The Nanaimo Three - Political Prisoners in Canada

[grixit]

Makes sense. If every turn of the Plantagenet saga had made traitors of the entire administration (which would go down to the sheriffs), the country would have been very hard to govern. And under the Tudor era consolidation, it would have been impossible. So the wise thing to do is just behead a folks at the top who were too slow to jump.

There must have been thousands of postal clerks the Confederacy who stayed in place. They would have benefited from this doctrine too.

[AndyK]

Posts by, and strictly related to, the chief (irrelevant to this thread) have been moved to the chief's personal thread

[Burnaby49]

Off to court in an hour but I can't guarantee a posting on today's events until tomorrow. My computer internet connection is getting very flaky and it may pack up totally by this evening. Since Webhick doesn't make housecalls if it fails completely a report will have to wait on the Telus guy tomorrow. Also having people over this evening so probably have to get to work cooking as soon as I get home. If so I'll post the condensed version with full report to follow. Assuming of course that enough happens to warrant a detailed report.

[grixit]

Hey, we can wait a day or two.

[Burnaby49]

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men, 1925

Those lines came to mind sitting in court today watching the fitful doleful end of the Saga of the Fearless Five. The case is finished dead and buried, our hapless heroes cut a deal and copped a guilty plea! So no need for Gritx to wait for results. I'll write a full report later tonight, just got home and have to get to work on supper. So the Coles Notes now, atmosphere and histrionics later.

Both defendants made a common agreement with the Crown which the court rubber-stamped. Guilty to impersonating a peace officer, all other counts stayed and no further action on Smith's hissy-fit or Lange's arrest on Friday.

Jail term of 21 days. In Smith's case covered by time already served, Lange needs 8 more days to be served intermittently. No Victim Surcharge fine. One year unsupervised probation with various term's I'll go through in detail in my next post except for one I'll relate now to give Ron Usher a warm glow of satisfaction to start his work week.

The court ordered, as part of the deal agreed to by our defendants, that during the term of their probation they were to have no contact or communication of any kind whatever with the individual purporting to be a notary and going under the names of Sino General and/or Chief Rock and/or Hajistahenhway. So, if the Chief is of a mind to keep pumping out documents, this has to be something of a negative marketing incentive when trolling for new suckers.

[grixit]

I'd love to see how this plays out in the sovsphrere. There will be strawmen weeping everywhere.

[Burnaby49]

So, on to my day in court. I was there at 9:30 prior to our heroes being escorted into the courtroom. When they came in Lange was in a red prison jumpsuit and Smith in the suit he was wearing when he was tossed into the pit Friday afternoon. Smith gave his magic incantation as he crossed through the remand doorway into the court then gave me a cheery wave before sitting down. The first thing Crown counsel did was inform the court that Lange wanted to talk to the duty counsel, essentially legal aid. However issues over that. If he'd had the sense to want duty counsel assistance last Friday there would have been no problem. An astute young lawyer was right there in our court ready and willing to take on the job. But today there were difficulties, it was List Day. That was a new term to me, turned out to be the processing of all the miscreants arrested over the weekend and now facing a judge on Monday morning. Duty counsel had to be there to help represent them. Since Lange was a "regular" prisoner being held during the term of a trial he was at the end of the line behind the List Day mob so our trial would have to wait for his services unless the judge ordered a priority in which case duty counsel would dump the List Day riff-raff and hurry on over.

Judge asked the Crown what they wanted to do. Crown counsel said she had a non-controversial initial witness who could be put on while waiting for the duty counsel. The two Daves were good with it so we got at least one witness in before their capitulation.

The Crown started by recapping events leading to arrest. Our heroes trying to enter the courts in November and December 2012 under the guise of being Peace Officers and their attempts to get a metal shop to make them a bunch of phony Peace Officer's badges.

Then it was time for the witness, a woman from Victoria who was a supervisor in the Victoria court Sheriff service. (A note here - I copied her name down when she said it on the stand but wasn't sure if I got it right so I quizzed her in the lobby after testimony. However for some reason she refused to give it to a scruffy old stranger badgering her for personal information at a high security trial with a bunch of defendants known for harassing court officials. After thinking it over I realized she had a point, her name is irrelevant to the accurate recording of events so I'll leave it out). She was just proving some documents. All she did was hand over documents into evidence after identifying them as documents given to her by her staff after having received them from the defendants in November and December 2012. I think they were the fake Peace Officer certificates purportedly notarized by the Chief. Lange cross examined her first. Just asked her if she had personally seen him serving the documents on the Sheriffs. Not in November but in the December incident she was present and saw him pressing the documents on the Sheriffs. Then Smith's turn and he went Full Freeman right out the gate;

Smith - Do you work for the province of British Columbia?
Witness - Yes.
Smith - Are you aware that the province of British Columbia is a bankrupt corporation?
Witness - Huh? Don't understand what you are talking about.
Smith - Are you aware that the Province of British Columbia is a bankrupt corporation owned by (I think he said) the American government or treasury?

The witness was apparently confused as to what this had to do with some documents she'd entered into evidence. Judge told her to just answer yes or no to the question whether she worked for a corporation. So, no. I work for the province of British Columbia. Then Smith asked (I think, poor audio) if she had to follow corporate policies. Judge - answer yes, no, or I don't know.

Smith - When you were made a sheriff did you take a statutory oath to the corporation of British Columbia?
Witness - I took an oath for the province of British Columbia
Smith - Are you sure?
Witness - Yes.

After this nonsense was done duty counsel still MIA. Crown counsel said that the next witness was an RCMP officer specializing in Freemen who would give factual evidence about events so it might be a good idea to have a lawyer for Lange if he planned to continue with counsel. So at 10:30 Court adjourned until they could round up duty counsel. At that point I assumed that Lange was bailing and wanted a lawyer to help negotiate a deal. Since his "Special appearance" bullshit on Friday, far from being a magic pass out of trouble, had resulted in the judge ordering a week in jail I thought that maybe Lange was reconsidering. Maybe his wife had talked some sense into him on the weekend. Just guesses on my part.

I hung around in the lobby and chatted with the 77 year old commissionaire at the information desk about the trial and he asked who the judge was. I said I didn't know so he pulled out the list to look it up. This was when I found out why I couldn't locate the courtroom on Friday. While this was not an in camera hearing it was apparently a super-secret unlisted hearing not on the daily docket. Even the registrar didn't have it. I was just lucky I'd seen Smith wandering by.

At noon we were told to come back at 2:00. Something was obviously up. Back at two but we just sat around in the courtroom until three with no defendants or judge. When duty counsel showed up and our two boys were brought in the duty counsel conferred with both of them so it looked like Smith was onboard for representation too. Turned out they had both cut a deal with the Crown during the break and were changing their pleas to guilty. Duty Counsel said he had reviewed it, seemed ok to him, and then he hurried off to be with his first love, List Day. Crown said that they had made identical plea bargain agreements and the terms were;

1 - All charges except impersonating Peace Officers dropped. They were to plead guilty to that.

2 - Each defendant to get 21 day jail term. Smith off on time already served. Lange 8 days short.

3 - Twelve Months unsupervised probation. Agreed terms of probation were;
- No contact or communication with any other member of the Fabulous Fighting Five Freemen.
- No contact or communication with the person who signed the Peace Officer's Oath as a
claimed notary (hi Chief!)
- Keep the peace (A loaded term!) and be of good behavior during term of probation
- Not possess badges, cards, letters or certificates that might give them the appearance of
being Peace Officers
- not attend any court sessions except their own. If they were involved in any court sessions
they were to identify themselves properly and conduct themselves in a manner acceptable to the courts. Crown counsel said they put this provision in because of Smith's Friday hissy-fit.

Judge was willing to accept the agreement and asked both defendants if they agreed to these terms. Yes except for a slight quibble by both. They were fine with the no-contact with the Chief, Ream, Simpson and Valliant but wanted to be able to associate with each other. Apparently they worked together from time to time in the plumbing/heating business and wanted to continue. Crown agreed. Judge then asked Crown if a fine would be preferable to the eight days to be served by Lange. Crown didn't seem happy with idea but it didn't matter because when the judge offered Lange the choice of jail or a $1,500 fine he picked jail. Since Lange worked, or was trying to get work, judge allowed sentence to be served on weekends. Judge also waived Victim Surcharge fine. When all this done judge asked our defendants once again if the agreed to the deal. Yes. Did they have anything to say before final sentencing. No.

When he read out the terms he phrased the no contact with the Chief as "no contact or communication, directly or indirectly, with the individual purportedly a 'notary' going under the names of Sino General and/or Chief Rock and/or Hajistahenhway." Judge had problems with the pronunciation of Hajistahenhway. Crown counsel of no help with that one. So we finally got down to business at three and everything concluded by four. As a result I was saved from viewing a parade of witnesses droning on for the rest of the week. Works for me.

[Burnaby49]

As always, I forgot to mention something. Probably a couple more of these to come yet. Crown Counsel gave a short song and dance at sentencing about why our felonious freemen should get the book thrown at them (21 times greater jail sentence than Simpson!). They brought up the fact that the "Fighting For Us All" Freeman Five (I'm being generous here on my interpretation of the Crown's position on their capabilities) seemed to be somewhat more or less organized and with the apparent ability to occasionally actually act in concert. A somewhat unique event in Canadian Freemanistan considering that most of them seem incapable of organizing a one-man pub crawl. I'll go out on a limb and say that I think if I gave Menard $50 he could handle at least that.

One piece of evidence that the Crown gave as proof of their professional expertise in being able to act together as an organized team in pursuit of a common goal was the series of videos that Mowe linked to and now, sadly, deleted. You remember; the ones taken in happier, more optimistic times, when they showed the world graphic proof that they could all get into one vehicle together and drive to a location entirely different than the one the video started at. No wonder the Crown fears their latent capabilities!

[The Observer]

I'd love to see how this plays out in the sovsphrere. There will be strawmen weeping everywhere.

With headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

[Burnaby49]

And a comment on a prior comment of mine. In my posting of yesterday's proceedings I said that part of the probation conditions was;

- not attend any court sessions except their own. If they were involved in any court sessions they were to identify themselves properly and conduct themselves in a manner acceptable to the courts. Crown counsel said they put this provision in because of Smith's Friday hissy-fit.

I think the underlying reason for this was the difficulty the Court had on Friday in finding a legal justification for incarcerating Smith because of his behaviour in court. Judge seemed at a loss what to do if he continued acting up for the duration of the trial. Now, if Smith is uncooperative in further proceedings, the vague term "in a manner acceptable to the courts" will allow the court to toss him in jail for breaching probation. Simple and effective.

Something I didn't directly note is that Smith and Lange met the above requirement on Monday afternoon. On Friday they both got tossed in jail for the weekend because of their behaviour. Smith actually seemed to be forcing it by continuing when judge ordered him to stop. Monday morning, before the deal, Lange's cross examination questions were entirely proper and to point. Smith's questions were OPCA nonsense but he didn't push it and terminated cross examination before judge could get worked up.

Monday afternoon was quite different. Both defendants said only the absolute minimum to get the deal done. Have you changed your plea "yes your honour". Do you plead guilty "yes your honour". Please state your plea for the court "guilty your honour". When the judge invited them to make a statement to the court prior to sentencing both declined. Exactly the kind of behaviour contemplated by the term "in a manner acceptable to the courts".

[notorial dissent]

Maybe, in the interim break, some one explained to them in words of one syllable and in terms they could maybe understand, explicitly what was going to happen and for exactly how long, if they didn't reign in and temper their attitude and stifle the stupid, as I don't/can't believe for a second that they suddenly grew some smarts.

[JamesVincent]

Dropped part of the charges and got time served credit with no fine. Victory! How can you mistake that winning?

[Clovenhoof]

What did the judge look like? Was he by any chance a bald guy with a gigantic beard and (normal sized) glasses?

[Burnaby49]

What did the judge look like? Was he by any chance a bald guy with a gigantic beard and (normal sized) glasses?

Nope. Older guy, white hair no beard. Not slim or fat. Don't recall glasses. Apparently fairly new. He liked to spell everything out; on the Monday he went into a long lecture on the entire procedure that the court would follow during the trial - Crown opening statment, Witnesses/Examination in Chief/Cross examination, rules, procedures, etc. because he felt it necessary to explain it all to two pro se defendants.

As an aside this discussion has had over 800 views since my Friday posting so the case is obviously of interest. In addition the Chief copied my Monday court hearing write-up verbatim into his Facebook account so probably a few more views there. He was entirely fair about it, no editing, even left in the part where I related how the court banned the defendants from contacting him as part of their probation.

[JamesVincent]

As an aside this discussion has had over 800 views since my Friday posting so the case is obviously of interest. In addition the Chief copied my Monday court hearing write-up verbatim into his Facebook account so probably a few more views there. He was entirely fair about it, no editing, even left in the part where I related how the court banned the defendants from contacting him as part of their probation.

Except that he added in a "feeling amused" status feeling at the end of his copy and paste. I do enjoy the comments, especially about a video going "viral" even though somebody didn't authorize it to be made public. You know which video they're referring to?

Another question about the good... whatever he is: if he is so deadset against the military, why is almost every picture I see him in he's wearing 4 color?

[Burnaby49]

And on a lighter note, LordEd on the JREF forums has located Mr. Reams Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/soveralex

There area couple videos that caught my eye - First, it's a convoy of Freemen posing around the minivan that was likely the very one from which the Nanaimo Three were so dramatically extracted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9FvyVkoeVY

The cast of characters are identified by text titles:

• Big Dave the mother of process
  Juice the wrench
  Alex AKA "Axle" tough as a coffin nail computer/video expert
  AKA "Gab the wiseman"
  The fractional money man
  Kissy Lips Andy mother of deconstructive logic and spoken word magic

Their mission? To drive to Kelowna B.C., to support Dean Clifford with his 28 charges against an RCMP officer. Our gang is there to serve as "peace officers" and make most certain "that everyone is on their toes".

And now a longer video, some of which overlaps with the previous one, en route to the courthouse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCU7E018kJY

Clifford's legal action is described by a number of Freeman sources (http://private-person.com/blog/recent-c ... -does-rcmp) (Scroll down - it's the November 21 to December 7 stuff.) And courtesy of the World Freeman Society (http://public.worldfreemansociety.org/i ... urt-nov-21).

After becoming just that much better acquainted with our posse, I am unsurprised that they would willingly buy into all manner of absurd Freeman-on-the-Land crap. What surprises me is they have any cash to make those purchases...

SMS Möwe

I'm guessing it is one of the videos Mowe referenced here.

[Clovenhoof]

The victim surcharge has been the subject of some is cushion in my part of the woods. Until this past fall it was optional, and judges in their wisdom invariably waived it, often without even giving reasons. With the new changes there is a mandatory surcharge of $100 for summary offences and $200 for indictable offences. In the same range as a speeding ticket, so you'd think that it wasn't an egregious abuse if these poor criminally convicted offenders. Except that some of the judges concluded that it was, and decided to get around it. If there is a fine then the surcharge is a percentage of the fine instead of the fixed amount (I imagine this might be appropriate for tax offenders, for example). Some of our local judges then have started giving out $1 fines (as your crown suggested). to "stay within" the exact wording of the law while ignoring its intent entirely, with the result of some serious domestic violence getting resolved by $1 fines. He'll of a message to society about the rule of law, much less the relative value of domestic violence vs, say, a cup of coffee

The surcharge is a part of the sentence imposed over and above the court-imposed aspects of the sentence -- jail, fine, and/or probation. It isn't accurate to describe it as having any relative value to domestic violence.

There are two problems with it. The first is that it violates a long-standing principle of sentencing that a judge must consider the means of an offender before imposing a fine or a restitution order. The courts recognize that a $10,000 fine might be a mere blip for person A, while $500 might be an enormous hardship for person B, and they sentence accordingly.

The second is the idea that everybody is entitled to serve their sentence and be free and clear of it, at some point in their lives. Though the courts have not yet ruled on this point, it is generally accepted that until the surcharge has been paid, the sentence is not yet completed. This means that a person who commits a trivial offence, gets a suspended sentence and probation, but lives in abject poverty such that they can never pay the $100 or $200 can never get a pardon for their crime, and can never enter the United States, among other consequences.

I of course say screw the bleeding hearts. Sure, maybe we forced you into a government-sanctioned residential school where you spent years being repeatedly sodomized by the people we were paying to take care of you, and then we denied any kind of counselling to you so that you were forced into a life of profound despair and alcoholism. But there are laws, and when you steal that bottle of Jack Daniels to give yourself a couple of hours of respite, well, there's a victim there. Us, the government. So you can... okay, I digress.

Anyway, there are some -- like, almost everyone involved in the justice system -- who find the new surcharge provisions utterly offensive.

[Clovenhoof]

I can elaborate a bit on the Two Daves ending up in the clink. Lange violated his bail by missing court. That's where section 524 kicks in -- it's the section that triggers the termination of bail upon a breach.

The other Dave could have properly been jailed for two reasons. The judge may have concluded that his conduct in court constituted a breach of his bail condition to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, and revoked bail accordingly (again s. 524). Sounds like that's what he did. He also could have cited him for contempt, and denied him bail pending the contempt hearing. That likely would have been more trouble than it was worth.

[Burnaby49]

Clovenhoof"]I can elaborate a bit on the Two Daves ending up in the clink. Lange violated his bail by missing court. That's where section 524 kicks in -- it's the section that triggers the termination of bail upon a breach.

The other Dave could have properly been jailed for two reasons. The judge may have concluded that his conduct in court constituted a breach of his bail condition to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, and revoked bail accordingly (again s. 524). Sounds like that's what he did. He also could have cited him for contempt, and denied him bail pending the contempt hearing. That likely would have been more trouble than it was worth.

Pretty much correct but the judge had to follow a winding path to get there. Maybe I'm telling tales out of school here because I got some of my information by shamelessly eavesdropping but it is my understanding that the duty counsel (who our boys were both too stupid to retain, she impressed me) realized that the judge's original reason for incarcerating Smith was invalid. She knew that the legislation the judge relied on allowed him to evict Smith from the courtroom (as the judge had done with Smith in the January 22nd hearing) but not to arrest him. However when she went to ask Smith if he was willing to accept her as his counsel he refused. Since she didn't represent him she couldn't tell him he could walk. Net result was that it was the Crown, the opposition, who brought up the awkward fact that Smith was not currently legally detained and suggested the 524 solution. This was why the Crown asked, and the judge agreed, to stipulate in the probation agreement that Lange and Smith had to behave in a manner acceptable to the courts in any further proceedings, a very nebulous phrase;

Smith - Just excuse me a second your honour, Ah . .Ah . .Ahchoo!
Judge - Sneezing in my court! Breach of probation, back to the slammer!

You are correct that the judge was very reluctant to go the contempt route, he kept saying over and over he wasn't going there unless it was absolutely necessary. Canadian judges in general seem very reluctant to bar defendants from a free expression of their rights at trial through a contempt call. Lange and Smith were, in my opinion, essentially harmless on a violence based risk analysis. However, even in the case of plausibly violent offenders acting like demented high risk assholes in court Canadian judges are reluctant to play the contempt card since it might impair their right to a full defense. As a very current example let me give you paragraphs 140 onward of the Fearn decision:

(http://www.albertacourts.ab.ca/jdb_new/ ... qb0114.pdf)

Fearn is a totally revolting individual with comments about the court that alarmed me but he couldn't, notwithstanding his best efforts, get the court to determine he was in contempt.

One thing I'd like to point out, I've mentioned it before, is that I am not a lawyer and have no legal training. So my reporting may not correctly reflect the legal nuances of what actually happened. However since I was the only unpaid non-participating (as in not an on-the-clock government employee) spectator who sat through the whole trial our hapless heroes had nobody in the peanut gallery who was on their side recording events to contradict me. Takes a lot of the fun out of it when I can't squabble.

[Fmotlgroupie]

The surcharge is a part of the sentence imposed over and above the court-imposed aspects of the sentence -- jail, fine, and/or probation. It isn't accurate to describe it as having any relative value to domestic violence.

No, the surcharge doesn't, but obviously the quantum of a sentence reflects to a large degree the court's views on the seriousness of an offence and whether it is so ring that the court denounces, and a $1 fine is, in such terms, a declaration that an offence is basically de mini is and not worthy of denunciation (see R v Omeasoo http://canlii.ca/t/g29nv ). That judges would apply such a symbolic fine to an offence as part of their petty grievance against the laws of the land is, to me, pretty reprehensible.

As to the grievance itself, I'm blown away that a $100 fine (1/27.5 of the $2750 mandatory no-insurance Ticket around here, I think about 1/50 in Ontario) is somehow a life-altering amount is, well, belief-straining at best.


I would suggest that perhaps your jurisdiction doesn't have a fine-options program (where the government lets you work off a fine rather than paying it in cash), but Alberta has one and still we hear the same (they can never pay the surcharge!) rhetoric here.

I of course say screw the bleeding hearts. Sure, maybe we forced you into a government-sanctioned residential school where you spent years being repeatedly sodomized by the people we were paying to take care of you, and then we denied any kind of counselling to you so that you were forced into a life of profound despair and alcoholism. But there are laws, and when you steal that bottle of Jack Daniels to give yourself a couple of hours of respite, well, there's a victim there. Us, the government. So you can... okay, I digress.

First of all, I think that you don't understand the nature of the surcharge. It isn't related directly to the particular victim of a given offence, but rather goes into a fund that each province (I believe) keeps for funding victim support services. In some jurisdictions, some victims can apply to the fund for compensation for specific damages, but it also funds victim services societies, non-profit quangos which offer counselling, court preparation, etc. to victims of crime.

Secondly, I think your ad-extremis argument doesn't move the discussion forward much. Yes, the homeless guy isn't going to pay the surcharge, but he's never going to see a Form 21 ("arrest this guy because he didn't pay his fine") warrant put out for. It. And he's not impacted by the lack of a pardon or travel opportunities.

A more functional accused, say a functional alcoholic who has a job and has turned hings around that he wants to travel to the US, can DARN WELL PAY $100 PER CRIMINAL CONVICTION! It isn't that much compared to the price of anything else in the world.

Anyway, there are some -- like, almost everyone involved in the justice system -- who find the new surcharge provisions utterly offensive.

As you can probably tell from my tone, the people I know are appalled by the judges' conduct, instead. I must move in different circles.