Way back, a million years ago, when I was a criminal justice and public policy student in university, my professors used to lament with the class what we perceived as mediocre to abysmal crime reporting by the media. It wasn't often the words on the page that bothered us. It was the words that weren't on the page. We felt stories lacked context and, because of that, propagated misconceptions about the nature of crime, the court process and the big picture of crime trends. Studies showed public fear and perception of crime were on the rise while violent and property crimes rates were going down - all while the amount of coverage was going up. At the very least, we all agreed that sensationalizing crime and tragedy was gratuitous and hurtful.
Today I find myself, among many other duties, as the court reporter for this paper.
I guess I adopted the philosophy of one of my favourite punk rock icons, Jello Biafra: "Don't hate the media. Become the media."
Now I really don't know if I am any better, worse or different from what I used to criticize. I try.
But I do know, as a court reporter, I have new insight into the court process, and every day I have something to reconcile my old frustrations with my challenge of telling the story.
Several things happened in the last week that reveal some truths about our justice system that I wish were better known.
Lesson #1 - Justice is slow and emotionless, the opposite of crime.
Monday marked the end of the trial of Linda Lorraine Howe, now guilty on nine of the 11 charges she faced in relation to the Christenson Village shooting last March. The trial took over six months. It was slow and methodical, full of false starts, repetition and belabouring over detail. There was never a question of whether Howe fired a gun that severely wounded an innocent person. The question was whether Howe intended to do everything she did. In the end, the judge could not in good conscience find Howe guilty for two of the attempted murders because the evidence did not support it. The judge could not use empathy with the victims as a source of fact lest justice be undermined.
Lesson #2 - Even when it is slow and methodical, mistakes happen.
On Wednesday, the court of appeal acquitted Ivan Henry after he had spent 27 years in prison for a series of rapes he did not commit and for which he always maintained his innocence. Amazingly, Henry has shown no bitterness. His name joins those of David Milgaard, Donald Marshall and dozens of other Canadians who have spent decades behind bars, wrongfully convicted, including a personal friend of mine, Robert Baltovich. In speaking with Rob, who has also not shown bitterness in his ordeal, we agreed: The law is a human institution and humans make mistakes. Emotion over reason and evidence leads to those mistakes.
Lessons #3 - While humans make mistakes, systems do not. Systems do and must change.
Late last week and every day this week, I have spoken with the family of Genoa Jean May who are going through an excruciating ordeal of reliving the crime and facing the fact that the man who murdered Genni could soon be paroled. They, their supporters and basically anyone with a pulse is angry at how the system has treated them, and rightly so.
But the system is not doing anything it has not been designed to do. Our emotional response to an emotionless system frustrates us only more. The solution? Change the system.
It's the only way to help shield other victims and their families in the future.
