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Making criminals into victims * 2 Nov 2010 Our justice system spends more resources on guarding the rights of the criminals than the civilian victims. he lessons of Tony Martin of England, David Chen of Toronto, and Brian Knight and Joseph Singleton both of Alberta, is that the justice system has lost touch with its original purpose — to dispense justice and punishment on behalf of the people. These four cases show the justice system increasingly believes protection of persons and property is a task solely for police. Civilians have no right to defend themselves or their loved ones, their homes, farms or businesses, whether or not police can respond quickly enough to calls of break-and-enter or assault. Meanwhile, prosecutors act as if the justice system has something more important to do than protect the public. Over the past four decades, so much of the system’s time and resources have been focused on guarding the rights of the accused and rehabilitating convicts that the Crown seems to see ordinary people as outsiders. Tony Martin is an English farmer whose remote property had been burgled several times. Martin claims that each time police were slow to respond. On what he insists was the 11th occurrence — in August 1999 — Martin found two thieves in his home in the middle of the night. He grabbed a shotgun and fired a blast at each of them as they were attempting to climb out a window. One of the two died, the other suffered a leg wound. The wounded burglar was given three years in prison; Martin was sentenced to life for murdering the man’s accomplice. Later the British justice system awarded the wounded man more than $10,000 in legal aid so he could sue Martin for the lingering effects of his injuries. Martin spent longer in prison than the burglar and was only able to have his sentence reduced because he agreed to tell an appeal court earlier burglaries had given him a mental disorder, so that when he shot the two prowlers he was suffering from “diminished capacity.” Although England is the cradle of modern liberty, it has in recent decades gone a long way towards nanny-statehood. Canada now seems headed down the same path. David Chen is the Toronto greengrocer who, last year, apprehended a shoplifter with over 40 previous convictions and a criminal record going back more than 30 years. Chen and two of his employees caught Anthony Bennett in an alley next to Chen’s store, tied him up and held him in the back of a van until police arrived. For their troubles, they were charged with assault, kidnapping and forcible confinement. Thankfully, Chen was acquitted last week, but he never should have been charged. Brian Knight farms in central Alberta. One night last year, he heard three thieves stealing equipment from his farmyard — again. He gave chase and caught one who was riding away on a quad, but not before Knight had shot the thief in the leg. Knight was charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm, assault and dangerous driving. Then this past May, on an acreage outside Taber, Joseph Singleton came home with his wife to find a strange car in their driveway. He blocked its exit with his own vehicle, then entered his home and discovered it ransacked. When he went back outside, one of the thieves was ramming Singleton’s vehicle and, according to Singleton’s lawyer, gunning the getaway car in the direction of Mrs. Singleton. The 46-year-old oilfield consultant took the flat side of a hatchet and hit the thief twice in the face. Days ago, RCMP charged Singleton with assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm — more serious charges than those laid against the burglars. The biggest similarity between the Chen and Singleton cases is the way police and prosecutors sided with the criminals against the civilians. In the Toronto case, the Crown cut a deal with the thief to reduce his sentence in return for testimony against the grocer who caught him. And in the Singleton case, the Alberta homeowner was never interviewed by police before being charged. Charges have been brought solely on the say-so of the criminals. This is what I mean about the justice system becoming a closed shop in which criminals are treated with the respect afforded insiders and the public are treated as interlopers. Even gun control confirms justice has been turned on its head. We don’t control criminals’ guns; it would be almost impossible to do so. So instead we spend billions controlling the guns of law-abiding citizens. Ever wonder why criminals have become bolder over the last generation? They know fewer Canadians have guns. They know that if they are caught, their sentences will be short. And they are increasingly aware that the enforcers of our laws — police, prosecutors and courts — are at odds with the public. Maybe we should call it the criminals’ justice system, rather than the criminal justice system. |