“The administration of bail is a provincial responsibility,” the Minister’s office said in a statement provided to CityNews.
“Ontario must step up and ensure their courts and prosecutors are well resourced, that provincially appointed Justices of the Peace are applying the law — and when they don’t — provincially appointed crowns need to initiate bail reviews.
AFTER TWO YEAR IN JAIL, A JURY TOOK JUST TWO HOURS TO FIND HIM NOT GUILTY.
Timothy Clarke Anthony spent two years in jail awaiting trial for a fatal hit-and-run that shocked the Hagersville community. Once his day in court arrived, it took a jury just two hours to find him not guilty, Jacques Gallant reports. “I wasn’t sure what they were going to think,” the 37-year-old said. “I’m an Indigenous man in a white court.” In the 2021 incident, the motorcycle driven by 21-year-old Alexander Dalton was hit from behind by a speeding Chevrolet Tahoe, throwing him from his vehicle and into the path of oncoming traffic. Anthony was arrested for his alleged involvement, despite evidence to the contrary, after another suspect in the case claimed he was behind the wheel. Take a closer look at what happened. • Context: The defence noted witness descriptions of the driver didn’t match Anthony’s profile and his DNA wasn’t present in the vehicle. The evidence against Anthony was “essentially reliant on a witness who had all the reason in the world to lie,” his lawyer, Tonya Kent, said. • The fallout: Kent said Anthony’s case was another example of a prosecution that should never have happened. But despite the weak evidence against him, he was repeatedly denied bail and kept in jail until last month.
“The Crown’s decision to prosecute was so questionable that a judge took the rare step of suggesting it was not in the public interest to proceed to trial. But the Crown went ahead anyway, forcing a grieving Hewson, her partner, and the court system into a process that dragged over three years only to end in January with most of the charges gone and Hewson with no criminal record, and no jail time.
Hewson’s lawyers are left asking: What was the point?
The case was an example of “the criminalization of poverty,” said one of Hewson’s lawyers, Megan Savard. “If a wealthy white woman had left a dishwasher pod on the floor and her child had consumed it and died, and had she responded exactly as urgently and responsibly as our client responded, I think it is fair to say she would never have been charged.”
The Crown has complete discretion over which charges laid by police should proceed in court — if any — and is required by policy to only go ahead “if there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest.”
But in a rare move, Bliss (who conducted the preliminary inquiry) concluded his ruling by questioning the necessity of putting the parents on trial.
“I wish to stress, however, that the fact that there is some evidence that requires the defendants to be committed for trial does not mean that the defendants would, or even should, be convicted, nor should their committal for trial be taken, in the circumstances of this case, to be an endorsement of the view that it is in the public interest to prosecute them for the death of their son,” the judge wrote.”
