Sad news arrived recently with word that Richard Sugden, Q.C. died on January 5, 2009, four years after illness forced his premature retirement from the profession he loved. Although I didn’t know him as well as I would have liked, Rick was always unfailingly polite and generous with his time whenever I encountered him in the precincts of the Law Courts. He was a rarity; a terrific lawyer who thrived in the cutthroat world of civil litigation, yet one who retained high levels of civility and courtesy that all of us should try to emulate. He will be sorely missed.

There will be a special memorial ceremony on Friday afternoon, January 16, 2009 at the Great Hall of the Vancouver Law Courts.

UPDATE: A 17 year old Martinsville, Virginia youth is the latest to die after being Tasered by police. The unidentified boy died Thursday, January 8, 2009 after police responding to a disturbance jolted him with 50,000 volts. He is at least the 381st North American to die in similar circumstances.

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With nineteen days before the Braidwood Inquiry reconvenes to examine the circumstances of Robert Dziekanski’s death, it’s worth taking stock of what has occurred since the unfortunate Polish immigrant died at Vancouver Airport following five 50,000 volt jolts from an RCMP “less than lethal” TASER.

At least eighty other North Americans, mostly unarmed men, have died in similar circumstances since the Dziekanski incident on October 14, 2007. There were at least 64 deaths in 2008, starting with that of Brandon Smiley, 24 of Mobile, Alabama on January 2nd and ending with the death of an unidentified man in Harris County, Texas on Christmas Eve. The list includes six Canadians who died in 2008 after being Tasered: Jeffrey Marreel, 36 of Norfolk, Ontario; Michael Langan, 17, of Winnipeg; Sean Reilly, 42, of Brampton; Frank Frachette, 49, of Langley, BC; Trevor Grimolfson, 38, of Edmonton and Gordon Bowe, 30, of Calgary.

According to a recent CBC News study, TASER X26 models may discharge more energy than the manufacturer specifies. However, there is still no regulatory approval regimen for TASER products in Canada. An electric fence regulator must be CSA approved before it can be marketed, but electrical devices for controlling humans face no such scrutiny.

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Here, just for the heck of it, two late greats singing about the snow:

Today’s Victoria Times-Colonist has an editorial on what it calls the “colossal failure” of our legal system’s inability to get a high-profile fraud case to trial: “Legislature raids, five years later: A dismal failure.”

This is not the only high profile BC criminal fraud case that has been subject to inordinate investigative and procedural delay. Take the case of Martin Wirick and Tarsem Gill, who were charged more than six years after their alleged massive real estate fraud came to light. No word yet on when, or if, they will face trial:

2 charged in $30 fraud scheme – Vancouver Sun

Or how about the case of Ian Thow, who was charged a few months ago, three years after he skipped the country, leaving investors howling that he had bilked them out of millions:

Crown charges Thow with 25 counts of fraud – Victoria Times-Colonist

The British Columbia criminal justice system seems to have a lot of trouble completing investigations and getting these types of cases to trial. Perhaps Conrad Black might offer us some advice on how to make our system more efficient. He has plenty of time on his hands these days…those who have followed his exploits will recall that he resigned his chairmanship of Hollinger Inc. in January of 2004 (the month after the BC Legislature raid) and was subsequently investigated, charged, convicted and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in jail. He may have served his time before the Basi/Virk trial even begins…

Daniel Antony King’s death at the end of a police pursuit on October 13, 2006 was a homicide, a coroner’s inquest jury has ruled. The anonymous five person jury had heard seven days of evidence from some 25 witnesses before deliberating and releasing its verdict yesterday. They first returned a draft verdict that was kept secret by the coroner.

The jury heard that Danny King, 37, died from multiple gunshot wounds after being shot five times by a Burnaby RCMP member and a New Westminster police member at a Burnaby gas station. According to the evidence, Mr. King lay gasping for breath for several minutes before police officers radioed for an ambulance. No police officer of the dozen or so on the scene rendered first aid.

RCMP media relations personnel originally indicated that lethal force was used because Mr. King produced a hangun. Several days later, they advised the media that the handgun in question was actually an imitation. Evidence presented at the inquest indicated that the toy plastic “Made in China” pistol found at the scene was sent for forensic analysis to lRCMP labs in Vancouver and Edmonton. However, the RCMP produced no forensic reports indicating that Mr. King’s fingerprints or DNA were on the toy.

Testimony at the inquest also revealed that RCMP homicide investigators never interviewed either of the two police officers who fired the fatal shots.

The jury made five recommendations:

1) that video and audio equipment be installed in patrol cars;

2) that transponders be installed in patrol cars;

3) that police officers responding to calls make every effort to “radio in” their location;

4) that officers involved in a lethal force situation be held to a speciified time frame for providing a statement; and

5) that RCMP and municipal police forces create a program implementing “emergency response training”.

These recommendations, which have no binding effect, will be forwarded to the appropriate agencies.

Major media outlets are reporting that the Criminal Justice Branch is set to announce today that no criminal charges will be laid as the result of the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski on October 14, 2007. The decision, coming a mere 14 months after four police officers subdued the unarmed man at Vancouver Airport in an incident that was captured on film and broadcast around the world, comes as no surprise.

While the police treatment of Mr. Dziekanski certainly looked like a clear case of excessive use of force to many observers, the result of the investigation was ordained from the beginning.

In British Columbia, we still allow police officers to investigate themselves after they kill someone. The eminent former judge and legal scholar, the Hon. Roger Salhany, QC, recently described this approach as “a bad, if not intolerable, idea” (Report of the Taman Commission of Inquiry, Manitoba, 2008).

The police investigators generally spend a long time, not trying to make a case that will stick, but trying to create an airtight defence that will absolve police of responsibility for the death. Then, unlike conventional cases where the investigators recommend specific charges, they deliver a “neutral” report to Crown Counsel that contains no recommendations at all. Little wonder then that, as far as I can tell, no BC police officer has ever been prosecuted for a civilian death resulting from the intentional application of force in the 150 year history of this province.

In this case, the RCMP conducted a lengthy investigation into the incident that involved four of its members, even taking the time and trouble to fly to Poland to reportedly try to dig up dirt on the unfortunate victim. It will be interesting to see when and whether the investigators even interviewed the RCMP members involved, or whether they followed the usual practice of “debriefing” them and inviting them to contact legal counsel and submit a statement in writing at their leisure….

A public inquiry into the matter is set to resume in January.