There was an interesting case decided on January 20, 2007 that made headlines across Canada. The case was the trial of Kim Walker. Walker was convicted of second degree murder for the killing of a drug dealer. The verdict, if it stands, means a sentence of life imprisonment. There are always two sides to a story and this one is no different. According to Walker and his supporters, Walker went to the home of 24 year old James Hayward and shot him 5 times in order to rescue his then 16-year-old daughter, Jadah Walker, from a life-threatening drug addiction and a toxic relationship with Hayward, the man she lived with. Hayward’s family views him as a kind man who shared with Jadah Walker a debilitating morphine addiction but never had a chance to turn his life around before Walker killed him.
What is interesting and leads me ask whether judges are expected to read cases released by the Supreme Court is that during the trial judge’s instructions to the jury in the Walker case, Justice Pritchard told the jury that an acquittal was not an option.
Similar conduct by a trial judge was the issue before the Supreme Court in October 2006. After hearing the evidence in the case of marijuana activist Grant Krieger the trial judge directed the jury to find him guilty. The Supreme Court determined that the decision of the jury is theirs alone and the trial judge cannot direct them to make a finding of guilt.
While the jury was deliberating, the Krieger case was brought to the attention of Pritchard who commented that it was “terribly unfortunate” that neither she, nor the prosecutor or the defense lawyer had heard of the Krieger decision. Here is one explanation of the situation. According to the Edmonton Sun, University of Alberta law professor Sanjeev Anand noted that judges generally aren’t specialists and depend on lawyers knowing the law “I think the blame has to be at the feet of counsel.” Wait a second, it is the judge that is responsible for instructing the jury on the law. I would hope that they are specialists.
Following Walker’s conviction his lawyer indicated he planned to appeal and that one of the grounds would be that Justice Pritchard should not have instructed the jury that an acquittal was not an option.
You have to wonder why Justice Pritchard had never heard of the Krieger case which had been released approximately two and a half months earlier. I keep in mind that judges have many duties and may hear many more cases than those for which they give written decisions. A search of CanLii resulted in seven decisions written by Justice Pritchard between January 1, 2006 and January 25, 2007. That is less than one per month.
Taking this into account is the Supreme Court issuing so many decisions that it is not reasonable to expect someone to review them all? According to the CanLii website in 2006 there were a total of 21 criminal decisions of varying length released by the Supreme Court. Ten of these were released during the months of October, November and December 2006. On average these were busy months but that is only still three decisions to read a month.
If I am able to link to the decisions of the Supreme Court on the internet, access to the decisions must not be a problem. This brings me back to the question as to whether judges are expected to read cases from the Supreme Court. If not, how does one have any confidence in the justice system. Think of this system as your car and the law as the manual to repair it. Would you expect your mechanic to review the updates to the manual?
