JTF2 & AFG (merged)

[Thumbshark]

If the DMP would have gone through with prosecution, apart from the secrecy issues with the identity of the members,  the defence would have requested the matter be withdrawn as the per Supreme Court Ruling:
Askov v. R., [1990] 2 S.C.R. 1199, is a 1990 appeal heard before the Supreme Court of Canada which established the criteria and standards by which Canadian courts judge whether an accused's right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Section 11(b) "to be tried within a reasonable time" has been infringed.

The appellants argued successfully that criminal charges against them should be stayed on the grounds that their trial had been unreasonably delayed, contrary to the Charter’s guarantee under Section 11(b) that "Any person charged with an offence has the right... to be tried within a reasonable time." Disagreeing with the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the Supreme Court found that the delays were indeed unreasonable and directed a stay of proceedings against the appellants. Thousands of pending criminal cases were consequently dismissed on similar grounds.

 

[FJAG]

FJAG

What about the possibility that the DMP figured with the long delay due to all of the legal back and forth would likely result in a loss on appeal based on said delay?

I wish I had more insight on this but unfortunately don't.

I don't think that delay would have been the issue.  While initial judicial response to the R v Askov rule resulted in numerous overenthusiastic dismissals by the court, the decision mellowed in time and a much more balanced approach to analysing delay developed over time.

The unit brought charges quickly and the paperwork seemed to go through the system quite well until it came onto the desk of the CMJ. DMP took the matter to court where it was rejected once before the Court of Appeal overturned it. It seems to me that the chain of command and the prosecutors acted diligently to move this matter forward even though it took a long time.

Generally where the prosecution and court moves diligently but the matter is delayed by outside circumstances and there is no prejudice to the accused the courts do not dismiss for delay.  I'm greatly generalizing a very complex law here. While I'm not certain I would think it was something else.

I sometimes think that we're often the cause of our own problems by being so secretive about many things like what were the reasons why the prosecution came to the conclusion that there was no"reasonable likelihood of conviction"? By not publicly stating why a certain decision is made we leave the public to speculate and once they do it's only too easy to think the worst.

Here's an example of where we kept information restricted when it ought to be made very public.

In 1999 there was a Fatal Accidents Inquiry in Winnipeg. The inquiry concerned the 1997 death of a civilian scrap metal worker who died as a result of cutting into a live German 105mm HEAT-T round that had been cleared off the Shilo ranges. He was using hydraulic sheers to separate steel from aluminium components. You should be aware that the Shilo ranges were swept annually for scrap metal, especially inert 105mm TP-T rounds which were subsequently sold to scrap yards.

During the course of the 1999 inquiry it was determined that a similar fatality to a scrap worker had occurred in Winnipeg in 1981 when he had been doing the same type of job using a cutting torch. The subsequent BoI and FAI were advised the Germans had in the late 1970s fired 250 of these rounds and had an inordinate blind rate as a result of which they stopped firing the rounds and never fired them again at Shilo. Besides the 1 round that exploded in 1981 another 12 x 105mm HEAT-T rounds were found at the scrap yard. 105mm HEAT-T and TP-T after firing and scouring by Shilo sand and years of weathering can look virtually identical.

By the time of the 1997 death Canadians were responsible for the final level 3 screening of scrap before it left the base.

During the course of the 1999 FA Inquiry the Canadian ammo tech witnesses involved in the level 3 screening had only anecdotal information about the 1981 incident. Most had thought the 1981 incident had involved a Canadian artillery 105mm HE round. They all denied any knowledge that German 105mm HEAT-T had ever been fired on the ranges. They had never been provided the information that came out of the 1981 incident BoI or the FAI which made it clear the rounds had been fired and had many blinds.

In effect by not disseminating the "confidential" 1981 BoI and FAI findings as to the presence of a significant number of blind 105mm HEAT-T rounds to the subsequent ammo techs responsible for the screening of scrap, the circumstances for the second incident were set in motion.

We've gotten a lot better but we still over classify and hide away too much information.

 

[George Wallace]

Where things went off track were as a result of the fact that the charge sheet was marked SECRET in accordance with internal DND directives that specific info about JTF2 and its members be so classified.

Ordinarily when a charge sheet is preferred the Chief Military Judge assigns a trial judge to hear the trial. In this case the CMJ refused to assign a judge on the grounds that the charge sheet was marked SECRET and because trials are to be "open to the public" and he considered the security classification to be contrary to that. Under then existing provisions of the NDA a trial judge could close proceedings to the public or protect secret information but could not do so before a trial judge is assigned. This is nothing more or less than a systemic "Catch 22".

Interesting.  If the "Charge Sheet" was "over classified" as SECRET, then why did someone not think to go back to the "ORIGINATOR" and have them lower the CLASSIFICATION?

 

[Infanteer]

For a thread about a legal issue, there was a lot of crap about passive-aggresiveness and the physics of a chokehold.  Let's keep this one on topic.

 

[FJAG]

Interesting.  If the "Charge Sheet" was "over classified" as SECRET, then why did someone not think to go back to the "ORIGINATOR" and have them lower the CLASSIFICATION?

The explanation given by the DMP prosecutor in his affidavit for the Federal Court was as follows: DMP was the originator and had set the security classification because it was mandated by both National Defence Security Instruction 27 and DCDS 05/1993 Security and Public Affairs Policy JTF2. In the end, the FCA agreed with DMP that the MCJ should have accepted the charge sheet as classified.

DMP and MCJ did try to work the matter out but couldn't come to a solution. We have two highly ranked senior legal officers here who do know how the system works. I can only presume that downgrading the security classification was either not possible or desirable and the CMJ was hung up in the Catch 22 situation.

You should note that at the time there was already legislation drafted which would have created a mechanism to resolve the issue but it was not yet before the legislature (Those things frequently take years to get on parliament's agenda). The issue wouldn't happen today.

 

[Snakedoc]

Thanks for your insight FJAG, that is some great information to help better understand the case and it is great to have your expertise on the forum!

 

[PuckChaser]

Post in thread 'A Deeply Fractured US' by Remius has been reported by PuckChaser. Reason given:

See post details.

Content being reported:

It's called democracy.

Democracy is preventing Canadians from owning hand guns. How does that make you feel?

 

[PuckChaser]

I binned this, Remius is trying to take things off topic and trigger Dave. We're going to have to watch that thread pretty closely, I can already see the emotion overriding coherent thought in posts. RvW is just a nuclear wasteland of a topic, we should take bets on how long it'll last...

 

[Good2Golf]

Yup…at the very least, it needs to be kept on target, no straying….

 

[TheHead]

Post in thread 'A Deeply Fractured US' by Fishbone Jones has been reported by TheHead. Reason given:

This is a fake picture.

Content being reported:

Explains itself.

 

[PuckChaser]

Then he can post to call it out. We're not the fake news police.

 

[Good2Golf]

Yeah…not baby sitters FFS…

 

[Good2Golf]

Post in thread 'A Deeply Fractured US' by Fishbone Jones has been reported by Good2Golf. Reason given:

Good Lord…some posts hurt Dave’s feelings so he wants us to censor posts he thinks are unflattering to Trump?

Content being reported:

Wow, still lots of love out there for Trump. Do the mods think we can keep this thread to reported incidents, court moves, case procedures, etc and leave the childish, TDS only posts to the bin? It sounds like kids making fun of the boogeyman so he isn't so mean to them.

 

[Good2Golf]

This just pure whining FFS

 

[The Bread Guy]

This just pure whining FFS

Well played in the public forum.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Wanna know a secret??

Last night about 11pm I read a story in the news that Windsor police had killed a 70 year old man waving a machete at them.

I came here right away to see when Dave had last logged in.....29 minutes ago, phew!!

EDIT: put "right away" in.

 

[Good2Golf]

So, sparing you gents the details, Chris Poon must have ran out of the myriad of ways to re-energize a territorial defense force, and decided to do some “PM Peacekeeping” with Dave and me, to which Dave leveraged and bemoaned my bullying his (Dave’s) ‘balanced view of things”…

Anyway, this was my reply to them, and I’ll disengage from Dave in that thread.

Cheers
Duey


Ps. My ‘last word’ to Dave on the issue:

Dave, the issue being your suggestion to bin TDS (as you see it?) posts smacks of unilateral censorship and who then is to judge what constitutes the posts to remove and message the poster why. The mods have been keeping a very close eye on that thread and policing it well, or at least I think they are. Your post came in as a Trump-supportive complaint of those critiquing him. You may think your ‘balanced’ but I (and many others) don’t thinks that’s the case, you’re clearly favourable to Trumpn and you don’t mind throwing a variety of shade an any and all who themselves challenge the positive light that some (yourself included) consistently shone on Trump.

Anyway, I’m off the watch on that thread and you can make your case as you wish, including the Report to Moderator function for every post you think should be removed.

Cheers,
Duey

 

[Good2Golf]

We did have a follow-in Mano-a-Mano and both chose to love ahead positively.

 

[Kirkhill]

Post in thread 'A Deeply Fractured US' by mariomike has been reported by Kirkhill. Reason given:

Hey, I just got an alert saying that Mike had quoted me in this post.

First of all, it appears he didn't.

Second of all, keep me out of this one. I am aggravating enough people as it is.

Content being reported:

Source on that?

Immigrants are not being secretly flown into US cities

Republicans campaigning for office are running ads that hammer President Joe Biden’s management of the U.S.-Mexico borde

www.politifact.com

 

[mariomike]

I quoted Dimsum.
If it says otherwise, it is purely unintenional.