Judge's actions left door open for appeal. Pickton Appeal

Lots of people make mistakes at work, but judges are rarely subjected to disciplinary measures no matter what the cost of their errors


By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
June 29, 2009

We all make mistakes; we're only human. But we expect more of some people in our society -- judges, for one.

The bar must be set higher for them since the consequences of their decisions have more serious effects on people's lives and the public purse than most others.

And what we especially don't expect is that they will make such glaring errors that a serial killer's conviction could be overturned or that their decision is so off-base that both the Crown and defence appeal.

But that's what B.C. Supreme Court Justice James Williams did. Because of his errors, Robert "Willie" Pickton will get a hearing in the Supreme Court of Canada and a chance for a retrial.

This is a sorry chapter in Canada's biggest mass murder trial -- a grisly, sordid case.

One of three Court of Appeal justices who reviewed the case said Williams' mistake in his charge to the jury was inexcusable. Judge Ian Donald said Williams failed to properly instruct jurors on the law of aiding and abetting a crime and how it might apply in this case.

"This was an error of law," Donald wrote in his dissenting opinion. "The failure to instruct created a miscarriage of justice."

That's not the only mistake Williams made. All three appellate court judges said Williams was wrong to sever six of the 26 cases for trial.

That decision's legacy is that 20 families of murdered women may never get the justice they seek unless the Supreme Court orders a retrial.

Throughout the trial, the judge reportedly did a number of unusual things. After week 23, a story in The Globe and Mail noted Williams' "unusual state-of-the-nation address" to the jury when -- among other things -- he gave them a two-week vacation during the 11 months of hearings.

Another unprecedented decision was to have his law clerk, robed and sitting close by him in court. It apparently didn't help any.

Although this was one of the biggest trials in Canadian history, Williams was a relative rookie with only three years experience on the bench.

He took over the Pickton case a few days into the pre-trial hearings after the other judge suddenly found he had a scheduling conflict.

However, he'd had big-trial experience from the other side. He was a prosecutor in the case of Reena Virk, a Victoria teen who was beaten and killed by two other teens. He was defence lawyer for hockey star Marty McSorley, who was charged with the on-ice assault on former Canucks player Donald Brashear.

Judges are not oracles, as Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada has said. Instead, they are men and women with legal training, appointed and well-paid to sit in judgment until they are 75 years old.

But unlike most people who mess up at work, they are rarely subject to disciplinary measures.

"In fairness, the conduct of a judge should not be measured in the context of a complaint arising out of a single proceeding, but rather against a wider test of performance."

That's what former B.C. Court of Appeal chief justice Allan McEachern said in a speech given while he was chairman of the Canadian Judicial Council.

He noted the difficulties of disciplining judges. Appointed either by the provincial or federal government, they can only be removed by the government.

Still McEachern argued against anything short of removal or anything more severe than review by judicial councils, which are limited (in his words) to expressing disapproval in words that range from "unfortunate," "unwise," "inappropriate," or "in some very few cases, something stronger."

Anything in between -- suspensions or sanctions -- would undermine the authority of the court and judge's independence, he said.

But from the beginning, almost everything about the Pickton case has undermined people's faith in the judicial system.

The victims were women who had no faith in the protection of police or courts. Survival sex workers and drug addicts rarely get a fair hearing from them.

The families can't help but distrust a system so callous that it took years before anyone would even take their reports of missing mothers, daughters and sisters.

That fact that Williams chose to hear only six of 26 cases only further damaged what little trust some had that justice might ever be done.

I'm sure Justice Williams is sorry for his mistake. And maybe I can even accept that public humiliation is as good a punishment as any.

But it's absurd to think that disciplining him-- even removing him from the bench -- would make things worse.

dbramham@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Letter to a monster. Hello Willie.

Ethan Baron, The Province Published: Friday, June 26, 2009

Hello, Willie.

I know you're reading this, because it's all about you.

Just like the trial.

After four years of working on your story, after sitting in that courtroom for months on end, watching you through bullet-proof glass, I know you far better than I'd like to.

For these four years, you have been an unwelcome guest in my world.

You have strewn my dreams with carnage, gruesome castoffs from your world of suffering, dismemberment and death.

I dream of killing. I dream of watching people die.

Once, I even dreamed of you.

We were in a room together. I don't know why. And, in my nightmare, I was overcome by fear, not that you'd suddenly attack me - I'm bigger and smarter than you - but that I would fall asleep, and would wake to feel your strange, monkey fingers around my neck.

I felt, for the first time, what every female who is familiar with your case felt from the very outset: the fear every woman lives with everyday, of crossing paths with someone like you.

A remorseless killer.

I do not hold you responsible. You are a biological aberration, an obscenity of nature.

Remember the story you told that undercover cop in jail, that you killed 49 people? I do.

Sometimes, sitting through those endless hours of testimony about which DNA swab was used on which wall in your slaughterhouse, and which sock was found in which bag in your filthy trailer, I used to think about killing you.

It wasn't that I actually wanted to, or even thought you deserved it. I would sit and examine the courtroom security procedures in place for your protection, and my mind would wander. I figured that, if I sat in the gallery seat closest to the doorway for the courtroom, I could rush through the door when a witness went in, before one of the burly, ever-vigilant sheriffs could grab me.

I would have been in front of you in a flash, my hands around your throat, squeezing. The sheriffs in the courtroom didn't carry guns, but I concluded that those who did, in the gallery, would be through the door as I began to throttle you. Friendly as they were, they were serious about their job, and I have no doubt they would have shot me before your life expired.

It was fun to think about, though.

I remember thinking once, after some particularly gruesome evidence came before the court, that it was interesting that this stuff didn't seem to disturb my mind. Then I got up at a break, and realized I felt nauseous almost to the point of vomiting.

I never cried, except for once, on the day you were sentenced, when the Crown read a statement from Brenda Wolfe's mother. She'd written that if all the tears she'd shed made a path to heaven, she would walk along it and bring her daughter home.

You might not remember that part.

I have to admit there was a lot of laughter, too. We all got a kick out of your attachment to your late horse, Goldie, especially when we found out that, when you'd taken her head to the taxidermist, you rode the bus.

I hope you're not upset they wouldn't let you have Goldie's head in your jail cell. Institutional authorities can be so cruel.

I'm not supposed to talk about the plasticine figurines some of us made during the trial, but I can tell you I have my version of your pig-butchering buddy Pat Casanova sitting on my desk. You'd get a chuckle out of how his thumb is covering up that cancer-surgery hole in his throat. I can send it to you if you want. I'm not that attached to it.

You're more clever than you look, I'll give you that. You knew enough to prey on people who wouldn't be immediately missed, women of such low social status that the police wouldn't pay attention when they started to vanish. And you even let some go free, so they could tell people Willie Pickton wasn't the reason so many women were going away and never coming back.

You got sloppy at the end, you admitted that. When the police came to your farm, they found a little snapshot of your process.

Heads, hands and feet in buckets. A jawbone in the pig manure. You had it all down to a routine, didn't you?

And what you didn't dispose of at the farm went to the rendering plant. That driver from the plant testified that he'd pick up barrels of burnt-black chunks of meat from your farm.

Did you just pour gas into barrels of human remains and set them on fire, so the pieces of people wouldn't look like pieces of people?

You will be remembered as an awful human being, worse than worthless.

Still, you have one shot at redemption, Willie, one chance to be seen in a different light.

You can come clean.

Forget about any appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

You need to tell the world what you did, and why.

You can go down in history as a nasty bit of human trash.

Or you can have the last word, and be forever remembered as a terrible monster who, in the end, did the right thing. It would be - almost - heroic.

Do you have the courage, Willie? Do you have the strength?

Maybe.

Do you have the humanity?

I don't think so.

ebaron@theprovince.com

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1735663

B.C. Appeal Court denies appeal for convicted serial killer Robert Pickton

Sunny Dhillon, THE CANADIAN PRESS
June 25, 2009, EDT

VANCOUVER, B.C. - Convicted serial killer Robert Pickton's appeal on six counts of second-degree murder has been dismissed by B.C.'s high court, but a potential second trial hangs in the balance as the former pig farmer's legal odyssey trudges on.

In a two-to-one decision, the B.C. Court of Appeal Thursday rejected claims from Pickton's defence that the trial judge made numerous significant errors while instructing the jury.

"The judge acted correctly in providing the jury with instruction that embraced the law . . . , " Justice Richard Low wrote in a decision that sets the stage for Pickton's case to potentially be heard in the Supreme Court of Canada.

"In my opinion, there was no procedural error," Low said.

In a second ruling, this one on a Crown appeal, the judges unanimously agreed that if Pickton is successful in a Supreme Court referral, then the Crown could proceed with either a trial on six counts of first-degree murder, or the 26 counts Pickton originally faced.

The court also placed a conditional stay on any new trial if and when Pickton's defence team decides to take the case to the high court, saying there was no need for the "enormous demands" of another trial if Pickton's conviction isn't overturned.

The ruling essentially preserves the Crown's right to proceed to trial on a charges of first-degree murder on either six or 26 charges.

Pickton was arrested in February 2002, setting off a massive search of his property in Port Coquitlam, B.C., where investigators found body parts, blood samples, fragments of bone and the belongings of victims.

He was originally to face 26 charges but six months before the trial began, the judge divided the case in two, proceeding with just six first-degree murder charges in January 2007 after deeming the case to be too large for a jury to digest.

The court decisions disappointed Susie Kinshella, whose sister Wendy Crawford is among the outstanding 20 murder charges.

"It's just unbelievable when you sit in that courtroom and you hear the evidence that's gone on and that plays in your mind," she said, adding that all she wants is justice for her sister and recognition of her death.

Before Thursday's decision several family members had said they actually wanted Pickton to win his appeal, so a new trial could be heard into all 26 deaths.

The B.C. Crown had said it wouldn't proceed with the remaining 20 murder charges if Pickton lost his appeal, because he was already serving a life sentence

Lynn Frey, whose stepdaughter Marnie Frey is among the six women Pickton is convicted of killing, said she was also hoping for a new trial of first-degree murder on all 26 counts.

Frey, who has been fighting to reclaim her stepdaughter's remains from the massive collection of evidence in the Pickton case, said she's no closer to that goal after the decisions.

"When somebody you love passes away you get to go to their gravesite, you get to grieve the day that they passed away," she said.

"You do the proper steps as you grieve. This way, there are no proper steps. We're grieving every day."

All 26 of the missing women on the Pickton indictment were young and had vanished between 1995 and 2001 from the Downtown Eastside.

Most were sex-trade workers, addicted to illegal drugs and a disproportionate number of the victims were aboriginal.

One element of the Crown's appeal was that the trial judge erred by severing the 26 counts into two separate trials. The Crown said the move hindered their ability to use similar-fact evidence - similarities between the different murders - to show Pickton had a scheme to kill prostitutes from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

The appeal court agreed, ruling that the trial judge committed extricable legal error in ordering that 20 counts of first-degree murder be removed from the indictment.

The judges left the door open for the Crown to drop a second trial, if Pickton loses at the high court.

"I am persuaded that the Crown's position on this issue is sound," wrote Chief Justice Lance Finch.

"If Mr. Pickton remains convicted of second-degree murder on those six counts after all appeals are concluded, there would be no useful purpose in a retrial on those same offences as charges of first-degree murder," Finch said.

B.C. Crown spokesman Neil MacKenzie if Pickton chooses not to go to the high court, or loses there, that will be the end of the legal proceedings.

"The Crown's position has been and remains that if Mr. Pickton exhausts all of his available appeals on the six convictions and remains subject to the sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility, the Crown will not proceed on the remaining 20 counts," MacKenzie said.

"We understand that it's a decision that some family members are disappointed with. However, the Branch has to keep in mind that any additional convictions beyond the six that he's received will not result in any further penalty or punishment being imposed."

That possibility of a second trial still exists, with the split B.C. Appeal Court decision meaning Pickton's lawyers have the right to take the case to Canada's highest court.

Pickton's lawyer, Patrick McGowan, said no decision has yet been made on how to proceed.

"It's going to take some time for defence counsel to consult and review these materials and decide on the course of action that we're going to take," McGowan said just before leaving the courthouse to share the news with his client.

Pickton was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years in the killings of Frey, Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin and Brenda Wolfe.

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© Corus® Entertainment Inc. 2009

'Insensitive' coroner's staff rub more salt into victims' wounds

Family told murdered woman's remains would be returned by post

By Suzanne Fournier, The Province
June 25, 2009 6:35 AM

Anxiously awaiting a court decision today on the fate of convicted serial killer Robert Pickton, Britney Frey is hoping she will finally be able to lay to rest the remains of her mother, Marnie Frey.

Britney, who is only 16 but has been designated Marnie's next-of-kin for legal purposes, says she is angry that "the coroner's office told me they would put my mother's remains in the mail — there's no way I'd let them do that."

Britney will be in court today to hear if Pickton's conviction for the second-degree murder of her mother and five other women will be upheld, or whether more legalities will delay the release of her mother's remains.

Britney and her late mother's stepmother, Lynn Frey, will be up at dawn today to catch a ferry from Nanaimo and then a bus to get to court in Vancouver. Both called the coroner's remarks "insensitive."

"I thought it was disgusting, and I told them not to do that, because I will come and get my mother," said Britney.

Lynn Frey, who attended many days of the lengthy legal proceedings against Pickton, said yesterday: "I got a call from Victims' Services and they said, 'Don't bother coming to court, it will only be a minute,' and they refused to give us any funding to attend court.

"I said, 'I want justice and don't tell me there's no point in me coming down.'

"This decision is important," she said, "because we want to bring Marnie home. We want Marnie's remains back.

"We have got a death certificate now, but when I talked to the coroner, I was told when it comes time to release the remains, 'We'll put it in the mailbox for you.' This is the kind of insensitivity we've had to deal with all along."

Marnie Frey gave birth to Britney in 1992, when she was 18. Marnie, who grew up in Campbell River, was introduced to hard drugs in her teens. She moved to Vancouver, but called home regularly, up to eight times a day.

On her 25th birthday, she called home, but was never heard from again and, in 1997, she was reported missing.

In November 2002, the Freys were told an RCMP forensics team had found Marnie's remains on the Pickton farm. At Pickton's lengthy trial, evidence showed only Marnie's jaw and three teeth had been recovered.

On Dec. 9, 2007, a jury found Pickton guilty of the second-degree murder of Marnie Frey and five other women: Andrea Joesbury, Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Brenda Wolfe and Georgina Papin.

The Freys will likely still have to wait for the end of legal proceedings against Pickton. Both prosecution and defence are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, leaving all the victims' families waiting to bury their loved ones.

B.C. Coroner's Service spokesman Jeff Dolan confirmed "we've had ongoing discussions with them [the Freys and other victims' families] and they've been told [victims'] remains will be released at the end of legal proceedings."

Dolan said the coroner makes decisions on each case in consultation with prosecutors.

Dolan could not confirm who spoke with the Freys.

He said human remains, "whether complete or a smaller portion, are released in a way to guarantee the dignity of the deceased." He said he had not heard of any coroner ever mailing human remains.

"In the history of the coroner's service, I can't say it's never happened, but we treat all remains with the same dignity."

E-mail: sfournier@theprovince.com

© Copyright (c) The Province

http://www.theprovince.com/Insensitive+coroner+staff+more+salt+into+victims+wounds/1729932/story.html

Mobile Access Project played a role in crimes

Vancouver Sun
June 20, 2009


Your lead editorial of June 17 was absolutely bang-on in terms of why the provincial government's decision to cut funding to the Mobile Access Project -- a van that offers street workers condoms, needles, protection, information and refreshments -- is utterly unconscionable.

Vulnerable women working in the sex trade continue to be targets for violence, and many of them don't trust the police to handle adequately any information or intelligence they provide.

The MAP van staff were the recipients of hundreds of tips and bad date reports, which found their way to police.

These often provided the missing pieces to investigative puzzles, helping to get violent, sadistic men off the low track.

If we've learned anything from the last decade of carnage on the Downtown Eastside, it's that drug-addicted sex trade workers will not go to police if they believe that will affect their access to drugs or their safety, but they will talk to outreach workers they come to know.

The incredibly short-sighted decision to cut this program will result in increased sexual assaults and other serious assaults on these women.

Once again, the cost of solving these crimes will far outweigh the minuscule investment in programs like the van.

Lori Shenher

Vancouver
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Lori Shenher is the former lead detective on the Vancouver Missing Women case.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Mobile+Access+Project+played+role+solving+crimes/1715616/story.html

On Lori Shenher

http://www.missingpeople.net/news_articles_with_former_lead_d.htm

Pickton paradox: serial killer's successful appeal might mean real justice

Published Wednesday June 24th, 2009
Sunny Dhillon, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER, B.C. - It's a subversive twist to one of the most complex, convoluted legal proceedings in modern Canadian history: the friends and family of some 20 alleged murder victims, most of them siding - for the moment, at least - with the lawyers who represent serial killer Robert Pickton.

The gut-wrenching paradox, rooted in the former pig farmer's conviction in December 2007 on just six counts of second-degree murder, has left them with a difficult choice: another long struggle toward justice for their loved ones versus the gratification of seeing legal closure.

The B.C. Court of Appeal will rule Thursday on appeals from both Pickton's defence lawyers and the Crown. Pickton's counsel is appealing his convictions, arguing - among other things - that the trial judge made mistakes in his instructions to the jury.

The Crown has launched a counter-appeal of the judge's decision to split the 26 murder charges originally laid against Pickton into two separate trials. Crown lawyers say they won't pursue a second trial if the six original murder convictions are allowed to stand.

For those who want a verdict in the deaths of the remaining 20 women, it all boils down to the lesser of two evils.

"We would hate to see Pickton actually win his appeal, but we want him to - only because that is the only way we foresee the other 20 girls getting justice," said Lori-Ann Ellis, whose sister-in-law Cara Ellis is among the outstanding cases.

Cara Ellis was 25 when police say she was last seen in January 1997.

Dianne Rock was nearly one decade older, 34, when the mother of five vanished in October 2001.

Her sister, Lilliane Beaudoin, said it's not easy pulling for Pickton's defence team, but she believes it's her only choice.

"This way, at least I have some kind of hope that there's going to be a second trial and that my sister's case will be in the second trial," Beaudoin said.

"It's sad to say. Usually I would go for the Crown counsel, but not in this case."

Beaudoin said while having the convictions tossed out would undoubtedly be difficult for the families of the six women involved, it may be equally difficult for the families of the 20 women to be left in limbo.

"We need the justice that they received," she said.

Pickton was convicted in December 2007 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years in the killings of Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Brenda Wolfe, and Marnie Frey.

For Frey's stepmother, Lynn, there's no question whom she's pulling for.

"I definitely root for the 20," she said. "Even if I hadn't known those people personally, if I hadn't met them at the trial, I would have thought the same thing.

"It's totally unfair. They need accountability, they need justice and they need their day in court, just like anybody else."

Frey, who's been fighting to reclaim her stepdaughter's remains from the massive collection of evidence in the Pickton case, said while a second trial would delay that quest, it's a sacrifice she'd be willing to make.

"It is a no-win situation," she said. "If they said we're going to have another trial, then I'll suck it up and wait for the next trial ... the pain that they're going through is atrocious."

Not everyone is as ready to see the case go to trial for the second time.

Sarah de Vries disappeared in April 1998, one month shy of her 29th birthday, and is one of the 20 women on the list for a possible second trial. Her friend, Wayne Leng, said though he's conflicted at times, he doesn't really want the court proceedings to go that far.

"Pickton can't get any more time than he's already gotten," Leng said. "He's going to be in jail for life."

Leng stressed that he is 100 per cent behind the families hoping for a second trial. He simply isn't convinced that more court proceedings would provide any greater sense of closure for the loss of his friend.

"They've got the guy," he said. "They've nailed him. . . . I don't know how I would feel any different with him absolutely being found guilty of her murder."

For Beaudoin, however, it's important that the circumstances that led to her sister's death be part of the public record.

"This is why I want a trial for my sister," she said.

"My sister is gone. I want the man who supposedly has done this to her to be accountable for it. You just don't press charges of first-degree murder against a man and then not go forward."

Pickton was arrested in February 2002, setting off a massive search of his property in Port Coquitlam, B.C., where investigators found body parts, blood samples, fragments of bone and the belongings of victims.

The Crown is appealing Pickton's acquittal on six first-degree murder charges, but Crown prosecutor Gregory Fitch has said he would prefer to see the second-degree murder convictions stand and Pickton simply remain in prison, his legal saga over.

Fitch did express concern about the possibility of the appeal court denying Pickton's appeal while at the same time granting that of the Crown, which could have the unintended effect of requiring a new trial the Crown doesn't want.

Should that happen, Fitch said he would ask the court to stay the order for a new trial.

Pickton's defence lawyers told the Appeal Court that there was a lot of confusion among jury members on the question of whether Pickton acted alone.

Lawyer Gil McKinnon said that confusion only got worse after the jury asked a question of the trial judge six days into deliberations.

"At least one or more jurors seemed to be having difficulty on whether Robert Pickton was the sole shooter of the three women," McKinnon said in late March, referring to the murders of Wilson, Abotsway and Joesbury.

The women's severed heads were found on Pickton's farm. Each woman had been shot.

Six days into jury deliberations, Justice James Williams changed his instructions to the jury, saying he had been "not sufficiently precise" and "in error" in three paragraphs of his original charge.

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http://www.canadaeast.com/news/article/709019

Family, friends of missing women await Pickton appeal decision on Thursday

By Lori Culbert, Vancouver Sun
June 24, 2009 5:32 PM

VANCOUVER -- It was nearly 12 years ago that Sandra Gagnon last heard from her sister Janet Henry, whose face is one of 64 on a police poster of women missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

So it is with a heavy heart that Gagnon will attend the B.C. Court of Appeal in Vancouver on Thursday to learn the fate of Robert (Willie) Pickton, who was convicted of killing six of the missing women and is charged in the deaths of another 20.

Henry is among the 38 women whose whereabouts remain unknown, but many of whose relatives and friends have carefully followed the Pickton proceedings.

“It’s really tough because it’s Janet’s anniversary,” Gagnon said. “I feel a bit of anxiety because you never know how [the appeal court decision] is going to go.

“And we still haven’t found Janet. My family and I are still in limbo. We don’t have any answers about where she is.”

Three B.C. Court of Appeal justices are set to rule at 10:30 a.m. Thursday on appeals by the Crown and the defence, which were heard during a nine-day hearing in late March and early April this year.

Defence lawyer Gil McKinnon argued Pickton’s six second-degree murder convictions should be overturned because a B.C. Supreme Court judge made an error during his charge to the jury and while answering a question by the jury during the 2007 trial.

The Crown’s position was that if Pickton’s six convictions are upheld, prosecutors will not proceed with a second trial on the remaining 20 counts. Pickton, 60, would then continue to serve his life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

But if the appeal court rules in Pickton’s favour and orders a new trial, the Crown wants to proceed on all 26 counts of first-degree murder.

Regardless of how the appeal court rules, the Crown or defence is expected to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, which would drag these legal proceedings out even longer.

“You know when you hold your breath, and hold your breath, and hold it so long it hurts? That’s what it feels like,” a frustrated Maggy Gisle said Wednesday.

Gisle followed the trial closely because she was friends with four of the six women Pickton was convicted of killing, in particular Georgina Papin, who died in 1999. But she was also good pals with Cara Ellis, one of the other 20 women Pickton is accused of murdering, and whose case will never be tried if there is no second trial.

So for Gisle, there is no clear victory that could come out of the appeal court today.

“I’d like to see the remaining 20 go to trial because if not, the victims and the family members are denied a due process, which is everybody’s right,” she said.

While it may seem counter-intuitive, Judy Trimble, Cara Ellis’s mother, is hoping Pickton wins his appeal because she wants him to be tried for her daughter’s murder.

“I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and keeping my hopes up that he’s going to win his appeal, then there will be another trial and he will be tried for all 26,” Trimble said.

Vancouver criminal lawyer Mark Jette, who is not involved in Pickton’s appeal, said the defence’s appeal bid will be successful only if the appeal court is convinced Pickton’s trial judge did make errors in law, and that those errors were significant enough to have changed the verdict.

Jette used as an analogy the case of Kelly Ellard, who was convicted of killing Reena Virk in her third trial in B.C. Supreme Court. The BC Court of Appeal overturned that verdict, ruling errors in law had been made. But the Supreme Court of Canada restored the guilty verdict earlier this month, concluding the errors were not serious enough to have altered the verdict.

If the three judges split, the losing side has the automatic right to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. If the ruling is unanimous, the losing side has to seek leave to appeal.

lculbert@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Family+friends+missing+women+await+Pickton+appeal+decision+Thursday/1729221/story.html

B.C. court to rule on Robert Pickton appeal

Updated Wed. Jun. 24 2009 6:27 PM ET

The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER -- It's a subversive twist to one of the most complex, convoluted legal proceedings in modern Canadian history: the friends and family of some 20 alleged murder victims, most of them siding -- for the moment, at least -- with the lawyers who represent serial killer Robert Pickton.

The gut-wrenching paradox, rooted in the former pig farmer's conviction in December 2007 on just six counts of second-degree murder, has left them with a difficult choice: another long struggle toward justice for their loved ones versus the gratification of seeing legal closure.

The B.C. Court of Appeal will rule Thursday on appeals from both Pickton's defence lawyers and the Crown. Pickton's counsel is appealing his convictions, arguing -- among other things -- that the trial judge made mistakes in his instructions to the jury.

The Crown has launched a counter-appeal of the judge's decision to split the 26 murder charges originally laid against Pickton into two separate trials. Crown lawyers say they won't pursue a second trial if the six original murder convictions are allowed to stand.

For those who want a verdict in the deaths of the remaining 20 women, it all boils down to the lesser of two evils.

"We would hate to see Pickton actually win his appeal, but we want him to -- only because that is the only way we foresee the other 20 girls getting justice," said Lori-Ann Ellis, whose sister-in-law Cara Ellis is among the outstanding cases.

Cara Ellis was 25 when police say she was last seen in January 1997.

Dianne Rock was nearly one decade older, 34, when the mother of five vanished in October 2001.

Her sister, Lilliane Beaudoin, said it's not easy pulling for Pickton's defence team, but she believes it's her only choice.

"This way, at least I have some kind of hope that there's going to be a second trial and that my sister's case will be in the second trial," Beaudoin said.

"It's sad to say. Usually I would go for the Crown counsel, but not in this case."

Beaudoin said while having the convictions tossed out would undoubtedly be difficult for the families of the six women involved, it may be equally difficult for the families of the 20 women to be left in limbo.

"We need the justice that they received," she said.

Pickton was convicted in December 2007 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years in the killings of Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Brenda Wolfe, and Marnie Frey.

For Frey's stepmother, Lynn, there's no question whom she's pulling for.

"I definitely root for the 20," she said. "Even if I hadn't known those people personally, if I hadn't met them at the trial, I would have thought the same thing.

"It's totally unfair. They need accountability, they need justice and they need their day in court, just like anybody else."

Frey, who's been fighting to reclaim her stepdaughter's remains from the massive collection of evidence in the Pickton case, said while a second trial would delay that quest, it's a sacrifice she'd be willing to make.

"It is a no-win situation," she said. "If they said we're going to have another trial, then I'll suck it up and wait for the next trial ... the pain that they're going through is atrocious."

Not everyone is as ready to see the case go to trial for the second time.

Sarah de Vries disappeared in April 1998, one month shy of her 29th birthday, and is one of the 20 women on the list for a possible second trial. Her friend, Wayne Leng, said though he's conflicted at times, he doesn't really want the court proceedings to go that far.

"Pickton can't get any more time than he's already gotten," Leng said. "He's going to be in jail for life."

Leng stressed that he is 100 per cent behind the families hoping for a second trial. He simply isn't convinced that more court proceedings would provide any greater sense of closure for the loss of his friend.

"They've got the guy," he said. "They've nailed him. . . . I don't know how I would feel any different with him absolutely being found guilty of her murder."

For Beaudoin, however, it's important that the circumstances that led to her sister's death be part of the public record.

"This is why I want a trial for my sister," she said.

"My sister is gone. I want the man who supposedly has done this to her to be accountable for it. You just don't press charges of first-degree murder against a man and then not go forward."

Pickton was arrested in February 2002, setting off a massive search of his property in Port Coquitlam, B.C., where investigators found body parts, blood samples, fragments of bone and the belongings of victims.

The Crown is appealing Pickton's acquittal on six first-degree murder charges, but Crown prosecutor Gregory Fitch has said he would prefer to see the second-degree murder convictions stand and Pickton simply remain in prison, his legal saga over.

Fitch did express concern about the possibility of the appeal court denying Pickton's appeal while at the same time granting that of the Crown, which could have the unintended effect of requiring a new trial the Crown doesn't want.

Should that happen, Fitch said he would ask the court to stay the order for a new trial.

Pickton's defence lawyers told the Appeal Court that there was a lot of confusion among jury members on the question of whether Pickton acted alone.

Lawyer Gil McKinnon said that confusion only got worse after the jury asked a question of the trial judge six days into deliberations.

"At least one or more jurors seemed to be having difficulty on whether Robert Pickton was the sole shooter of the three women," McKinnon said in late March, referring to the murders of Wilson, Abotsway and Joesbury.

The women's severed heads were found on Pickton's farm. Each woman had been shot.

Six days into jury deliberations, Justice James Williams changed his instructions to the jury, saying he had been "not sufficiently precise" and "in error" in three paragraphs of his original charge.

© 2009 CTVglobemedia All Rights Reserved.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090624/pickton_appeal_090624/20090624?hub=Canada

Memorial March

Downtown Eastside Vancouver, British Columbia

First of 69 missing women portraits unveiled by Vancouver artist

By LORI CULBERT, VANCOUVER SUN
June 23, 2009 5:27 PM

VANCOUVER -- A Vancouver artist painting massive portraits of women who vanished from the Downtown Eastside is nearly finished the four-year-long project, and announced Tuesday she plans to create an art program for women at the Union Gospel Mission.

The first of 69 portraits by artist Pamela Masik was unveiled Tuesday at a press conference in Gastown, revealing a starkly life-like image of Mona Wilson, who disappeared in November 2001 at the age of 26.

Wilson’s remains were later found on the Port Coquitlam farm of Robert (Willie) Pickton, who has been convicted in her murder.

Below Wilson’s piercing dark eyes and high cheek bones are slash marks in the canvas and newspaper articles woven into the texture of the 2.4-metre wide and three-metre tall (eight-by-10 feet) artwork.

The knife wounds represent the fate Wilson met at the hands of her killer, Masik said; the newspaper clippings indicate her story became a very public one, only after society collectively shrugged when the women first started disappearing.

“They were real people, just like you and me. It’s a tragedy that so many women can go missing and be murdered,” Masik said. “Everyone deserves a dignified life.”

The Vancouver Sun first chronicled Masik’s “Forgotten Faces” project when she started it in 2006. She has completed 59 of the portraits, and said she is finalizing plans for all 69 to be displayed “at a major public institution,” likely in 2011.

In the meantime, Masik is donating proceeds from her landscape paintings to fund a new arts program for women who rely on the services at the Union Gospel Mission in the Downtown Eastside.

UGM Rev. Bruce Curtiss hopes the art classes will be a healing influence.

“It will help these women on their journey, who were friends — who literally knew these [missing] women before they were taken,” he said.

Also at the unveiling Tuesday was Susie Kinshella of Chilliwack, the sister of missing woman Wendy Crawford. She said she visited Masik’s downtown studio last month to see the “amazing” portrait of her sister.

“It was the innocence Pamela captured that she gave back to my sister, that she gave back to me,” Kinshella said. “It put sunshine on the rain from [Pickton’s 2007] trial. ... This is just the greatest gift.”

The police list of missing women contained 69 names a few years ago, but now sits at 64 after the whereabouts of five women were found.

Pickton was convicted of killing six of the missing women and was charged with the first-degree murder of 20 more, including Crawford.

The B.C. Court of Appeal will rule Thursday on Pickton’s appeal of his conviction.

lculbert@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

http://www.vancouversun.com/First+missing+women+portraits+unveiled+Vancouver+artist/1725697/story.html

Pickton appeal judgment due next week

By NEAL HALL , Vancouver Sun
June 17, 2009 4:55 PM

VANCOUVER – A decision in the appeal of serial killer Robert (Willie) Pickton is set for June 25.

Families of Pickton’s murder victims have received advance notice of the pending decision by the B.C. Court of Appeal.

The appeal court will render two judgments — one deciding Pickton’s appeal and the other deciding a cross-appeal by the Crown.

Regardless of how the appeal court rules, the Crown or defence is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

A split 2-1 decision by the three-judge appeal panel would allow an automatic right of appeal to the nation’s top court.

Pickton, 60, was originally charged with the first-degree murder of 27 women who disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

One charge involving an unknown victim listed as “Jane Doe” was stayed by the trial judge, B.C. Supreme Court Justice James Williams, who then decided the remaining 26 counts should be divided into two trials — one involving six charges and the other involving 20 murder counts.

The Crown elected to proceed on six counts at the first trial, which ended on Dec. 9, 2007 with a jury convicting Pickton of the second-degree murder of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey.

The killer, who lived on a farm in Port Coquitlam with his brother, was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years.

The Crown’s position on appeal was that if Pickton’s convictions are upheld, the Crown would not proceed with a second trial. But if the appeal court orders a new trial, the Crown wants to proceed on all 26 murder counts.

Pickton’s current lawyer, Gil McKinnon, argued at the appeal hearing that the trial judge made an error during his charge to the jury and how he dealt with a juror’s question.

Witnesses at Pickton’s trial testified about how he often butchered pigs on the sprawling farm, which was surrounded by residential development.

The Pickton case was the largest serial killer investigation in Canadian history. Two years ago, officials estimated the police investigation cost about $70 million, with the trial costs estimated at another $46 million.

The Crown is expected to release a final tally of the costs after all appeals are exhausted.

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Remember Their Names

A new exhibition to remember the missing women of Vancouver at Trinity Square Video.
Documentary Now
http://imagearts.ryerson.ca/documentarynow/artists/Janis_Cole.html
Trinity Square Video
http://www.trinitysquarevideo.com/index.php

Sixty-five of Canada’s most disenfranchised women disappeared from the streets of Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside between 1978 and 2001. Families and friends pushed the Vancouver Police to investigate, but the search went slowly, until it was finally discovered that many of the missing women had been murdered. Canada’s largest serial killing and crime-scene investigation drove the name of the killer to international fame. Lost in the shadow of his name are the names of his many victims. Using documentary artifacts that shift the focus to see each missing woman, Cole’s commemorative installation propels the “missing women” to women who are missed.

Janis Cole is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and artist with more than thirty years experience. Her feature documentary films include P4W: Prison for Women, which earned a Genie Award and Hookers on Davie, which won a Gold Plaque in Chicago. Other awards include the NFB’s Best Canadian Short Film Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and a Toronto Arts Award in Media Art. Her television writing has earned six Gemini nominations and a Writer’s Guild Top Ten Award. She writes for several Toronto publications, teaches at the Ontario College of Art & Design and is completing her Master of Fine Art in Documentary Media at Ryerson University. She has lived in Chatham Ontario, Vancouver and Toronto, and now makes her home in the Haliburton Highlands.

Trinity Square Video
Opening Reception: July 4, 2 - 5 p.m.
July 4 - August 8

401 Richmond Street West, Suite 376
www.trinitysquarevideo.com
(416) 593 - 1332

Missing persons website adds new hope

Posted By Bobby Roy
Posted 1 hour ago

Every family’s worst nightmare is to hear that a loved one has gone missing, and going through every waking moment worrying about where they could be isn’t easy.

In the every missing persons case, closure is what the family and friends connected to them want and with a help of a new tool, giving the stricken family members and friends closure will be easier to do.

A new website designed to work with the public’s help is hoping to bring some much needed closure to the families of missing persons.

“We have started a website called albertamissingpersons.ca as a new tool for both the public and police to help close missing persons cases,” said Camille Fedoruk, research analyst for Project KARE.

According to kare.ca Project KARE is an investigational unit, created with the highest priority to examine the deaths of several “High Risk Missing Persons” who have been found in the surrounding rural areas of the City of Edmonton. One of the objectives of Project KARE is to investigate all leads, capture and prosecute the person(s) responsible for these crimes.

The new website has been launched with the help of Law Enforcement Agencies and Alberta Medical Examiners to profile the 300 plus missing persons that have been reported in Alberta so that either they will be found alive or their remains can be identified.

“So far I’ve put about 180 of the missing person cases on the website along with seven or eight unidentified human remains cases,” said Fedoruk.

The website contains brief but important verification information about each missing person in hopes that someone out there looking at the site can identify a missing person or unidentified human remains. Each case can contain a photo of the missing person, how long they have been missing for, physical descriptions, where they were last seen, a recent photo, and who to call. Fedoruk along with Cst. Kay Vera and Cst. Roland Mislk were out at the Leduc Scale on June 3 for the Driver Appreciation barbeque to help spread information about the website.

The scale is located on the QEII highway, south of Leduc.

“It takes just one phone call and the trucking industry has such an exposure on the highways.

“A lot of these individuals who go missing lead a high risk lifestyle and that’s why we’re here. Hopefully it might jog someone’s memory,” said Fedoruk.

The website has already had success in British Columbia where a man who had been missing since 2000 was identified through some human remains that someone had seen on the website.

“Just by using one word, like a tattoo, a certain piercing, birthmark or a fracture it makes it easier to identify a person,” said Fedoruk.

“These missing people all have a dad, a mom, a brother and all they want is some sort of closure even if it the worst possible scenario and by launching this website it definitely gives the public and police another tool to help solve these cases,” said Fedoruk.

Anyone who has any information in regards to a missing person is asked to

call the investigating agency for each

missing person that can be found on the newly launched website albertamissingpersons.ca or call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.

© 2009 , Sun Media

3rd Annual Women's Housing March and March Against Poverty!

Sat June 13 @ 1:30 pm. Starts outside Downtown Eastside Women Centre (302 Columbia- corner Cordova, just west of Main)

On Saturday June 13, join women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Women Centre Power of Women Group in the 3rd Annual March for Women's Housing and March Against Poverty! Everyone welcome!

We are marching for:
- Social Housing, Childcare, and Healthcare for all!
- No more Evictions and No more Condos in the DTES!
- People Before Olympic Profits!
- Stop Criminalizing the Poor and Scrap Civil City!

For more information contact project at dewc.ca or call 604-681-8480 x 234

Victoria cuts off funds to service that protects sex-trade workers

BY REBECCA TEBRAKE, VANCOUVER SUN JUNE 3, 2009

VANCOUVER — An advocate for Vancouver sex-trade workers says they will soon be at greater risk because the B.C. government has cut off funding for a van that cruises the streets at night, watching out for the women.

Losing the van means a greater risk of violence and less access to harm-reduction supplies, first aid, and bad-date reports in the overnight hours when sex workers are most active, said Kate Gibson, executive director of the WISH Drop-in Centre.

The van, which supplies the only overnight services to sex workers, is stocked with condoms, first-aid supplies, a needle exchange, coffee, fruit juice, water, referrals to support services, and posters showing missing women and dangerous johns.

It stops along the most popular strolls or at specific locations requested by sex workers. Each night, 40 to 50 women show up for supplies, support or companionship over a cup of coffee. The van’s last run will be on June 12.

The province, citing financial pressure, has not renewed the $250,000 needed to keep the van for the summer.

The solicitor-general’s ministry said the project’s funding request is under review.

“The provincial government, like other jurisdictions around the world, is facing challenging and unprecedented economic times, requiring some difficult decisions,” the ministry said in a statement Wednesday to The Vancouver Sun.

Laurel Irons, who has staffed the van since 2004, said sex workers “are already very upset, concerned and feel just really left out in the cold, wondering why such an important service to them is being taken away.”

Irons said she has intervened at times when sex workers were stalked, pepper-sprayed and assaulted.

“I don’t know what a lot of women are going to do without having somewhere to turn in those desperate moments,” she said.

Kate Shannon, a research scientist at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, said services that keep sex work above-ground are essential for ensuring women’s health.

“We need to scale up mobile services to sex workers. The closure of the mobile access-point van is a huge step backwards,” Shannon said.

The City of Vancouver is considering how it can help restore funding, Coun. Kerry Jang said.

rtebrake@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Megaphone Magazine Office

Megaphone Magazine Office,
originally uploaded by seanthecon3000.

Megaphone set to open office in DTES
It has been quite a year for Megaphone. Since we renamed the magazine from Street Corner to Megaphone a little over a year ago, we have produced 30 hard-hitting and entertaining issues that have put thousands of dollars into the pockets of the homeless and low-income vendors who sell the magazine on the street and helped raise awareness across the city about poverty and homelessness across the city.

By Sean Condon

Lock up the addicts until they're clean

BY ETHAN BARON, THE PROVINCEJUNE 3, 2009

There is no logic here.

Those are the words of Vancouver police Const. Brenda Burridge, talking about the Downtown Eastside, her beat for the past six years.

Those five words say it all.

Where is the logic in thousands of people taking drugs that turn their lives into a miserable shuffle toward death?

Where is the logic in warehousing addicts in a neighbourhood where drugs are sold on every block?

Where is the logic in letting these addicts suck tens of millions of dollars a year out of our taxes and personal property while the government does virtually nothing to treat their addictions?

Where is the logic in funding hundreds of social agencies whose primary purpose is supporting people who are locked into drug dependency?

On a recent visit to the Downtown Eastside, I spent two hours walking the beat with Burridge and Const. Claire Addey-Jibb, who spent a great deal of time searching addicts who were huddled in doorways and alleys, smoking and injecting crack and cocaine and shooting heroin.

"Pull your pants up, gather your things up and go back to your room," Burridge told one man after he scattered his tiny amount of cocaine when caught preparing to inject it in a Blood Alley courtyard.

Here's some logic: Take these addicts and lock them up until they're clean.

Make them stop breaking into our cars, breaking into our homes. Make them stop visiting the emergency room dozens of times a year. Make them stop turning downtown Vancouver into a showcase of urban blight.

Make them become the people they could have been had they not become drug addicts.

These people, in the grip of their addictions, cannot be responsible for making decisions for themselves.

They need to be forced into long-term drug treatment.

There are those who say that if an addict doesn't want to quit, rehabilitation will fail. But an addict who is busy feeding his addiction is not the person to decide whether he should get drug treatment. He needs to be locked up and detoxified, then put through a rehabilitation program whether he likes it or not. Once he's out of the grasp of the drugs, he'll be much more likely to see the benefits of rehab and become a willing participant.

Many addicts, as well, have mental illnesses that make them even less capable of making responsible decisions.

There are those who say we have no right to force people to get their addictions treated, that doing so violates their civil rights.

Sorry. They lose their right to live as drug addicts when they start using our tax money and stealing our property to pay for their addicted lives. And we have a moral duty to step in and help people unable to cope with their problems, an imperative we are presently failing to achieve.

Lack of drug treatment stands as the primary reason for the social catastrophe in the Downtown Eastside, says Al Arsenault, a former Vancouver police officer who worked close to 15 years on Vancouver's skid-row beat.

What Vancouver needs, says Arsenault, won't come cheap.

"The best treatment is the therapeutic-community model," says Arsenault. "That's the solution. Anything else -- throwing boxes of needles at somebody -- is not the answer. It just keeps people stuck where they are."

While the best examples of the therapeutic-community approach are found in Italy, where success rates top 70 per cent, the model can be applied in B.C. on a scale to fit the need, Arsenault says.

Short-term treatment of 30 to 90 days functions merely as detox, he says.

Addicts in treatment need to be housed under constant supervision, living under rules, sharing in chores and receiving training, education and coaching to prepare for re-integration into society, he says.

"You've got to have long-term treatment," Arsenault says. "It's more expensive [but] in the long term, it pays off."

Addiction-related costs from policing, the courts, health care, imprisonment and theft are massive, and the loss of productivity adds a huge social and economic cost, he says.

"The loss of human potential is staggering," says Arsenault, a strong advocate for forced rehabilitation who has seen addicts lose limbs to drug-related infections.

"We should say, 'Look, you're losing your arm. You're losing your life. You've lost your job. You've lost your family. So I'm putting you in treatment.'"

Understandably, many law-abiding, taxpaying citizens object to proposals to spend hundreds of millions of dollars setting up and running costly long-term treatment programs for junkies and crackheads.

But we're already spending almost a million dollars a day on the Downtown Eastside, much of the money going to support addicted lives, while doing little to end the problem. Non-profit social agencies provide important damage control, and save many lives, but the ultimate effect is to keep addicts warehoused in our ghetto, a black hole that sucks in the vulnerable and wrecks their lives.

Without court-imposed long-term addiction treatment, we're going to be spending that million dollars a day forever.

It would be far more cost-effective to invest in rehab programs and facilities that would actually pull people out of that hellhole and back into productive society.

It's easy to judge people who have chosen to destroy their own lives and live off the rest of us. But for those, like Arsenault, who have spent years getting to know the stories behind the addictions, humanity overcomes condemnation.

"I don't judge people for being drug addicts," says Arsenault, a driving force behind the Odd Squad educational films spotlighting addicts in the Downtown Eastside. "I was never date-raped when I was 14. I didn't see my father blow his head off with his shotgun.

"There's some really nice people under the scabs and sores and dirt."

At the Welcome Home Society in Surrey, where addicts spend an average of two years getting clean and preparing to become productive citizens, costs run to about $65 a day per resident, or just under $24,000 a year.

Data on success rates are not available because the facility has been operating on a small scale for four years in preparation for an expansion this summer, says director Len Jahn. But those who have graduated so far have done well, Jahn says.

"They're not drains on society," Jahn says. "They're gainfully employed. They're in good, healthy relationships."

To keep someone in a Canadian prison costs nearly three times what it costs to treat an addict at Welcome Home, which is funded primarily by former United Furniture Warehouse owner John Volken.

It's a safe bet that each untreated addict is costing us way more than $24,000 a year in costs related to theft, health care, policing, welfare, jails and the court system.

And each untreated addict represents not only a personal failure, but the failure of our society to assist human beings who cannot help themselves.

Having judges lock them up to clean them up would save us a pile of money, improve thousands of tortured lives and boost the economy.

There's logic in that.

Do you agree with Ethan Baron? Take our poll.

E-mail columnist Ethan Baron at ebaron@theprovince.com

For the latest on Operation Phoenix throughout our series, go to theprovince.com/news/operation-phoenix

91 per cent did not have a high-school diploma

40 per cent had completed Grade 9 or lower

18 per cent were homeless

26 per cent had been raised in foster care or residential schools

33 per cent had other family members in the sex trade

73 per cent began sex work before their 18th birthday

99 per cent had been victims of violence

73 per cent had been sexually abused as children

62 per cent had been sexually assaulted in the previous six months

98 per cent had experienced a "bad date," involving abuse, robbery or being dumped, in the previous six months

ebaron@theprovince.com

© Copyright (c) The Province