What would be your decision? (Part 1)

Most people are not in a position to make decisions which can have an effect on a person’s employment or freedom. But if you were in a position to make decisions in the following cases, what would be your decision?

Case 1:

In June 2010, the City of Toronto hosted the G20 conference in which 20 leaders from 20 nations attended the conference. The security was extremely tight but unfortunately, a great deal of police abuse took place during that conference and hundreds of citizens who had committed no crimes were hunted down in various parts of the city, arrested and placed in a makeshift jail for several days. Almost all of them were later acquitted of any wrongdoing or they were released by the police without any charges being laid against them.

The Toronto Police Services has had a policy in effect for many years and that policy is that if a police officer is in uniform, he is required to have on his uniform, his name tag. The reason is obvious. If he assaults a citizen for whatever reason, the citizen will know who assaulted him because of the name tag on the police officer’s uniform.

Every police force has scumbags in them who should never ever be hired as police officers in the first place and that includes the 90 police officers who were securing the area of the G20 conference who chose not to put their name tags on their uniforms. The reason why they chose not to place their name tags on their uniforms was so that if they abused any of the citizens, no one could identify them later. Those officers are the kind of filth communities don’t need in their police forces. Responsible police forces don’t hire thugs who blatantly disobey the directions of their superiors.

These 90 thugs were disciplined when each of them were given a one-day suspension without pay. Their police chief, Bill Blair (who is one of the more dimmer lights in the community) decided that nine of these thugs are now eligible to be promoted. In the past, the Board had passively pushed through the reclassification recommendation from Chief Blair including promotions for officers whose previous actions were on their records as being unbecoming as police officers. Members of the Board felt uneasy about officers who had shown questionable character being promoted. Now the Toronto police board has made a ruling that nine police thugs who chose to go into the streets without their name tags and who were due for promotions, would be refused the promotions.

The Toronto Police Association then stepped into the fray. Their leadership will go to bat for any cop, no matter how bad he is. After all, even the bad cops pay their dues to the Association. With respect to the denial of promotions, it is Association’s position that once a person has been punished, he can no longer be punished again for the same offence.

Our Constitution deals with this problem. Section 11, subsection (h) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that any person charged with an offence and; "if finally found guilty and (is)punished for the offence, (he is) not to be tried or punished for it again.” This is also known as the rule against double jeopardy. But does that section apply to promotions?

A judge who is found guilty of a criminal offence can be removed from the bench at a subsequent hearing. The same applies to a lawyer who is convicted of fraud and later convicted by his peers in the subsequent disbarment proceedings. A doctor who is convicted of sexually abusing a patient can be convicted in a court of law and later brought to trial in a professional hearing before the College of Physicians and Surgeons and struck from the rolls of the College. Does this constitute double jeopardy? I think not.

If a police officer who has a record of many complaints which have always been proven at the police hearings and the offending officer has been disciplined for those offences, does it not follow that that same officer can be subjected to another hearing to determine whether or not he should be dismissed from the police force?

I hardly think that constitutes double jeopardy either. If I am right, then why can’t a police board decide to refuse promotions for police officers whom they believe are unworthy of the promotions because of some act they committed while in uniform?

For example, suppose a police officer breaks a suspect’s arm and he is convicted of using unnecessary physical force in making the arrest. Does this mean that the police board cannot deny him a promotion? Would you as a citizen want a police officer who uses unnecessary force to arrest a suspect and breaks the suspect’s arm in the process, promoted to a higher rank? Alas, some really brutal Toronto police officers in the past have been promoted over and over again. It is almost if their promotions were as a reward for their brutality.

Admittedly, not wearing a name tag isn’t in the same sphere as breaking a suspect’s arm but there is one officer in the Toronto Police Service who did break a suspect’s arm during the G20 conference and he didn’t have a name tag on his uniform. It took quite a while before he was finally identified as a result of a video that was taken at the time. His fellow officers who were standing right next to the police thug claimed they didn’t know who he was. This tells you something of the calibre of some of the members of the Toronto Police Service. This is why it is absolutely necessary for all police officers in uniform to have their name tags on their uniforms. It is for this reason why the Toronto Police Board doesn’t want those nine officers promoted who refused to put their name tags on their uniforms.

The chairman of the Toronto Police Board maintains that denying a promotion is not a punishment. He is right because getting a promotion is not an automatic right. A promotion is a reward that is given to any employee who is deemed by the employer to be worthy of the promotion. The promotion can be in the form of enhanced responsibilities or enhanced pay or both. It follows that if any employee does something that the employer feels is improper, his employer has the right to deny the employee the promotion.

I am not suggesting that these nine cops shouldn’t be eventually promoted. But making them wait for at least a year will act as a specific deterrent for them and a general deterrent for the rest of the police force. There is no doubt that waiting an extra years will be a large financial loss to them but they brought that onto themselves. The message is clear. “If you don’t want a promotion, then don’t wear your name tags on your uniform.”

If you were to make the decision, would you give them an immediate promotion?

Case 2:

On August 30th 2011, a bus driver, 52-year-old William Ainsworth was driving a city bus in the City of Toronto and was travelling west on Lawrence Avenue East near The Donway East behind a flatbed truck carrying a lowered crane on its trailer. The bus driver may have tried to swerve around the slower-moving crane truck in an attempt to pass it.

A 43-year-old woman, Jadranka Petrova was seated on the left side of the raised platform behind the bus’s rear doors when the right front corner of the bus struck the left rear corner of the flatbed. As a result of the collision, the passengers were tossed around inside the bus. A woman was killed and 13 others in the bus were injured with broken teeth, broken noses, neck trauma and some of them were seriously injured.

Under a drug program introduced in 2010, the Toronto Transit Commission began to test new people being hired, workers suspected of being impaired on the job, and drivers involved in collisions. But when Ainsworth was asked to submit to a drug test after the collision, he refused to cooperate. The police discovered that while he was on the bus, he had in his duffle bag, a small quantity of drugs in his possession. It was marijuana. The police that arrived on the scene didn’t test him at that time for alcohol in his system because he didn’t appear to be intoxicated.

He was suspended by the TTC pending a further investigation. Police are meeting with Crown prosecutors this week to discuss possible charges related to the crash. The question that must be on many people’s minds is; should he be fired from his job?

The TTC said he has worked for them for about 10 years and has been commended for his job.

Many motorists do can make bad judgment decisions while driving on the road. It is conceivable that when this particular bus driver pulled over to his left to pass the flatbed ahead of him, the truck driver ahead of him may have suddenly slowed down; thereby the bus driver didn’t have a chance to avoid the collision. On the other hand, no driver should move into another lane without first making sure that he can so safely. If he is at fault, it was because of bad judgment on his part, to wit; he moved in the left lane without first ascertaining that the truck was far enough ahead of him so that he would have enough clearance ahead of him if the truck driver slowed down. If he was far enough back the bus driver could moved into the lane safely.

That bad judgment decision was a foolish one and in my opinion, the responsibilities of bus drivers is too great to permit drivers who make a bad judgment decision that costs a person his or her life to continue driving buses on the road. Now if that was all that he did that was wrong, I would say that he should be given another job with the TTC that would not involve driving a bus or any other TTC vehicle.

However, there are two other factors that must be considered. The first is that he knew that there is a zero policy with the TTC that its employees are not to put illicit drugs into their system. The fact that he had marijuana in his duffle bag is evidence that he is a user of marijuana. The fact that he had it in his duffle bag while on the bus is disturbing. This could imply that he uses it while driving the bus. But what I also find disturbing is that he knew that the TTC has a policy that states that any driver of a TTC vehicle that has an accident must submit to a drug test. He refused to submit to such a test after the accident occurred. I believe that may have been because he probably believed that the test result may show up as positive. I am not saying that he was using the drug since there was no test to prove it one way or another but the fact that he refused to take the test placed him in a bad light.

Because he refused to take the test and because he had marijuana in his duffle bag that was on the bus with him, I think he should be fired even if there had been no accident involved.

If you were to make the decision, would you fire him?

Case 3:

Nikita Eaglestick, age 23, was drinking alcohol in a home in Winnipeg when suddenly she snatched a stranger’s 14-month-old baby from its crib in the home and then took the baby to the sidewalk in front of its parent’s house and repeatedly pounded the baby’s head against the surface of the sidewalk. The baby was rescued by someone who was nearby. After spending two years in pre-trial custody, she pleaded guilty to the charges of abduction, assault causing bodily harm and failing to comply with an order to abstain from intoxicants.

Her lawyer told the judge that he is seeking a four year sentence but at the same time, he is asking the judge to give her credit for double the time served on the basis of that he felt that her two years in pre-trial custody was enough time in jail for those crimes without having to serve any more time.

The newspaper didn’t really say how serious the injuries to the baby were but it’s too early to say for sure but I strongly suspect that the baby will suffer permanent damage to her brain as a result of those head injuries it suffered from.

The fact that the woman was drunk is not a mitigating factor that should be in her favour. It would be no different than if she had fired a bullet into the baby’s head while she was drunk.

In my opinion, the woman is a danger to society. Many people get drunk when they imbibe too much but they don’t do what that woman did. There is something drastically wrong with her and if she were now released back into society, there is no guarantee that she wouldn’t do another dangerous act on some other innocent person.

I think that she should spend another two years in prison and that while she is there, she should receive psychiatric treatment.

If you were to make the decision, what would you decide?

Case 4:

Audley Horace Gardner, age 48 came to Canada from Jamaica 31 years ago when he was 17 years old. His sponsor was one of his older sisters. He was given permanent resident status in Canada but for some reason, he didn’t apply for Canadian citizenship while he was in his early twenties. If fact he never became a Canadian citizen all the time he was living in Canada.

While he was in his 20s, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was hospitalized in a mental hospital for 18 months during the early 1980s. Paranoid schizophrenia is a fairly serious illness. Let me explain to you what it really is.
First of all, it is a combination of two specific mental diseases.

The main symptom of paranoia is a permanent delusion. It should be kept in mind that there is delusion in schizophrenia also but in that case it is not permanent or organized. In paranoia the symptoms of delusion appear gradually and the patient is excessively sentimental, suspicious, irritable, introverted, depressed, obstinate, jealous, selfish, unsocial and bitter. Paranoia can be mild and the affected person may function fairly well in society, or it can be so severe that the individual is incapacitated and a danger to society.

A person suffering from paranoia is preoccupied with unsupported doubts about friends or associates, is suspicious and has unfounded suspicions, believes others are plotting against him/her, perceives attacks on his/her reputation that are not clear to others, and is quick to counterattack, maintains unfounded suspicions regarding the fidelity of a spouse, reads negative meanings into innocuous remarks and is reluctant to confide in others due to a fear that information may be used against him or her.

The most prevalent type of paranoia is persecutory paranoia and in this person makes himself or herself believe that all those around him or her are his of her enemies, bent on harming him or her or even taking his or her life. In this delusion people of an aggressive temperament often turn into dangerous killers.

Here is an example. Derrick Bird feared that his brother and solicitor were conspiring to have him sent to prison over unpaid tax which prompted his murderous shooting spree through Cambria in the UK in the summer of 2010 in which he killed 12 people and injured 11 more before turning the gun on himself.

A cure for paranoia is very difficult and it is essential that treatment should be started immediately after the disease becomes known. Once it grows on a person, there is no curing of it. Compared to other mental diseases, this disease does not respond immediately to psychoanalytic treatment because, being suspicious, the patient does not cooperate with the doctor. However, with due precaution, certain results can be achieved by employing this method.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social or occupational dysfunction. The onset of symptoms typically occurs in young adulthood.

Almost half of the people suffering from schizophrenia have the ‘paranoid’ type. Paranoid schizophrenia symptoms are more common and severe primarily because people having this form of combined mental illness have it in the later years of life, usually after the age of 30. The most prominent symptom of paranoid schizophrenia is auditory hallucination, or hearing voices. Other paranoid schizophrenia symptoms involve fear of persecution, crazy thoughts, or seeing and sensing things that others don’t see or sense.

The first-line psychiatric treatment for schizophrenia is anti-psychotic medication, which can reduce the positive symptoms of psychosis in about 7–14 days. Anti-psychotics however fail to significantly ameliorate the negative symptoms and cognitive dysfunction.

Approximately three-fourths of people with schizophrenia have ongoing disability with relapses. However some people with this illness do recover completely and function well in society.

A number of psychosocial interventions may be useful in the treatment of schizophrenia including: family therapy, assertive community treatment, supported employment, cognitive remediation, skills training, cognitive behavioral therapy, token economic interventions, and psychosocial interventions for substance use and weight management. Family therapy or education, which addresses the whole family system of an individual, may reduce relapses and hospitalizations.

Richard Chase savagely murdered six people, but one has to wonder if others shared some of the blame. His parents and health officials considered him stable enough to live without supervision, in spite of the fact he displayed severe abnormal behavior from an early age.

Isolated, Chase's obsession with his health and bodily functions heightened. He suffered from constant paranoid episodes and would often end up at the hospital emergency room in search for help. His list of ailments included complaints that someone had stolen his pulmonary artery, that his stomach was backwards and that his heart had stopped beating. He was diagnosed as being a paranoid schizophrenic and spent a short time under psychiatric observation, but soon he was released.

Unable to find help from doctors, yet still convinced that his heart was shrinking, Chase felt he had found the cure. He would kill and disembowel small animals and eat the various parts of the animals raw.

In 1979, a jury found Chase guilty of six counts of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to die in the gas chamber. Disturbed by the gruesome details of his crimes, other prisoners wanted him gone and often tried to talk him into killing himself. Whether it was the constant suggestions or just his own tortured mind, Chase managed to collect enough prescribed antidepressants to kill himself. On December 26, 1980, prison officials discovered him dead in his cell from an overdose of medications.

It is not my intention to say that Audley Horace Gardner will kill people in the future. However he was convicted of three assaults on people after 2005. It was determined that he had difficulties in following his medications and treatment. He was arrested by the Canadian immigration authorities in 2007 and was held in custody until his removal from Canada in August 2011.

The UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva asked Canadian authorities to hold off deporting this man but authorities ignored the request and deported him anyway.

Now we know that while he lives in Jamaica, he will not get the proper treatment he needs with respect to his duo illnesses of paranoid schizophrenia. A Jamaican psychiatrist has admitted that the only mental hospital on the island doesn’t have enough beds and resources to treat all of its mentally ill citizens. And without treatment and the love and care that he might have received from the only family he has ever know that live in Canada and nowhere else, he will end up on the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, homeless and suffering even more from the effects of his duo mental illnesses.

In Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that anyone can refuse treatment so if a paranoid schizophrenic is hospitalized in a mental facility and he refuses to take the medicine given to him that may help him; then hospitalizing him will serve no useful purpose other than protect society from him while he is in the custody of the hospital. He was hospitalized for 18 months when he was younger and it really didn’t cure him of his duo mental illnesses. Although mass murderers often do exhibit bizarre behavior, most people who exhibit bizarre behavior do not commit mass murder. It is extremely difficult to give a prognosis that a person suffering from paranoid schizophrenia who acts strangely is going to later become a mass killer.

The government simply didn’t want to take the risk that this particular paranoid schizophrenic who assaulted people in the past may later kill people in the future. Since they had the option of deporting him, they took that route to get rid of what they believed was a potential threat to the wellbeing of its citizens.

In my opinion, the Canadian authorities had no other choice but to deport this unfortunate man.

If you alone had the sole authority to make the decision, what would it be?

Case 5:

Hussein Nur of Toronto was finishing high school and working part-time when the police stopped him on the street and caught him carrying a loaded handgun outside the Driftwood Community Centre in 2009. Last November, he pleaded guilty to being in possession of a loaded prohibited firearm and was sentenced to three years and four months in prison despite the fact that the judge felt that he had potential and a supportive family and had not be in any trouble in the past.

The judge was forced to give him at least the three-year sentence of imprisonment because parliament had passed a law that stated that anyone who carries in his possession a loaded prohibited firearm will automatically get a minimum sentence of three years in prison.

His lawyer appealed the sentence to a Superior court arguing that the mandatory minimum sentence law was wrong because it removed from the judge his right to use his own discretion with respect to how much time a person should be sent to prison. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian African Legal Clinic and the John Howard Society had supported the lawyer’s motion.

The crown prosecutor on the other hand had argued that carrying a prohibited loaded firearm near a community centre is so egregious that it would have deserved a heavy sentence of three years even if the sentence he was given was not a mandatory minimum sentence of three years. The court agreed and refused to accept the challenge by the appellant and those who expressed their opinions in his favour as being valid challenges.

Prior to 2008, the mandatory minimum sentence for being in possession of a prohibit gun was one year but because of the rising gun crimes on Canadian streets, the members of the parliament decided to increase the minimum to three years.

His lawyer also raised the issue that the three-year minimum sentence discriminates against black youth. There is no doubt in my mind that the police often discriminate against black people but in my opinion, that shouldn’t mean that anyone, be he black, white or even green who carries a prohibited gun with him on city streets shouldn’t be given the three-year minimum sentence for a first offender.

If you were the judge, what would be your decision?

Conclusion:

There you have it folks. These are not simple problems to solve. However, I would be most interested in knowing what your views are with respect to these five cases. Remember, you can make your thoughts known by writing your comments in the comments section of my blog and I will see that they are posted at the bottom of this article. Also, I will add additional information with respect to the outcomes of cases 1, 2 and 3 once I get the information.