Source: The Globe and Mail
RCMP officer Monty Robinson receives obstructing justice charge in crash that left 21-year-old Tsawwassen man dead
BRITISH COLUMBIA - he could tell you about the pain she deals with – the excruciating reminders of her son Orion's too-short life that she confronts virtually every day. But for now, Judith Hutchinson prefers to keep it to herself.
“Nothing can repair our pain or replace our loss,” Ms. Hutchinson said, speaking for herself and daughter, Daria.
“We can only hope and pray that this case plays out in a way that demands some accountability and brings some justice.”
Yes, this case. This increasingly disturbing case.
Ms. Hutchinson's son died on Oct. 25, 2008. Orion, 21, was driving his motorcycle in the Vancouver suburb of Tsawwassen when he was struck by a vehicle driven by one Monty Robinson. And if the name sounds familiar, it should.
He is RCMP Corporal Benjamin Robinson, the officer in charge during a Mountie takedown of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver airport in October, 2007, that ended in the Polish immigrant's death.
Cpl. Robinson was off duty when he plowed into Mr. Hutchinson. He blew over the limit when police tested him for alcohol consumption less than two hours after the collision.
Delta police handled the investigation. A matter that is often completed in days when it involves a civilian dragged on for seven months. In June, 2009, the municipal police department recommended charges of impaired and dangerous driving causing death.
But that wasn't the end of it.
The police report was turned over to the criminal justice branch of the Attorney-General's Ministry. And it would be months again before a decision on whether to go ahead with charges was reached. On Tuesday, the Crown decided against charging Cpl. Robinson with impaired driving, but recommended pressing forward with the lesser charge of attempting to obstruct justice.
No reasons were given. No justification for what surely is a head-scratcher given that police felt there was evidence to charge Mr. Robinson with driving while under the influence. Not only that, but the Crown decision also ignored a related judgment made in the Supreme Court of B.C. earlier this year.
Mr. Justice Mark McEwan dismissed a petition by Cpl. Robinson to have the suspension of his driver's licence lifted. (Yes, three days after the collision Mr. Robinson appealed the suspension of his license). The judge looked at all the facts and didn't believe the Mountie's story. Oh, yes, the story. We almost forgot.
Mr. Robinson told police he likely blew over the limit because he left the scene of the crash for 10 minutes to walk his children home. This before police arrived. At home, he said, he downed two shots of vodka. He maintained he had only two beers at a party before the collision.
But the officers at the scene said Mr. Robinson's eyes were bloodshot, pupils dilated and his speech slurred. The judge didn't believe that could have been the result of two shots of vodka 10 minutes earlier. The judge said there wasn't even any evidence that he'd gone home and couldn't imagine him doing so when a young man was dying on the ground.
Obviously, this is a sensitive case because it involves not only an RCMP officer but one at the centre of the Dziekanski case. If the Crown wanted to overturn the recommendations of a police investigation and disregard the observations of a Supreme Court justice it was certainly within its rights to do so. But it also had an obligation to justify itself.
The Crown handles potentially explosive cases all the time. And when it makes a decision on charges, it usually releases an explanatory report. It didn't in this case, saying the matter is before the courts.
This appears to be complete and utter nonsense.
Releasing the report would not have compromised any trial. But it would have meant the Justice Department would have had to reveal why it bought Mr. Robinson's two-shots-of-vodka story when others didn't.
I'm hoping there is another reason the Crown didn't release its full report. One that it can't talk about now.
When this case gets to court, which could take years at the rate it's been travelling, Mr. Robinson could be found guilty of obstruction of justice. The Crown refuses to say what that charge stems from but it usually implies some effort to interfere with or influence an investigation.
A conviction, however, is unlikely to lead to much more than a fine and probation.
As for the accountability and justice that Judith Hutchinson is looking for, at the moment that appears very much in doubt.
Source: Vancouver Sun
Legal ramifications of fatal crash give pause for thought
BRITISH COLUMBIA - Forthwith, it shall ever be known as The Full Monty Defence.
You drink and drive. Maybe enough to blow over the limit, maybe not: Only an onsite breathalyser test would be able to establish that fact. Soon after, you get into a collision.
Rather than staying at the scene of the crash, as the law and common decency demand, you leave because, say, your wife phoned and told you someone was trying to break into your house. Once at home, you, shaken but not stirred, imbibe. Mightily. You down a quick couple of generous shots to calm your nerves. Only then do you return. There, you are taken into custody by the attending police, take a breathalyser test and -- no surprise -- blow over the limit.
Your defence? Your blowing over the limit was a result of alcohol ingestion after the collision, not before. So no harm, no foul.
And the $54-million question is: What lesson, as citizens who may one day be involved in a serious car crash, can we learn from this scenario?
That question -- asked only after I had spit up my morning coffee on the pages of The Vancouver Sun -- came to mind when I read that RCMP Cpl. Benjamin (Monty) Robinson, who was involved in the Oct. 25, 2008, crash that killed 21-year-old Orion Hutchinson, would not be charged with impaired driving causing death, dangerous driving or a collision resulting in death. He would be charged only with the lesser charge of attempting to obstruct justice.
The case, I should say now, is close to home. In Tsawwassen, where I live, and where the collision occurred, the outcome of the Delta police force's investigation into that crash has been closely watched. Lots of people in town know Orion Hutchinson's mother, Judith, a popular personal trainer who, before Orion's death, had an irrepressible and upbeat energy. I also happen to know Judith personally, and wrote about her in The Sun when she helped me train for the Sun Run. She's a lovely woman.
So the Crown's decision to pursue the lesser of the charges came as -- how do I put this delicately? -- a surprise. Earlier in the year, when Robinson attempted to get a 90-day driver's licence suspension overturned, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan denied the request because he found Robinson's claim that he drank only two shots of vodka after the collision not credible. Justice McEwan also noted in his judgment that police at the scene believed Robinson's demeanour, which included slurred speech and bloodshot eyes, indicated he had more than two shots.
But laying a drinking and driving charge is another thing. The criminal justice branch wouldn't comment, but the Crown is there to determine what will stand up in court and what won't, and in this case, I'd guess, the Crown may have felt the lack of continuity between the time of the crash and the time Robinson made himself available to police was problematic. Could the police guarantee a substantial likelihood of conviction, as the charge approval standard demands? The Crown, apparently, thought not, and went for the lesser charge.
"In situations where there's a gap in time," said Michael Shapray, a Vancouver lawyer who does a lot of drinking and driving cases, "it's near impossible to prove the charges. ... If the evidence raises a reasonable doubt [in this case, the difficulty of establishing exactly when Robinson drank what], it would result in acquittal."
Was this kind of scenario, Shapray was asked, common in drinking and driving cases?
"Well, I wouldn't say 'common,'" Shapray said, "but it's not an unusual scenario."
Drinking and driving cases are often complicated, and a whole area of law has sprung up around them despite the fact that the trend in numbers of DUIs has been steadily falling over the last 25 years.
Still, the numbers are high. In 2006-2007, there were 14,596 incidents reported by police in B.C., with charges resulting in 8,772 of them. Of those 8,772 cases, just over 7,500 resulted in conviction, which is a good success rate of 86 per cent of those charged, but it's just over 50 per cent of all reported incidents. The odds for conviction, for police at least, are not inspiring.
Back to our question:
What, as citizens who may one day be involved in a serious car crash, can we learn from the Robertson case?
I put the question to SFU criminology Prof. David MacAlister, who, in a news release Wednesday, wondered in print why Robinson was not charged with failure to stop at the scene of a collision. (I had wondered the same thing, if only because it seemed counterintuitive for a police officer not only to not remain at the scene of a collision, but to not aid someone mortally hurt at the scene of a collision.)
MacAlister laughed when I asked him the question, because he had just been on radio, and before he had gone on, he said, he had asked that he not be asked that question on air, and he was a little ticked off because the interviewer had turned around and asked him the question, anyway.
And why, I asked him, did he not want that question asked on air?
"Because I didn't want the public to get the idea that here was a good way to beat a drinking and driving charge."
I admired MacAlister for that sense of civic duty. I was also sure members of the public had made note of that lesson whether he had said that on radio or not.
I was also sure that, despite whatever happened on that October night in Tsawwassen, the majority of them would still do the right thing.
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