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With regards to not being afforded the opportunity to give an opening statement, in Judge Hunter's courtroom I was guilty until I could prove myself to be innocent. However, it was almost impossible to enter any evidence of my innocence. In the first part of my trial I believe the Judge & Crown asked about 10 times what the relevance of my specific question was. The relevance to me was quite simple. The disclosure we received from the Crown Attorney's Office was basically a pack of lies, it was fabricated evidence. It was my intention to show that. My prepared questions were well crafted to demonstrate to the Court that these stories were not true and display a pattern of deceit. Had I been able to make my opening statement I would have said that the Crown's case is based on hearsay and innuendo and I would prove that by catching the Crown's witnesses in lies. Every time I tried to show that the Crown's witnesses were lying I was asked for the relevance or the Judge would say "I have nothing in front of me". So when the second part of my of my trial resumed approximately 11 weeks later, I attempted to make an opening statement so that the Judge would not ask what the relevance of every question was. I even took the extreme measure of attempting to enter the Crown's disclosure on which I based my defense into evidence. I was told, however, that that would be 'dangerous'. I did not know at the time, as it appears now, that the Judge meant dangerous to the Crown's case. At the time I foolishly thought the Judge was impartial and I took his directions at face value. So when I began to question Mrs. Friolet/Young knowing the Judge would be asking what the relevance of the questions were we could get that out of the way right at the start - he would know the relevance and allow me to defend myself in an unimpeded way. As it turned out the Judge found a new twist. Not only would we have to explain the relevance, he had ruled to Mrs. Young not signing her statement we would not be allowed to question her regarding those statements paving the way for her to change her story from that of the submitted Crown disclosure. This effectively meant that we, in reality, received the Crown's disclosure at the trial. Surely any unbiased Provincial Court Judge would and should have realized I was attempting to catch them in lies and discredit their testimony. I felt I did that, perhaps that's one of the reasons why the transcripts were then altered.  Ok do you understand what the Judge just said here? To totally destroy your life, make you homeless, allow a vandal to assault you, all the state/crown/court has to do is hope that the person(s) doing this to your family is going to say what they think he will say. Of course making deal with the offender to drop 18 criminal charges sure must also help. Further, you are not to be told exactly what you are accused of, but rather you are just given an idea of what the state/crown thinks or hopes you did. We should hold Politicians and Civil Servants to that standard. If you ever wondered why there are so many wrongful convictions and suicides in Ontario, here is your answer, you heard it from a high and mighty learned Judge. |