CCLA Rights Watch
La veille sur les
droits et libertés

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States heard submissions in two murder cases on whether life sentences without parole for people under 18 and under constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

The Guardian reports:

The justices are looking at two cases involving teenagers serving life sentences. In one, 14-year-old Evan Miller in Alabama beat a man, then set fire to his home. In the other, 14-year-old Kuntrell Jackson in Arkansas did not pull the trigger, but was in on an attempted robbery in which another boy shot and killed a store clerk.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote earlier opinions ruling out the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole sentences for young people whose crimes did not involve killing. He seemed again to be the pivotal justice in Tuesday’s arguments.

Roughly 2,300 people are behind bars for life with no chance of winning their freedom for crimes they committed before their 18 birthday. Only 79, however, are in prison for crimes that took place when they were 14 or younger.

Kennedy was one of several justices who appeared to be troubled by the lack of flexibility in sentencing young killers. Several states that try people younger than 18 in adult courts allow for only one sentence, life with no chance of parole, for defendants who are convicted of murder.

Kennedy seemed to indicate he might favor a ruling that gives judges a role in determining an appropriate sentence, “that the sentence cannot be mandatory, but that in some cases, it might still be imposed.”

Bryan Stevenson, the lawyer for both defendants, tried to resist Kennedy’s approach, preferring an outcome that would force states to consider parole at some point for anyone with a life sentence who was convicted before turning 18.

The Court has already struck down the death penalty and life without parole in the case of non-homicide offences for juveniles.

For coverage of this story, see NPR, Slate, The New York Times, CNN and The Christian Science Monitor.

SCOTUS may hear Smith v Fields, which involves an Eighth Amendment and Equal Protection Clause challenge to a Wisconsin state law prohibiting the use of public funds for hormonal therapy or sex-reassignment surgery for transgender prison inmates. The United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling that the law violated transgender prisoner’s right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.  The case has been re-listed.

The issues in the case are:

(1) Whether the Seventh Circuit erred by upholding an injunction against a state law prohibiting the use of public funds to finance sexual reassignment surgery for inmates; and (2) whether the Eighth Amendment requires state prisons to treat gender identity disorder with hormone therapy to make an inmate look more like the opposite gender.

The Seventh Circuit judgment can be found at Bloomberg Law.

A landmark bill was proposed in the Ontario legislature on Tuesday that would require school boards to implement brain injury prevention and management policies. Many jurisdictions in the U.S. have already passed concussion-related laws, but the issue has yet to be tackled in most Canadian provinces. A B.C. bill had it’s first reading last November, and this Ontario bill is thought to be unique because it will place the onus on schools to work to prevent head injuries and to meet the needs of students who sustain them. The bill would require schools to educate their staff and parents, and monitor injured students’ recoveries so they do not return to school or sport too soon.

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Yesterday, during International Women’s Day, local women’s rights groups and their supporters voiced concerns and outrage over a new give-away contest held by Halifax radio station, Q104. The contest, dubbed “The Male is in the Czech”, purports to be giving away a “mail-order bride”. Winners will reportedly be flown to Prague, Czech Republic, to date a “bevy of Czech beauties”. Opponents of the contest note that the “mail-order bride” industry has connections to human trafficking, a reputation for oppression of and extreme violence against women, along with ties to pornography.

In an interview with Chronicle Herald reporter Laura Warren, Laurie Ehler, executive director of Bryrony House, a shelter for abused women and children in Halifax, said of the contest: “It’s quite deplorable… It’s unfortunate that the station is not understanding the bigger systemic issue that this has.”

For a full report on the protests along with further information on the contest itself, please see the Chronicle Herald article by Laura Warren  here.

In the wake of the closure of the Electro-Motive Diesel plant (Caterpillar) in London, Ontario, with its resultant loss of 465 jobs, the Canadian Auto Workers union is pushing Ontario Labour Minister Linda Jeffrey to change labour legislation to afford more protection to workers. Caterpillar Inc, they say, “exploited  the laws’ weakness as part of their overall strategy.”

In response, CAW is calling for several legislative changes:

1) Speed up arbitration in the case of a lengthy breakdown.

2) Applying provisions of previous collective agreements in the case of a lockout and closure.

3) Lengthening the notice period workers get when they are laid off, and increasing severance.

4) Creation of an “Industrial Inquiry Commission to investigate the experience at Caterpillar” that make recommendations to the Minister on how to handle future cases.

5) A collective agreement imposed through arbitration after a labour dispute lasting more than 45 days.

6) Banning the use of replacement workers.

7) Requiring employers to negotiate in mass terminations and closures – removing the incentive to cause a lockout.

Click here for more details.

A human trafficking case went to trial in Hamilton. Men were kept in Attila Kolompar’s basement in Hamilton and treated as slaves. The victims were lured by being told that they would receive well-paying jobs, but the reality was that they would be forced to work in a deplorable situation where they were basically slave-workers. They faced long work days and were not adequately clothed or fed. The victims’ documents were taken from them.

Mr. Kolompar is a member of a Hungarian crime family. He pleaded guilty to being involved in the human trafficking ring. Four people have been convicted so far out of thirteen who were charged.

For more information, read more here, here and here.

Raphael Satter of the Associated Press has reported that a High Court judge in England has approved of the use of Facebook to serve legal claims. In a pretrial hearing Justice Nigel Teare approved of the unorthodox method of service in a case involving two investment managers bringing an action against a brokerage firm they claim was over-charging them. Another defendant that is alleged to have been involved in the scam is a former trader named Fabio De Biase, who is the defendant that has ended up with legal documents in his Facebook inbox.

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Le juge Murray Sinclair qui dirige la Commission de vérité et de réconciliation du Canada a déclaré vendredi dernier que le système d’éducation a permis la perpétration de violences et d’abus envers les autochtones du Canada. Le mandat de la Commission consiste à enquêter et à mettre en lumière les évènements survenus dans les pensionnats autochtones de 1870 à 1996. Le magistrat mentionne dans son rapport que ces pensionnats étaient «souvent des lieux où la négligence, les sévices et les agressions sexuelles et physiques étaient monnaie courante». Il formule dans son rapport une série de recommandations qui visent à «aider les membres des Premières Nations à guérir des blessures subies dans les pensionnats». On compte parmi celles-ci le fait d’inclure l’histoire des pensionnats autochtones dans le matériel éducatif des écoles publiques du pays, une distribution des excuses officielles du premier ministre Stephen Harper et leur affichage dans les écoles du pays.

Source: Le Devoir -Samedi 25 et dimanche 26 février 2012-p.A2

Yesterday at the Ontario Legislature, a bill was introduced that would repeal the notorious “secret law” which was used to give the police extra powers during the G20 summit in Toronto. The provincial government was heavily criticized for their use of the prehistoric Second World War law to give police the authority to arbitrarily stop and search people during the summit. This lead to the mass arrests of hundreds of protestors in the city.

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On Monday morning at the New Westminster Supreme Court, Cpl. Monty Robinson’s defence team brought forward a substance abuse expert to testify that the RCMP officer was suffering from a “severe” alcohol addiction at the time of a crash in 2008 that killed one man. Mr. Robinson’s behaviour following the crash is the subject of the present trial.

Mr. Robinson’s obstruction of justice charge stems from his actions following the accident, which killed 21-year-old Orion Hutchinson. The off-duty police officer left the scene and walked home, which was a short distance away, to return ten minutes later and tell officers that he had consumed two beers at a party earlier and two shots of vodka after the accident when he briefly returned to his house, with the alleged intent that it would make it difficult for police officers to prove that any readings over the legal limit on a breathalizer test were the result of alcohol consumed prior to the accident.

The expert called by the defence, Dr. Paul Sobey, testified that he evaluated Mr. Robinson for several hours in January this year and concluded that his alcohol dependence was “severe” at the time of the accident in 2008.   During cross-examination, the Crown prosecutor pointed out that due to acceptance into an undercover officer training course in 2006, Mr. Robinson had to undergo, and passed, psychological evaluation in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The trial continues, and an article on the subject from the Vancouver Sun can be found here.