From: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #588 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Sender: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Errors-To: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Cdn-Firearms Digest Friday, October 17 2003 Volume 06 : Number 588 In this issue: Runaway Jury Police board reviews perks of chairperson Man fined for smuggling rocket-launcher, weapons into Saskatchewan Put a dollar value on stopping a rapist Father, schoolgirl face charges in coke raid Five years for beating Quesnel man fined $9,000 for shooting mother grizzly ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:21:58 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Runaway Jury http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031017.runaway17/BNStory/Entertainment/ >From Globe and Mail Friday, Oct. 17, 2003 Runaway Jury By LIAM LACEY >From Friday's Globe and Mail Directed by Gary Fleder Written by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, Rick Cleveland and Matthew Chapman Starring John Cusack, Rachel Weisz, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman Classification: PG Rating: **1/2 Movies based on John Grisham's legal thrillers promise pretty much what the novels offer: passable entertainment, usually featuring a crafty young hero and his romantic partner up against a corrupt establishment, some travelling and chase sequences, and a happy ending that depends on nobly motivated extortion. Runaway Jury is no different, but it is one of Grisham's smarter legal thrillers, focusing on the issue of jury “consulting” or fixing. It also uses an intriguing premise: What if someone deliberately got on a jury with the plan of manipulating it for profit? Grisham's 1996 novel has been kicking around Hollywood since its publication, which is probably the reason four writers (presumably of different drafts) are credited with the screenplay. The defendant has been changed from the tobacco industry (already covered in The Insider) to a gun manufacturer, and the case focuses on the domestic sale of assault weapons, which can have no reasonable non-criminal use. A high-ranking jury rigger is brought in by the defence to assure a positive verdict. His $20-million fee is peanuts compared to the $2-billion a year that gun manufacturers make, so the top companies in the industry are prepared to pool resources, rather than risk a precedent-setting loss. One benefit of making gun manufacturers the culprit is that it allows the film to open with a splashy start. A disgruntled day-trader enters the office of a company where he was fired and starts a shooting spree. Eleven people are left dead, and two years later, the widow of one man has brought the gun company to court. The jury, though carefully stacked in the defence's favour, starts behaving unexpectedly. One of its members clearly has his own agenda, and can sway the other jurors either way. He has a female partner on the outside, who starts to negotiate a deal: The jury is for sale. Which side will be the highest bidder? There is the opportunity here for an intriguing story but it requires concision, concentrating on the intellectual chess match. Runaway Jury is not that movie. It begins by introducing a great number of characters: Gene Hackman, as the reptilian defence consultant, Rankin Fitch; Dustin Hoffman, as the decent Southern lawyer, Wendell Rohr; John Cusack as the mysterious jury member, Nick Easter; and Rachel Weisz as his girlfriend, Marlee. Also introduced are various jury members (Bill Nunn, Nora Dunn, Cliff Curtis, Luis Guzman), and the colourful New Orleans judge, played by Bruce McGill. Yet all the star power is essentially expensive window dressing for a back-and-forth between the bad arms-manufacturers and the presumably good runaway jury. The movie runs in several simultaneous strands. Fitch, who operates a high-tech office near the courthouse, uses surveillance, break-ins, extortion and beatings. Nick subtly manipulates his fellow jurors, while his girlfriend, Marlee, offers them for sale to the highest bidder. And Hoffman's character handles the courtroom scenes, while Hackman's henchmen search frantically to track down the history of the mysterious rogue juror. All this makes for an undoubtedly busy movie, but it impairs momentum. Veterans Hoffman and Hackman (former acting-school roommates, working together for the first time) are given the opportunity to spit out the choice lines. “Trials are much too important to be left to juries,” opines Fitch. There's a courtroom washroom scene where Hoffman does an impassioned rant and Hackman oozes contempt that functions as a stand-alone set-piece. The scene also underlines a weakness in the writing: Without a hint of personal scruples or contradictions, Fitch is as much a cardboard villain as Hoffman is a saint. Though the story depends on keeping the audience guessing, the moral balance is heavily weighted. The real casting coup is Cusack, the everyman grifter, who keeps the high-power legal talent guessing. Cusack has a gift for fake sincerity, the wide-eyed innocence never quite concealing the shark-like focus, and this feels like a role written for him. (Perhaps he also seems attractive because he's the only character who doesn't spend an inordinate amount of time shouting.) Weisz is more of a generic ice-queen femme fatale, but she has enough poise to handle herself in key scenes opposite Hoffman and Hackman without looking out of her league. The best thing that can be said about the script and direction is that they do not give away Nick's secret too early, but the effort is distinctly workmanlike. Fleder (Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead; Don't Say a Word) bashes back and forth between his various story strands, leaving scant time for the courtroom activity. The high-tech gadgetry, chases and apartment invasions remind you that you're in a thriller, but its easy to forget what the thrills are supposed to be about. All the rest of the problems — the self-aggrandizing star turns, the bombast that passes for social commentary, the convention that a large cash payout equals justice — are endemic to Hollywood issue-oriented melodramas. The best that can be said for Runaway Jury is that it does not disappoint expectations: This is not a case of dumbing down literature; it's mediocrity aimed for and successfully achieved. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:22:18 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Police board reviews perks of chairperson http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1066342209650&call_pageid=968350130169&col=969483202845 >From Toronto Star Oct. 17, 2003. 01:00 AM Police board reviews perks of chairperson DAVID BRUSER STAFF REPORTER A car, driver, medical coverage, life insurance, pension plan and a $91,000 annual salary is too rich for the head of the Toronto Police Services Board, says acting chair Gloria Lindsay Luby. "I think the salary itself is enough," she said during the board's meeting yesterday. Lindsay Luby, who began looking into the matter shortly after assuming the interim role in June, wonders whether the one-year position needs any benefits at all. "Why are we giving a pension for a one-year appointment?" The board voted to spend no more than $5,000 on a consultant to review similar board policies. Board member Frances Nunziata disapproved of spending the money, though she agreed with Lindsay Luby that the chair should receive no benefits. "I feel we can do it internally." But board member Al Leach favoured going "outside to get someone who is independent and unbiased." Lindsay Luby hopes to have the review complete and a policy in place by January, when the board decides on the next chairperson. Lindsay Luby is filling the spot vacated by Norm Gardner, who was forced to step down this summer amid an investigation into his acceptance of a gun from a Scarborough manufacturer. The board also approved sending a $28 million budget request for 2004 to the city, about $5 million less than it originally planned for. The city hoped the board would pare down its budget to $27 million, Lindsay Luby said, so it voted to defer spending on some items. Among them is a $3.7 million project to put up fencing around police stations to keep out vandals who deface cruisers. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:22:32 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Man fined for smuggling rocket-launcher, weapons into Saskatchewan http://sask.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=guns031016 >From CBC Saskatchewan Man fined for smuggling rocket-launcher, weapons into Saskatchewan ESTEVAN - A Minnesota man who was caught at the Saskatchewan-US border with guns, an anti-tank rocket-launcher, grenades, and ammunition, has pleaded guilty to failing to report imported goods and making a false statement to a Canada Customs officer. Mark Eller was fined $8,000 in an Estevan court. At the end of June, Eller was driving a moving van that was coming to Saskatchewan through North Portal. Eller told inspectors he was not carrying any weapons. But, upon examination, inspectors discovered 13 rifles and shotguns, most of which were loaded, three loaded handguns, an inoperable anti-tank rocket launcher, four live-smoke grenades and two training grenades, 4300 rounds of ammunition, seven prohibited ammunition clips and one so-called "blackjack", a prohibited hand-held weapon. In the cab of the truck, inspectors found an additional list of household effects listing the rifles and pistols as well as a copy of Canada Customs and Revenue Agency's brochure "Importing a Firearm or Weapon into Canada." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:22:56 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Put a dollar value on stopping a rapist http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-10-17-0013.html >From Edmonton Sun Friday, October 17, 2003 Put a dollar value on stopping a rapist By DOUG BEAZLEY, EDMONTON SUN Who cares to put a price on Paul Bernardo's head? What would it have been worth to us to thwart his terrible career of rape and murder before it really got started? In the late 1980s, a vicious serial rapist was stalking the streets of Scarborough, Ont. Police were sitting on a stack of evidence, including solid DNA samples from semen swabs taken from the Scarborough Rapist's victims. An anonymous tipster fingered Bernardo as the rapist. Police interviewed Bernardo, who bore an astonishing resemblance to a composite sketch based on a victim's description of her attacker. He gave every appearance of co-operating with police; he even volunteered hair and fluid samples for DNA comparison. But it was another 26 months before swamped forensic technicians got around to typing Bernardo's samples and identifying him as the rapist. In the meantime, Bernardo's tastes had shifted to murder. The rest you know. The RCMP are in the midst of a much-hyped "reorganization" of forensic services, expected to lead to the shutdown of DNA services at their Edmonton lab. The Mounties insist this "consolidation" will shorten average waiting times for DNA tests in both urgent and non-urgent cases. Few in the forensic field appear to be convinced. "They're only making matters worse," said former RCMP forensics expert Dave Hepworth. "They're throwing a ton of resources into administration, but they're asking 10 people to do the same work as 20 did before. How is this supposed to speed things up?" There's vast room for improvement: internal RCMP statistics obtained by the press show that in the first eight months of 2003, only about a quarter of "urgent" forensic DNA inquiries were completed within the Mounties' own benchmark deadline of 15 days. Urgent cases cover the worst of the worst: serial murders, violent sexual assaults and terrorism. The average current completion time for an urgent DNA test is 55 days - plenty of time for a serial killer or rapist to carve a few more notches. The Mounties claim their controversial plan to consolidate DNA services in Ottawa will cut the backlog and speed up service. Hepworth believes it will rob regional police services of on-the-spot expertise they need to get the samples that will win convictions. "A lot of the work is sample collection. We used to be brought in to sweep things like automobile undercarriages, refrigerators," he said. "Are they supposed to mail that stuff to Ottawa now?" The problem is money (the problem is always money). The RCMP have been routinely starved of public resources, and now have to make their DNA service do more with less. But what price are we really paying? Ray Wickenheiser was 16 years with the RCMP before joining a DNA lab in the U.S. He's written a paper to be published in the Journal of Biosciences and Law which compares the cost of sexual assaults to DNA testing. "The best analysis in the U.S. estimates that each sexual assault case costs the victim an average of $87,000 through things like lost time at work and medical costs," he said. "That's not including the cost to the justice system should someone actually be charged. "About 34% of sexual assaults in the States are attributed to unknown assailants. Usually, DNA testing is our best bet for identifying these people. "The average sex offender commits eight sexual assaults before he's caught. If he's caught after the first sexual assault, another seven sexual assaults might never happen as a result. "Break it down, and you could save the nation $12 billion a year just by doing DNA testing in every applicable sexual assault case. And that's just the fiscal argument." DNA testing is the most powerful forensic tool to come along since the invention of fingerprinting. The Mounties' massive backlog shows how the technology has been made a victim of its own success. How many more rapes and murders might take place because of delays in testing? We may never know. One thing we do know: money can fix this. Hepworth estimates another $5 million a year could beat the backlog down - chicken feed compared to the $1 billion our federal government has squandered on a gun registry which has yet to save a single life. What a warped sense of priorities. What a bloody waste. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:23:20 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Father, schoolgirl face charges in coke raid http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/story.asp?id=0559FAC8-A234-4E1C-83C3-665CD96B2349 >From Victoria Times Colonist via Vancouver Sun Father, schoolgirl face charges in coke raid Lindsay Kines CanWest News Service Friday, October 17, 2003 VICTORIA -- A teenaged girl faces drug charges for allegedly stashing three kilograms of cocaine in a locker at St. Margaret's private school for girls in suburban Saanich. Police also arrested the girl's 43-year-old father after raiding his home and seizing a fourth kilo of coke and a pump-action shotgun. The four bricks of cocaine have an estimated street value of $140,000. Saanich police say the girl allegedly took the drugs from her family's home and stored them in her school locker. Victor Clayton, head of St. Margaret's, said he received information Tuesday and alerted police. "It was brought to my attention that there was a substance that I should look at, and I did, and I just decided, 'Hmmm, I better turn this over to our liaison officer,' " he said. Clayton declined to say how, exactly, he learned of the drugs. But in a letter to parents Thursday, he said: "It was brought to our attention quickly, reinforcing that our system of values and expectations is being validated by the girls of St. Margaret's school." The school, which opened in 1908, has 431 students attending kindergarten to Grade 12. The annual cost of sending a girl to St. Margaret's ranges from $6,500 to $12,000 for day students or $25,000 to $35,000 for boarding students. Saanich police say they were called to the school Tuesday and later contacted another police department, which raided the girl's home shortly after 7:40 a.m. Wednesday. "Our information was that there were more drugs there," Saanich Staff Sergeant Doug Oakley said. Police did not use a search warrant at St. Margaret's, Oakley said. "With the circumstances of the seizure -- and I won't go into the circumstances of the seizure -- we didn't require a search warrant." Police are withholding the name of the girl, her father and their home address to protect the girl's identity as an accused young offender. The girl appeared in Victoria provincial court Wednesday afternoon. Both she and her father have been charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking. Her father also faces one charge of unsafe firearm storage. "It's probably the biggest, by far, of any seizure in a Victoria school that I'm aware of in my memory, and I've been doing this for over 30 years," Oakley said. He said the cocaine was packaged in brick form, which is the common method used to ship drugs from places like Colombia. He was unable to elaborate on why the girl allegedly took the drugs from her family home or what she intended to do with them. Oakley and school officials stressed Thursday they believe this to be an "isolated" incident. "Our investigation to date has led us to believe that she was not active in trafficking narcotics in the school, nor had she had an opportunity to traffic these narcotics, nor is there a drug problem in this particular school," Oakley said. He based his comments on the fact Saanich police have liaison officers in the school "almost daily," he said. "Our intelligence and knowledge of that school is that there is not any drug problem there." Clayton admitted the case was shocking and upsetting, but he was upbeat about how it was handled by the school. "I see it as an isolated incident that was handled appropriately," he said. "The system we have in place seems to work." In his letter to parents, he said school officials took "immediate steps" and cooperated fully with police. "At no time were your daughters in any danger," he wrote. "As has always been the case, we are very vigilant in our ongoing efforts to provide a safe learning environment." Wendy Yzenbrandt, whose two daughters attend St. Margaret's, continues to have confidence in the school. "I don't think it's any reflection on the school," she said. "It doesn't make me worry at all. I've seen lots of stuff at the regular public schools. This is just highly unusual and it's quite a big one, so it makes the news, you know." "I think you can get it anywhere. It's kind of horrifying for the girls. Part of the goal of the school is excellence and they're all aiming for that, and then when something like this happens, it's a bit devastating." Clayton noted that "these situations can touch anyone in the community." "We must demonstrate the strong leadership style we expect of our students by dealing quickly with these issues," he said. Victoria Times Colonist ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:23:47 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Five years for beating http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-10-17-0011.html >From Edmonton Sun Five years for beating Revenge cited as victim left by side of road By RAQUEL EXNER, EDMONTON SUN A 22-year-old Edmonton man who took part in a brutal beating last spring - in which the victim was abandoned on the side of a rural road in -27 C temperatures - - was sentenced to five years in jail yesterday. Richard Harris was sentenced on one count of aggravated assault for his role in the beating and on two counts of robbery with a firearm for several 7-Eleven heists in Edmonton in which he was disguised in a Sasquatch mask. Harris pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this year. Morinville provincial court Judge J. Burch handed down the sentence, which comes in addition to the time Harris has already spent in jail. He has been in the Remand Centre since his arrest in late March and spends 23 hours a day in lockdown. Harris also has to submit a DNA sample, was handed a 10-year firearms prohibition, and a lifetime prohibition for prohibited and restricted weapons. On the afternoon of March 8, the victim was taken to a rural area near Cardiff, about 42 km north of Edmonton, and severely beaten, said RCMP. Police said he was beaten with the barrel of a shotgun and repeatedly kicked and punched, then abandoned in freezing temperatures. Five minutes after his attackers left, a man and woman driving in the area spotted the beaten man on the side of the road and helped him. The victim had suffered a cracked skull, bleeding to the brain, and deep cuts on his face and head which required more than 50 stitches to close. He would've died if he hadn't been found by the couple, said Crown prosecutor William Gatward. Gatward then explained the motive for the attack was revenge. Years ago, the victim had unwittingly introduced a man to an undercover cop. The man allegedly sold the officer some drugs and was sent to jail. Once the man got out of jail, he reportedly wanted to settle the score. In court yesterday, Gatward read a victim-impact statement penned by the victim's mother. She said that after the beating, all her son could think of was to crawl to the road so somebody would find his body. And when police phoned her to explain what happened, the officer wasn't even sure if her son, her only child, would survive his injuries. Today her son is reminded daily of the attack, thanks to his scars, she said. "Some days he wishes he were dead rather than remember (the attack) - consider yourself fortunate my son survived and you're not facing murder charges." Defence lawyer Timothy Stonhouse told the court Harris was on drugs at the time of the crime spree. The two robberies and assault happened within four days. Stonhouse also noted Harris was dealing with a lot of problems at the time. Harris's pregnant wife had a spot on her lung and doctors had encouraged her months earlier to end the pregnancy. His three-year-old daughter was also diagnosed with leukemia. Police arrested Harris in late March at University hospital in front of his daughter, who was at the hospital receiving chemotherapy. When asked if he had anything to say, Harris said he regretted "being a part of this ... I'm extremely sorry for what I've done." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:24:05 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Quesnel man fined $9,000 for shooting mother grizzly http://www.pgfreepress.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=26&cat=23&id=127695&more= Quesnel man fined $9,000 for shooting mother grizzly By Neil Horner Quesnel Cariboo Observer It would have been easier to pass sentence if the accused was a bad man charged with doing an evil thing, but that wasn't the case. These comments were made Thursday by provincial court Judge Evan Blake as he sentenced Quesnel resident Edward Bergen for the June 2002 killing of a sow grizzly bear in the Wells area. Judge Blake ruled that Bergen should pay a total of just over $9,000 for two counts related to the incident, which enraged many area residents at the time, as the sow had two young cubs. Bergen had been charged with four counts in relation to the shooting, including one count of killing wildlife out of season, one count of discharging a firearm in a no-shooting area, one count of discharging a firearm on a highway, and one count of failure to comply with a limited entry hunting condition. Bergen had earlier pleaded guilty to the charge of discharging a firearm on a highway, and on Tuesday was found guilty of the charge of killing wildlife out of season. Judge Blake on Thursday agreed to the Crown's suggestion that counts two and four be conditionally stayed. In his sentence, Judge Blake took the middle ground between Crown counsel Lyn Nugent's suggested range of between $12,000 and $16,000 for count one and between $3,000 and $5,000 for count three, and defence lawyer Brad Chudiak's suggestion of between $2,000 and $3,500 fine on count one and between $250 and $500 for count three. Under the Wildlife Act, the penalty for hunting out of season is a fine of not more than $50,000, or six months in jail, or both. The charge of shooting across a highway carries a penalty of not more than $25,000, six months in jail, or both. In her arguments supporting a higher fine, Nugent noted that the two cubs were also removed from the limited grizzly bear gene pool, as they will never be able to be released back into the wild. She also noted that the cubs are currently housed in a facility, the Kicking Horse Grizzly Refuge, and their upkeep amounts to something in the range of $50,000 per year, while their specially constructed enclosure cost $100,000 to build. For his part, Chudiak noted that the sow grizzly had already been relocated away from the Wells area once and had returned. The bear was likely to be destroyed anyway, should it show evidence of being habituated to human contact. This, he said, would have limited the animal's value to the gene pool. Chudiak also noted that the year since the shooting had been hard for his client, as his name had appeared in the newspaper and community reaction had been harsh, to the point where the RCMP had to release a press statement about the illegality of making threats. In making his judgment, Judge Blake noted that Bergen was of good character. "Mr. Bergen has an exemplary background," he said. "There is nothing to indicate he has lived anything but a completely blameless life." Bergen, he said, had not tried to in any way conceal his crime and had acted with politeness and respect towards the authorities. However, he also stressed that wildlife is a precious natural resource that is guarded by a Conservation Officer service that is stretched extremely thin. Those who are caught need to be dealt with firmly in order to send a message to others. He ordered that $1 of the $8,000 fine on count one be paid to the Crown as a fine, while the balance is to go to the Provincial Grizzly Trust Fund. The full amount of the fine for count three was to be paid to the Crown in the form of a fine. Bergen was clearly upset during the proceedings, hanging his head as he listened to the Crown and defence lawyers arguing about the relative values of grizzly bears. Once sentence was passed, he had no comment and quietly left the building. ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V6 #588 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:akimoya@cogeco.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca FAQ list: http://www.magma.ca/~asd/cfd-faq1.html and http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/homepage.html FTP Site: ftp://teapot.usask.ca/pub/cdn-firearms/ CFDigest Archives: http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab133/ or put the next command in an e-mail message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca get cdn-firearms-digest v04.n192 end (192 is the digest issue number and 04 is the volume) To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next five lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-alert unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".) 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