the daily snivel

  I found you, only to lose you.

Oh, the bittersweet mixture of sorrow and joy within me today as I discovered the pure, concentrated bile that is Things I hate about my flatmate, a blog about the fury and rage that can build within you when you have an inconsiderate person living in the house. The joy, the thrill, of finding someone who knows my pain. And then the crushing disappointment to see that the final post was made last week, as the anonymous poster has moved out. It's like Alanis said: "It's meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife. And isn't it ironic? Don't ya think? A little too ironic? Ya I really do think." Ah yes, a muse for the ages.

Anyway, it's the best thing I've read all week, so have a gander and treat yourselves to the incomparable archives.

Here's one example:

Last night at 1am I was woken by the door bell ringing, and was greeted by my flatmate apologising because she claimed to have lost her keys, again..

Before I left this morning, my flatmate asked to borrow my keys so she could get a new set cut, and casually mentioned that hopefully someone will return her keys because she had her name and address on the keyring. "Are you serious?" I said disbelievingly. "Yes, after loosing them last time, I thought it would be better if anyone who found them had enough information to return them". I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Her stupidity is just to great for me to tolerate. "So, you know now that someone might have the keys to our apartment, and know where our apartment is... right?". "I guess so". "Do you think that might be a problem?". "Umm, maybe..". Oh dear, this bitch has no idea where I'm going with this. "OK, you're staying here today. You will not leave this house. I will put a new lock on the door."

Today's reason my flatmate pisses me off is she lost her keys which had her name and address on them, and didn't understand this was a problem.

 

  Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury of the Court of Public Opinion

It cannot be over-emphasized that the purpose of a criminal prosecution is not to obtain a conviction. It is to lay before a jury what the Crown considers to be credible evidence relevant to what is alleged to be a crime. Counsel have a duty to see that all available legal proof of facts is presented; it should be done firmly and pressed to its limit but also done fairly. The role of the prosecutor excludes any notion of winning or losing; his function is a matter of public duty than which in civil life there can be none charged with greater personal responsibility. It is to be efficiently performed with a sense of the dignity, the seriousness and the justness of our judicial proceedings

(Boucher v. The Queen, [1955] S.C.R. 16 at pp. 23-24).

Below, Steve Gilliard discusses a former US prosecutor who has now been promoted to an hour-long CNN show in which she launches into tirades against the rights of the accused with the outrage of someone firmly convinced that people aren't charged with crimes unless they're guilty. This is an abhorrent attitude in someone whose involvement in the criminal justice system is limited to reading the Ottawa Sun (or the Toronto Sun or the Vancouver Sun... or, The [your city here] Sun) with its tabloiod coverage of crimes, courts, and uppity types what believes in rights fer peoples. It is an absolutely unacceptable and deplorable attitude to be taken by someone whose job it is to prosecute offences.

CNN, in a desperate attempt for ratings, has given former Fulton County prosecutor Nancy Grace an hourlong show on Headline News. Did they give the beautiful and sane Rudi Bahktiar a show? No, they move her to CNN after years of overnight purgatory. But they give the Fulton County avenging angel her own show which is so unhinged that it is marvelous, high freakish comedy.

Grace's story is tragic, in that her fiance was murdered, and that drove her to become a prosecutor, where allegations of her lack of ethics surfaced. Anyway, with her blonde hair and desire to smite any criminals, regardless of actual guilt, drove her to Larry King, then Court TV, now Headline News.

If you called Grace a crazy bitch, that would be an insult to crazy bitches everywhere. No, she's Judge Roy Bean with tits. I mean, if she could hire some Custer Battle types, she'd have given Scott Peterson the drumhead courtmartial and execution he so richly deserved. I mean, she would drag him out of the court room and shoot him on the courthouse steps, and toss his lawyer, Mark Geragos, a beating for defending him as well.

In Grace's world, guilty as charged isn't a conclusion, but preordained. Defendents are people waiting to go top jail or worse.

We're not talking Law and Order here, where Ben Stone wrestled with his conscience on a weekly basis over whether tis better to let ten guilty man go free than to convict one who is innocent. Real people's lives are affected when winning takes precedence over doing justice.

I believe firmly that the integrity of the justice system rests on both sides -- prosecutors and defence -- being diligent and honest and courageous. However, prosecutors are the gatekeepers of the system. They are vested with tremendous discretion to proceed or stay on charges, or withdraw them altogether, based on the weight of the evidence presented to them by police. The accused and his or her defence counsel are in a much more reactive position. If the Crown isn't going to go along with a fair settlement, or listen to an argument to the contrary, you must commit to trial if the rights of the accused to full answer and defence are to be preserved. Now, my sister is currently articling with the Crown Attorney's Office, and I think she's going to be a fantastic prosecutor for precisely the reason that she is very sensitive to the risks of wrongful convictions. She took the same innocence project class that I'm taking, worked with real clients there and here at the Clinic, and is perceptive, honest, and critical but fair. She's seen the best and worst of other Crowns and the defence bar in her region, and I'm perfectly willing to believe that there are some sleazy defence counsel out there. And I'm pleased that my future firm apparently has a widely known good reputation. I admire the work she's doing so far, and regret that we won't be able to duke it out much in court because of the need to avoid the apparent conflict of interest of having a brother and sister as representing the defence and the Crown on a given case.

And then there's someone like Nancy Grace, who has been tainted by personal tragedy and uses the legal system as a personal weapon. It's pitiable but inexcusable. I'm glad that she's been reduced to a talking head, but sorry that people might continue to listen.

Part of my grumbling today extends to the hand-wringing and soul-searching that followed the Air India verdict here in Canada. From all accounts, the accused were acquitted because the judge could not believe the testimony of the star Crown witnesses, and because the RCMP and CSIS (the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service) bungled the investigation so badly. Now some people (though mainly those who write headlines, it seems) are doubting the integrity of the judicial system and, again, acting as though being charged with an offence necessarily equals guilt. Although the crime was indeed a heinous one -- an airplane bombing in 1985 that killed over three hundred people -- convicting the accused on a weak and inconsistent case would also be tragic. One of the accused released the following statement on a website after the verdict:

"Our family deeply sympathizes with the families of those that died in this horrific tragedy," it said. "The anger and sadness that the families are going through because of today's decision should be directed towards the RCMP and Crown. They had given these families a false hope of justice by proceeding with a case without merit."

I don't pretend to know what really happened, or who is guilty or innocent. But there were serious problems with the case and we cannot convict on that basis. I am glad that many in the Sikh community, who were strongly affected by this case, are calling for an investigation into what happened, and why there are so few answers, rather than suggesting that the courts have failed them. The threshold for conviction should be a high one, given how many Royal Commissions of Inquiry have been convened in Canada over the past 15 years to examine why so many people have spent the best years of their lives in jail for crimes they never committed. 

  By Jove, I think he's got it!

I'm pleased to say that I'm really nailing the driving thing at this point in my lessons, which really has me encouraged and even more enthusiastic about hitting the road than I've already been. I had to impose a gap in my lessons over the past month because of trial preparation, and then a lesson was cancelled because of the freak snowstorm we got two weeks ago, and then I got deathly ill and didn't want to subject my instructor to having to sit in a car with me for two hours. Last week, after nearly a month of being unable to drive, I was a bit rusty for the first half hour or so of putting along in the standard, and as much as I enjoyed being back on the road, it made feel discouraged to make a few novice mistakes again like wandering in the lane if something caught my attention (especially shifting), and on one occasion I neglected to put the car back in first gear at a stop sign. My most horrifying error was making the mistake of slipping the car into first gear when I was attempting to shift into third while on the Vanier Parkway. The car slowed, the engine roared, and there were cars all around me. Fortunately, one thing that has stayed with me is that I keep my cool, solve the problem, and proceed safely when things like that come up. Once upon a time, little mistakes used to cause me to panic, and keep me rattled for some time afterwards, increasing the risk of making more mistakes.

Today, however, I was driving extremely well and with great confidence. I was shifting with ease today, and did my starts and upshifts perfectly, without stalling or lurching the car. We drove on the freeway for about half an hour for fun, and I was changing lanes smoothly and cruising along in fifth gear quite ably, chatting with the instructor casually all the while. I'm also pleased to say that I was parallel parking without difficulty again (what can I say, I'm a natural!). Best of all, after all the frustration and heartache brought by my baffling inability to back into a parking space, I was backing into parking spaces flawlessly today. My evaluation scores are continuing to rise across the board, and I know I'm going to be a fantastic driver before long. My progress has been slower simply because I don't have the means to practice outside my lessons, but I'm absolutely improving each time I get out onto the road.

Which is good, because a study released last week of side-impact tests showed that compact cars as a class perform horribly in high-speed side-impacts, and I'm planning on buying a Toyota Echo once I have my licence. So the better I internalize my Young Drivers of Canada "Collision Free Club" skills, the less my peril of dying a terrible, terrible death.