A couple of articles from Joe Warmington to show the mockery some Judges make of our society.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/01/25/12610601.html
Justice is blind indeed
By JOE WARMINGTON, TORONTO SUN
You don’t have to squint to see the scars on Ryan Watson’s throat.
The nasty remnants of the knife is on display for all to see. What you don’t see are the scars inside.
Meanwhile, the guy responsible could be home in time to enjoy the NHL playoffs. It’s Ontario justice where a man, for a reason not known to anyone, smashed a completely innocent neighbour over the head, stabbed the 32-year-old airline pilot in the neck and all he gets is two-years-less-a-day in jail.
And to think all of this over a simple glass of water!
It started on a hot day last August with the request for the most basic human need.
“I was thirsty too,” said Watson Monday, who “recognized” fellow Port Hope resident Thomas Tollett from a wedding and “invited him in.”
Being neighbourly, Watson retrieved two cold bottles from his fridge. There was no thank you.
“When I turned, all I felt was something being smashed over my head,” said Watson. “It was a piece of ceramic, maybe a candle holder, which shattered into a million pieces.”
He fell and his guest dove on top of him.
“I just remember him stabbing me in the throat — twice,” said Watson, who said he was in a state of shock and writhing in pain.
He started calling out for help but his spouse Courtney was out. Fearing for his life, Watson managed to bite Tollett on the finger and elude his attacker. Yelling “I don’t want to die” — while bleeding profusely — he went to neighbours’ Beverly and Stanley Kostoff, 71 and 79-years-old.
“It was like a horror movie,” said Watson.
And the nightmare was not over. “I shut the door but he broke it down,” he said. “Telling me he is going to kill me he jumped on me and started punching me.”
Tollett also hit his two elderly neighbours over the head with a wooden paddle, before stabbing the woman in the abdomen with a piece that had splintered off, he said.
Thankfully, help arrived in the nick of time. The man was arrested and Watson was rapidly airlifted to St. Michael’s Hospital where he underwent six hours of surgery to save his life.
If you are not already sufficiently outraged, stay tuned. How much time did Tollett get? You figure 25 years? 20? 15? 10? Five?
No, 60-year-old retired teacher and local theatre actor, after pleading guilty to attempted murder, was sentenced Friday in Cobourg Court to serve two-years-less-a-day on top of the six months he has already served. He was also handed three years probation and an order to not come any closer than 300 metres from his victims.
“Unbelievable,” said Tory house leader Bob Runciman, a former solicitor general. “If anyone wonders about the need for limiting judicial discretion, this case should dispel all doubt. At very least, the judge should have required electronic monitoring. Simply giving him a 300 metre prohibition is meaningless.”
“What it really means is three months,” adds Joe Wamback, founder of the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation. “He will have dealt with the repercussions of this faster than Mr. Watson will.”
As QMI Agency reporter Cecilia Nasmith reported “the knife punctured (Watson’s) trachea through the front and out the back, cutting into his esophagus” and he was “hospitalized for 14 days where he could not speak, eat or drink” and “went from a healthy, active man who enjoyed life to a skinny, fearful one who has still not been able to return to work.”
Watson gave an emotional impact statement but the poor elderly couple were too afraid — knowing our lame justice system, a weak crown attorney and seemingly gutless judge would not be there to protect them when this violent piece of scum is let back into their neighbourhood by the Stanley Cup finals or sooner.
Said Justice Rhys Morgan: “We can’t leave this without noting that Mrs. Tollett, in her letter, addresses her concern for Mr. Watson.”
Who the hell cares what she says? Did he not hear what the victim said? Disgraceful.
Hockey players giving an elbow on the ice seem to get tougher sentences. Sickeningly, the judge talked of Tollett as a “loving husband and father, a good provider to his family” and “someone who enjoyed the respect of colleagues, his standing in the community as a teacher who holds two degrees and was enjoying retirement.”
But would Judge Morgan invite Thomas Tollett into his chambers for a glass of water without court security? Tollett will be free to roam as he pleases in no time and we don’t even know what he looks like.
As for why this happened, unproven theories included narcissism, possible early dementia and anger management. The best excuse came from defence lawyer Gary McNeely who suggested his client suffered with held- over frustration from being called Mr. Toilet while in high school.
He also pointed out how his client missed out on his birthday party and on getting to do a part in a play.
Who cares what the guy they once called Toilet missed out on? It’s our justice system that is in the toilet while Watson and the Kostoff’s came pretty close to missing out on the rest of their lives.
“I was lucky,” said Watson, who is determined to move on.
He gets back in the cockpit next month and can’t wait. “Air Canada has been unbelievably supportive and I am so fortunate to have a dream job to go back to.”
If ever asked for water again, the kind and generous Ryan says he would do exactly what he did on Aug. 20, 2009: Offer the person some.
[email protected]
and,
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/01/26/12624886.html
News Columnists / Joe Warmington
This system is crazy
For those of you upset in your emails, keep in mind this was the same judge who sentenced a guy to not have a girlfriend for three years.
So, perhaps in Mr. Justice Rhys Morgan’s mind, handing out a two-years-less a day for a dastardly sneak knife attack on an Air Canada pilot, and an elderly couple, in Port Hope is his idea of tough justice.
Truth is no one has any idea what he was thinking in either case. We are not allowed to know and just have to trust this judge is capable. My question, since people’s lives are at stake, is how are we sure? And who checks on that?
Thomas Tollett, 60, was convicted of attempted murder for the ruthless, sneaky ambush of 32-year-old Ryan Watson, who had simply obliged his request for a glass of cold water on a hot day.
Watson was stabbed twice in the throat and came so close to dying that paramedics and doctors are still stunned he is going back to work next month.
And yet Tollett could be out of the slammer as early as this spring because of this weak sentence.
But Morgan has rendered some crazy sentences before — the most famous being the one in June of 2007 in which the Peterborough Examiner’s headline “Man banned from having a girlfriend” told the whole story.
As reporter Galen Eagle wrote: “Mr. Justice Rhys Morgan told a 24-year-old, characterized as having a dependent personality disorder, yesterday he could not have a girlfriend for the next three years.”
The evidence showed Cranley “entered his girlfriend’s room, cut her phone cord with wire cutters and began slapping and punching her” before picking up a “butcher knife, stabbed himself in the chest and punctured his aorta.”
He had served 146 days in pre-trail custody, which upon conviction for six charges the judge said was enough. “You cannot form a romantic relationship of an intimate nature with a female person,” Morgan told the stunned court when explaining his goofy girlfriend-prohibition order. “That is the only way I can see the protection of the public is in place until you get the counselling you need.”
The judge got that one wrong and 18 months later Cranley shockingly didn’t abide by the stern no-girlfriend order and was charged again in a similar attack on a female where he screamed: “If you call the cops, I will kill every person you care about!”
Morgan gave him 21 months this time but with pre-trial time served, it was considerably less. There was still one year left on his girlfriend ban.
Was Justice Morgan right? Was Justice Bruce Durno right last week to let a Toronto 18 terrorist just serve one more day despite being part of a plot to blow up Parliament and behead the prime minister?
Who gets to decide? The system watches that we don’t talk and drive while on the cellphone. Who watches the judges?
Somebody has to say it since it seems that in many major crimes, a suspect is either out on bail and breaching those conditions or out on probation or parole from a previous conviction. This means somebody made a mistake in letting them free!
Any consequences for that? Any accountability?
On sentencing there seems to be routine two-for-one time granted for time served in a provincial jail as if this is a rewards program. There are no reward points for the victims.
Tory MP Brent Rathgeber, who sits on the House of Commons Standing Committees on Justice and Public Safety, said once the government gets a majority of Conservative senators in the Red Chamber they will be able to pass strong laws which include mandatory minimum sentences.
Hopefully, they will raise the girlfriend ban to five years instead of three.
Of course, even though the case made a Jay Leno monologue it’s not really funny. In my view, Morgan’s two rulings are a joke in a justice system which is supposed to protect real-life victims. I pray no one else gets hurt because of his bad decisions of the past or any potential ones in the future.
Anyone concerned?
Anybody in the Attorney General’s office concerned about any of this — ensuring a judge is doing his or her job properly?
It’s time to take this justice system back from the lawyers who in many cases have clearly made a mess of it. It’s not their system. It’s ours.
Maybe it’s also time for a conversation about having elected judges, and even Crowns, or perhaps we should consider having more than just lawyers sitting on the bench. Why can’t a former chief of police or beat cop, parole officer, correctional officer, warden or social worker learn legal procedure and be a good judge?
Is it any crazier than ordering someone not to have a girlfriend for three years?
