Racist Liberal "Judge" Throws Murder Case, Slanders Prosecutor

From HERE:

Prosecutor who compared accused murderer to an ‘animal’ in opening address blamed for causing mistrial

Murder victim Tania Cowell, allegedly murdered by Haiden Suarez-Noa.TRIBUTE PHOTO

A prosecutor who compared an accused murderer to an “animal” and mocked his defence strategy in her opening address has been blamed for tainting a jury in Hamilton, Ont., and forcing a judge to declare a mistrial even before the first witness was called.

Assistant Crown Attorney Kim Rogers went so far as to compare the murder case against Haiden Suarez-Noa to the 1984 movie Impulse, in which rural townsfolk behave in bizarrely erotic ways after toxic waste leaks into the water supply, indulging “their base or most feral instincts,” as she put it.

“Imagine a society in which anyone could act upon his first instincts,” Rogers told the jury after recommending the film. “That ladies and gentlemen, is what this trial is about: the difference between reasonable human beings and animals.”

The remarks, about the stabbing death of Suarez-Noa’s common-law partner, Tania Cowell, were so inflammatory the trial was effectively over by the first lunch break, and is now expected to resume with a new jury in November.

The Crown’s opening address can, by law, offer guidance for the trial ahead, but it is “not the appropriate forum for argument, invective, or opinion,” according to the newly published reasons of Judge Robert B. Reid, about last Wednesday’s mistrial.

It was not just the movie reference or the “animal” comment. The entire address was a legal mess, the judge found, full of “pre-emptive argument” and discussion of, for example, personality traits that could make someone to appear calm while concealing “deep uncontrolled rage.”

Reid said he had no choice but to end the trial — the remedy of last resort — because of the Crown’s “rhetorical over-zealousness, personal opinion, argument, negation of the accused’s right to silence and implied reversal of the onus of proof.”

“Although the reference was not direct, in my view there can be no doubt that counsel was suggesting to the jury that the accused had behaved like an animal rather than a human being in committing the acts which, as she advised the jury, had been admitted,” Reid wrote. “That characterization of the accused was both highly improper and was of such a nature that it could not be erased from the minds of the jurors even with a significant correcting instruction. The fairness of the trial process was irremediably compromised.”

Tania Cowell was 36 when she was stabbed to death in March, 2013, in her apartment in Stoney Creek, part of Hamilton, Ont. She was on maternity leave from a job as a personal support worker for disabled people, helping them live independently.

Her common-law partner, Suarez-Noa, then aged 35, turned himself in to police in Guelph, Ont., a few hours after the killing and has been in custody since. He also handed over their five-month-old son, Bailun, who was unharmed, and is now in the care of Cowell’s family.

All crimes require proof of both a guilty act and a guilty mind. Suarez-Noa admitted the act to police, but pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. He was expected to argue the partial defence of provocation.

This controversial tactic, which can reduce apparent murder to manslaughter if it happens “in the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation,” is often pleaded and usually fails. A few months after the murder, for example, the Supreme Court of Canada made it even more difficult, saying it “cannot spring from bare, unsupported assertions by the accused.”

The prosecutor told the jury that, to support this strategy, Suarez-Noa would testify, and the jury should consider whether his version squares with the evidence. This, in effect, reversed the burden of proof that properly rests with the Crown.

“She has no place speaking for the defence,” said defence lawyer Charn Gill, who successfully argued Reid should declare the mistrial.

“It is highly inappropriate for Crown counsel to advise the jury of the defence position without a prior agreement, and particularly implying to the jury that the accused will testify,” Reid wrote. “Every accused obviously has an unequivocal right to maintain silence.”

“Although the Crown is entitled to act as a strong advocate within the adversarial process, it cannot adopt a purely adversarial role towards the defence,” Reid cautioned, and he cited a precedent from 1954, in which the Supreme Court said: “It cannot be over emphasized that the purpose of a criminal prosecution is not to obtain a conviction; it is to lay before the jury what the Crown considers to be credible evidence relevant to what is alleged to be a crime.”

National Post

jbrean@nationalpost.com
Twitter.com/JosephBrean

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Re: "Prosecutor who compared accused murderer to an ‘animal’ in opening address blamed for causing mistrial"

Re: “She has no place speaking for the defence,” said defence lawyer Charn Gill, who successfully argued Reid should declare the mistrial."


I'm quite surprised the defense didn't side with the impugned prosecutor and AGAINST the so-called "judge" on this one - after all, if the judge was right, then it was her case to lose for the prosecution and for the defense, not up to the judge alone!

What overbearing paternalism!

This "judge" presumes the jury's feelings are too delicate to withstand the invective rhetoric of a prosecutor in a murder trial!

Well, buddy, THE DEFENSE HAD CHOSEN A TRIAL BY JURY, NOT BY JUDGE ALONE!!!

True "animals" may or may not turn on and eat members of their own species - many do, and in contrast, humans are actually the most co-operative species of animals on the planet. But then there's "liberals" - like this case's "judge" - who, being slanderous criminal masochists, can be counted on to pretend to control their fears BY causing those very same, worst-case scenario problems (like, in attacking innocent other people, like this prosecutor, first) which cause the pains they fear the most!

Cannibals, all of them!

The prosecutor may or may not be dumb, but this "judge" is a criminal! He, not she, is the one who had really made a "pre-emptive," subjective ruling, not in any way based in Law, about the prosecutors' chosen methods - thus ruling against the prosecution before the trial had even began.

He pretends it's against the Law for prosecutors in MURDER cases, to: "zealously use rhetoric and personal opinion" and (*gasp!*) "argumentation," and "implied reversal of the onus of proof!"

Well, no shiite, Sherlock - before any given trial is concluded and the verdict is in, EVERYTHING stated by both the prosecution AND defense is mere legal "opinion, rhetoric, and argumentation!"

And it's the JOB of any and all prosecutors to present an implied reversal of the onus of proof - to act precisely as if the defendant was guilty until never proven innocent - and I think that especially applied to this case, where by all reports the accused had already admitted to the police and court his physical guilt in the act of killing his wife!

That he did it, wasn't in any way under contention in this case, so for the judge to pansy-out and pretend it was, is clear proof of a total lack of judgment on HIS part, not hers!

And he's also blaming her for using a "zealously rhetorical argument which was of such a nature that it could not be erased from the minds of the jurors" - which is ONLY DOING HER JOB!

In fact, to use his own words about her (obviously a case of 'projection') against him, the judge was the one whose actions and words here were being "highly improper."

It has been suggested that this is a case of a recent judicial appointment from a non-criminal practice in a small town firm.

I personally think THE JUDGE IS A LIBERAL RACIST and was trying to defend the "hurt feelings" of his swarthy ward as if Mr. Suarez-Noa was his own defense client.

Liberals are racists: they always assume that ONLY White Western people (including, of course, the Jews in Israel,) are INTELLIGENT enough to be guilty of being truly evil, while all their pet "People Of Colour" (including the "swarthy palestinians") being mentally inferior and all, just can't help being enslaved by their instincts and emotions into acting as violent animals when frustrated, the poor oppressed little dears, so the liberals will always indulge their crimes, much as one ignores the new puppy as it pees on the rugs.

So here's their interminably ongoing "narrative" (story):

"SO JUST STOP PICKING ON ALL THE THE POOR HELPLESS MENTALLY INFERIOR SWARTHY ANIMAL VICTIMS, YOU EVIL MENTALLY SUPERIOR WHITE BULLIES! YOU KNOW THEY’RE AT THE MERCY OF THEIR ANIMAL INSTINCTS SUCH THAT THEY JUST CAN’T HELP BEING VIOLENT WHEN CONFUSED, SO STOP BAITING AND CONFUSING THEM, YOU HATERS!"

But it may have backfired on him, gaining them the opposite of the intended result.

While it was her case to lose - if the prosecutor, in characterizing his actions as animalistic, had thereby herself managed to negate, in the juror's minds, the mens-rea or guilty-mind / intent requirement for criminality by doing so, that should have been left up to her.

As it is, the fussy actions of this pretentious and over-stepping "judge" have doomed the defendant to a new trial, one in which his guilty intent may be proven to new jury.

Who knows what she may have been trying to prove?

It may be that her opening shockers were strategically designed to be reversed later on, to prove the accused had no such defense - but now we'll never know, thanks to this "judge!"

She should request a review of his actions, which amount to libel and slander, and being put before the public, have brought not only her nascent career, but also the entirely of the justice system itself into disrepute.

This "judge" needs to be sharply reminded that there is no LAW against "hurt feelings," especially between a determined prosecutor and an evasive accused in a MURDER CASE!