Everybody knows that activities such as perjury, tampering with evidence and intimidating witnesses are criminal offences. What people tend not to realize is just how seriously these offences, which fall under the general category of “obstruction of justice” are treated by the courts.
Two people in Yorkton court this week found out the hard way.
The first was a youth who cannot be named because he is under 18 years of age.
The original story garnered a lot of attention across the province and even nationally when, on June 20, police locked down Yorkton Regional High School after receiving a complaint about a social media post indicating a boy had a gun at the school.
The next day, the suspect was charged with possession of a weapon (an Airsoft gun) dangerous to the public peace, carrying a concealed weapon and possession of marijuana, as well as, two counts of failure to comply as he was already on release conditions for an alleged assault in the spring.
Following a show cause (bail) hearing in Regina on June 22, the youth was released, but not for long.
On August 4, he was back in court for another show cause hearing on new charges of uttering threats and intimidation of a justice system participant.
Judge Patrick Koskie refused to release the defendant despite all the things he had in his favour the most important of which is the fact he is a youth. In a nutshell, every possible option short of custody must be considered before a young person is remanded.
Here is someone who was charged with a firearm offence, not just any ordinary firearm offence, but one involving a school, which is as aggravating a factor as it gets, but that is not enough to hold him. Intimidate a justice system participate, however, and you’re not getting out.
The second case was Micheal Winter, who faced trial August 4 charged with uttering threats and obstructing justice. Those charges stemmed from an incident that allegedly happened when he was in court in June for allegedly assaulting a police officer (which he was ultimately acquitted of, for the record). A witness from that case claimed Winter made gestures at him in court imitating pointing a gun and approached him afterward saying, “I’m going to get you.”
Winter claimed he never made the gestures and only threatened to have the witness charged with perjury because, Winter said, his statement in the assault case was false.
Winter was well aware how serious obstruction can be because he knew the maximum penalty for perjury is 14 years in prison.
Ultimately Judge Patrick Reis sided with the witness and found Winter guilty of uttering threats, the sentence for which was 98 days time-served plus an additional 60 days.
The judge found Winter not guilty on the obstruction charge because he believed the Crown had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had intended to obstruct justice by his actions.
In Canadian jurisprudence, you not only have to do the crime, you have to have had the intent to do the crime. And a good thing it was for Winter too, because Reis said the sentence on that charge would have been a minimum of a year on top of time-served.
In short, the intent to obstruct justice by uttering threats was more serious than the act of uttering threats itself.
The most famous example of this is probably Richard Nixon. Nixon was brought down not by the original crime of breaking and entering the offices of the Democratic National Committee. He lost the presidency of the United States he obstructed justice by trying to subsequently cover up the crime.
These things are treated as seriously as they are because not only are they crimes in and of themselves, but they undermine the integrity of the administration of justice itself, which cannot be tolerated if we are to have a functioning democratic society.
As an aside, the full title of 423.1, the section of the Criminal Code that deals with intimidation is: 423.1. Intimidation of a justice system participant or a journalist.
That’s right, not only is it a crime to scare a witness or impede a prosecutor, but you also can not try to intimidate me into not writing about it.
