This is a story from real people, told in
their own words.
It contains information about themes that
may be difficult for some audiences.
Just after midnight, on February 22nd, 2010,
three individuals masked and armed entered
my son’s home. About three minutes after
they entered, my son was dead. Basically executed,
shot through the back.
5 o’clock in the morning, we get a knock
on our door – the police are there to let
us know…
Your son has been murdered. And I’m never
going to see him again.
The Swans began a criminal process that has
stretched over 7 years….
The three individuals that actually went into
my son’s house and committed the murder
were from Toronto, and one was a friend of
a local fellow who planned it and set it all up.
There were three trials for the four individuals.
Canada’s crime rate dropped by 28% from
2006 to 2016.
The criminal justice system is a legal system.
It’s not a justice system.
There’s no healing process, because of these
trials. Every time we enter that courtroom
we relive the entire murder. Every single
aspect of it.
This whole legal system is cold, clinical
and lacks humanity. Separate bail hearings,
separate prelims, separate hearings based
on admissibility of evidence, appeals to go
through – multiply that by three.
The interpretations are different from judges
to judges, or lawyers to lawyers, and defense
lawyers to defense lawyers.
I read somewhere where they asked that the
system be fixed, well it can’t be fixed
– we need a new system that works.
60% of Canada’s prison population are people
waiting for a decision in their case -
they have not been found guilty or innocent.
That’s more people in jail awaiting verdicts than actual criminals.
The delays – we were really annoyed about
the delays of the court system. It’s - you
go in expecting a trial to start and it really
doesn’t because anything can happen. The
lawyers are not prepared, the defense has
stall tactics, the accused, sometimes the
accused didn’t show up on time, or the witnesses
– they were unable to reach the witnesses.
They were all delays.
So it was frustrating going through, knowing
the dates of these trials and having to book
those times off, and having to show up at
court only to be told that “I’m sorry
but it’s going to be delayed for another
two or three weeks”. Or “come back tomorrow”,
or “come back next week”. So that was
very frustrating.
While the number of court cases has decreased
by 20%, the median length of a court case
has increased – up to 121 days.
The local guy, who’s out on appeal now,
he lives about five or ten minutes down the
road, in the neighborhood here.
Where’s the fairness there? He murdered
my son and he gets to walk around our neighborhood.
Here we are, almost 7½ years after his death,
and we’re still trying to deal with his
clothes. I couldn’t even touch his stuff
for about five years.
It’s been 7½ years since my son was murdered,
and we’re still waiting for more trials
and more appeals to go through the system.
And eventually, one guy that was just sentenced
12 years, his parole’s going to be coming
up. Two-thirds so that’s only a few years
down the line.
I feel there’s no end to this. There’s
no moving on. There’s absolutely no moving on.
How can we transform Canada’s criminal justice
system to better address court delays?
Join the online discussion on this page and share
your ideas.
To learn more go to justicetransformation.ca.
