he thinks that will only bog down the system further.