PROSECUTOR Leo McGuigan may call corruption a "red herring" that is easily
ignored, but it is not. It is a fact of life which deserves careful
consideration, even though the willingness that the courts have consistently
demonstrated is the determination and the capacity to evade a full disclosure
of the issue, by keeping the public in the dark as much as possible. In terms
of the Proverbs case, the general public was effectively denied the
opportunity to appreciate the scope and potential implication of judicial
corruption allegations, as only 5 of the 37 hours of videotaped evidence, were
ever released to the media.4 But
that alone was sufficient to effectively explode the myth that the integrity
and impartiality of all police officers, judges and Crown attorneys is beyond
reproach. The following list of allegations, disclosed through the few tapes
that the media did manage to get a hold of, speak for themselves.
Policemen falsify their notes, leave blanks to be filled in
latter or rewrite entire notebooks in order to insert what they want.
Suspects can be put on a "legal treadmill" in which charges are kept in the
legal system without ever coming to a conclusion.
Policemen, particularly partners, do whatever is necessary to back each
other up, including falsifying evidence.
Victims of crime may even be supplied with appropriate clothing if it is
required to fit in with the evidence.5
While some authorities like to dispute these so-called fictions, the
potential credibility of many of the allegations is bolstered by other
criminal cases that echo corrupt or unreasonable practices. Susan Nelles, for
example, is well aware of the fact that "some officers arrest people who show
what the officers consider impudence by suggesting they want to call their
lawyer".6 Also, the fact that
dishonest police officers do not hesitate to falsify their notes is clearly
indisputable -and this is certainly not a red herring to the proper
administration of justice, no matter what Prosecutor Leo McGuigan says.
Indeed, even the Morin case is polluted by a police officer who evidently
rewrote his notebook, in order to insert what he wanted. As lawyer Clayton
Ruby has disclosed; "it was discovered that sometime between the preliminary
inquiry and Guy Paul Morin's first trial, Sgt. Michalowsky rewrote his notes
at home so they would include this.(new declaration which disputed previous
testimony previously given under oath) He made many other changes as
well.7
While many of the Proverbs tape allegations of corruption are indisputable,
others are not easily demonstrable. For example, the claim that certain
authorities are more concerned with clearing "police slates" than with solving
crime, is difficult to conclusively verify or dispute. When the thirst to
obtain a conviction is fiercely single-minded however, authorities have been
known to conceal evidence which points to the innocence of the accused, and
the ultimate consequence of this practice is that the primary motivation is
evidently not to solve the crime, but to clear the "slate." If it is not
glaringly obvious, it is because failure to disclose cases rely upon extreme
secrecy, and in the absence of an information "leak" , or a thorough
examination of the evidence, nobody ever finds out about them.
If the Proverbs case illustrates anything at all, it is the fact that
corrupt officials practice the ability to secure criminal convictions through
fraudulent, rather than through legitimate means. Clearly, in the face of
slanted testimony, perjury, and judicial corruption, a trial verdict has the
potential to reflect nothing, beyond an astounding perversion of justice. In
particular, the implication of judicial corruption stories which include such
extreme perversions like the claim about a judge who "listens to police in his
chambers before a case and makes up his mind beforehand", are
bloodcurdling.8 To be sure, the
initial reaction to such a seemingly outrageous claim is to accept the fact
that it is nothing beyond a cruel joke. But when one carefully examines the
extreme bias of certain judges, it is necessary to question the source of
their evidently predisposed commitments. And perhaps the most serious
allegation that the Proverbs trial exposed is the claim that officers lie on
the witness stand and that they plant evidence -a degree of corruption which
provides the capacity to frame an innocent person. In terms of the Morin case,
the judicial corruption stories that the Proverbs trial exposed are extremely
relevant, particularly since the Ontario Provincial Police charged Police
Sergeant Michalowsky, one of the people who had his hands on the evidence
against Morin, with perjury and with obstructing justice. Unlike the charge
against Morin, who was arrested simply because he was a suspect, the charges
against Michalowsky were based on evidence of corruption.
4Globe and Mail, 26/10/83, p.5.
5Globe and Mail, 17/11/82, p. A-10.
6Globe and Mail, 17/11/82, p. A-10.
7Globe and Mail, 31/7/92, p. A 7.
8The Toronto Star, 7/9/82.
