Go ahead, Ms. Daenzer.
Evidence of meeting #76 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was trial.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #76 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was trial.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
As an Individual
I'm fairly sure that court staff, like court reporters and interpreters, receive access to counselling because they sit in those court rooms every day. Maybe the same person who is available to them could become available to jurors at the end of the day, if they feel the need to or go back.
As Patrick said, some people can walk away from a trial and say, “Okay, we're good. I'm good.” Some people may not be able to survive without having counselling.
I don't think it has to be mandated, but I think it needs to be offered. At the end of a trial that is particularly gruesome, the courts can say, “This is available to you. Please feel free.”
Some people, like these gentlemen, were employed. I was not employed. I was a stay-at-home mom. As a stay-at-home mom or a senior citizen, I don't have access to company benefits, so this comes out of my own pocket, if I am not offered it through the court system. How do those people—what do you say? “I can't afford to go to see a counsellor that charges me $300 an hour 20 times.”
As citizens, we are doing our duty. In turn, I think the country has to do its duty to provide for us.
4:20 p.m.
As an Individual
I would like to echo the other witnesses as well, regarding the quality across all the provinces. I was lucky enough to be employed by an employer who had the benefits of the EAP program and it worked out tremendously for me. I would even say that coordinating those benefits that are already available to those who are lucky enough to have them with those that would be prescribed by the legislation you may be proposing or the recommendations coming out of this would certainly help as well and maybe lighten the burden a little bit financially.
That's about it.
Thank you.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you very much. Sorry about that.
You're next, Mr. Fraser.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being here today and sharing your stories. Your testimony was very compelling and I think it has left an impression on all of us around this table.
We certainly appreciate all that you have done, not only in your jury duty service, but also in taking the time to prepare for this, to come, and to give thoughtful suggestions about how we can improve this for other people who will be jurors in the future. I think it's a testament to your feelings for our country not only to have gone through the jury duty service and to have taken it seriously but also to have taken the time to come here. I appreciate that.
In Nova Scotia where I'm from, I know there are instances of people not showing up for jury duty. The courts have commented that it is an extremely important part of our judicial system. As governments, we need to make sure that we're there to support jurors, so that when they are doing the honourable thing and doing their civic duty, they know they have the support and that we will have their back.
I hope out of this will follow constructive recommendations based on your testimony and the testimony of those witnesses who will follow.
Mr. Farrant, I'd like to start with you. It was touched on a moment ago that some cases will more likely result in the need for support for jurors than will others, particularly gruesome cases, like what you have described here today.
Do you have any suggestions as to how the courts would differentiate between certain cases? Would there be any benefit to, in certain cases, having a mandatory check-in with the jurors on the way out, almost like a post-jury interview, so to speak, to ensure that not only are they aware of all of the services but also that, if they do have problems in the future, there are supports they can come back and utilize?
4:25 p.m.
As an Individual
I think amending and improving the discharge process is necessary. I can only speak to the one in Ontario, the one that I experienced myself, which was a non-discharge. Aside from sharing a cup of tea with the justice, we left the courthouse really abruptly. I was shocked that there wasn't any formal debrief. As I was delivering the verdict in court and getting ready to exit, I was expecting there to be a very structured, judicial-type discharge, something very formal about what's expected of a juror: you've been a juror; this is what is expected of you if you're contacted by the media, or if somebody asks you about the case, or any of those things. There's nothing.
To your question about a post-trial follow-up or some sort of interview with each of the jurors, I think giving them access to and an understanding of what's expected of them once they've gone through a decompression period would help a great deal. Again, having a program or someone to talk to when you need it, at no expense, and taking some of that burden away would be incredibly valuable.
Pre-trial you don't have that opportunity. I think that's part of why the system is as it is. It's that you don't want to opinionate a juror by saying that a trial will contain graphic evidence and will contain subject matter that is going to be deeply disturbing, because we don't want jurors to be prejudiced and form an opinion of or an emotional response to the evidence they're going to see. The evidence has to speak for itself, and the trial has to unravel as it will. That's the burden of the juror. That's just part of the job. I think that's not going to go away, and I don't expect that we can change that.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
I think that's a good observation.
Section 649 of the Criminal Code is basically the jury secrecy rule that says you're not allowed to discuss deliberations with anyone. Do any of you have any thoughts on how that could pose a difficult challenge for somebody who's gone through this and who wants to talk to a mental health professional after the fact?
4:25 p.m.
As an Individual
That component is incredibly difficult. I've never spoken about it to anybody, and I never will. That's going to go to my grave. Having somebody who is, for lack of a better term, bonded.... If it's possible, having an avenue to talk about some of the difficulties in that case without violating the statutes of the Criminal Code with respect to deliberation and the like may be incredibly helpful. The stress and ill health that some jurors have felt has come from.... Imagine going through an 18-month trial and being deadlocked and not being able to deliver a verdict and the case concluding there. The cries from victims' families in the courtroom, the outrage, the enormous guilt the individual feels.... It's the facts that were not able to deliver a verdict; it's not the jurors who weren't able to do it. It's the facts in the case that weren't sufficient to deliver a verdict. That's the issue, but it doesn't matter because the individual feels that, and they carry that guilt and that sense of shame with them for the rest of their lives. Again, they can't talk about it.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
Do others have any comment on that, about an exclusion perhaps for a mental health professional to discuss these items that are part of that deliberation?
4:30 p.m.
As an Individual
I think it would be a good idea. I know that being behind closed doors with 11 other people that you may not otherwise choose to be around when you're trying to do your civic duty can be difficult. I've heard that the greatest stress of a case can be from being behind those doors and not being able to talk about it. We take this job, this civic duty, very seriously and we don't let that out. Maybe there's a need to do that. I'm not sure.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
4:30 p.m.
As an Individual
I agree.
After the Bernardo trial ended, I was only sequestered for one evening, and basically I got the question, “What took you so long?” You can't answer that. You can't discuss what the other people in the room would like to do or not like to do. If there were a court-appointed psychologist who was already sworn to confidentiality, that would certainly alleviate some of that pressure.
Again, you've seen the evidence and you've decided that the person is guilty, but as Patrick said, you are still sending that person to federal prison for the rest of their life. You shouldn't feel guilty, but somewhere deep down you still do. Talking through those things could be quite helpful.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you very much.
Now we're going to go to a free round of questions in which we'll just take the questions people have.
Mr. Liepert, you'll go first. Then we'll go to Mr. Sikand, Mr. MacGregor, back to Mr. Fraser, and we'll see what happens after that.
Mr. Liepert.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you all for being here.
I'm not going to repeat what everyone has said, but I certainly concur with what has been said.
I would also say that it seems that everything you have recommended today is so obvious that I can't believe our court systems haven't been doing this prior to now. In politics, sometimes you wonder how this has gone on so long without somebody doing something about it. Thank you for coming forward to make these recommendations.
I think we've covered much of what you're here for, but I'd like to explore something a little different, for which there also may be a need.
Ms. Daenzer, you mentioned the court clerks and the staff who have to go through this on a daily basis. I know someone who was a court clerk and ended up quitting the job, not because of what you said, but because he became so angry, in that particular instance, at people getting off when they shouldn't have gotten off, that sort of stuff.
For a juror, is there an anger that builds up? It's human that I hear or see things on the news that make me angry. Is there an anger that builds up, when you're a juror, that you take away with you and that is in you for the rest of your life? Is that something else that needs to be dealt with?
4:30 p.m.
As an Individual
Oh, certainly. Ms. Homolka is living a very wonderful life. That was pretty hard to swallow and made everybody there angry—you build this anger—because, of course, she was part of the testimony of the trial.
It's very hard to understand. We're not lawyers. We're not a part of the justice system. We're just ordinary citizens. We don't understand how the justice system works and why she got this deal and is walking scot-free after 12 years. These things are very embittering to us as citizens.
Having somebody to help you with those issues might be useful. I can understand, certainly, that for the clerk who has to see it over and over again it would be traumatic.
4:35 p.m.
As an Individual
Maybe that anger could manifest while behind closed doors. The jurors' code of conduct isn't always the best, and if it's not spoken, it's not seen.
4:35 p.m.
As an Individual
The embittering, I think, occurs in some of those individuals who have gone through a lengthy, complicated, brutal court case that in the end is deadlocked. That's a terribly difficult pill to swallow. Those individuals—and I've spoken to many of them—are very damaged, different people as a result of it. The manner in which they interact with society has changed. They ask, “Why am I even bothering anymore?” They lose faith in government and the apparatus and the like. It's completely understandable, and it's not their fault.
4:35 p.m.
As an Individual
Personally, I don't have the anger. I think I'm just more sensitive to things that are going on around me in certain areas.
I'm a big, burly guy who's kind of a teddy bear inside, and that has gone even further down the road. I'm able to talk to people in regular life; they don't know what I'm carrying around. They don't know about my bag of tricks that's over my shoulder. To deal with that, just to go out to play hockey, etc., nobody knows, and it's nice to not have to deal with it. In one sense, it's a kind of escapism, and in the other sense, I'm just very well aware, especially with regard to children, in terms of what went I through, of what could happen out there. Carrying that with me all the time is sometimes tough.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I too would like to start by acknowledging and thanking you for your sense of duty and your belief in the civic system. This was very disturbing to hear about, so I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in those rooms.
Having said that, I'd also like to say that if any of my questions come across as deprecating or diminishing, they're not meant to be. I just want to extract as much information as I possibly can.
I'm going to start with you, Mr. Glew. You were talking about a pamphlet or an education package that would be beneficial during the vetting process. Could you speak to that a bit in terms of how we could figure out whether some people would be better fit to serve by knowing what they're about to see? I'm coming at that question because you said you had a two-year-old son as well. If that could have been acknowledged and taken into account, maybe you wouldn't have been chosen for that trial. How beneficial would a compatibility package or program be at the beginning?