Bill C-30: an attractive option for defendants

A Follow-Up Study of Persons Found Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder in British Columbia
On February 4, 1992, significant changes were made to the mental disorder provisions contained in the Canadian Criminal Code following the introduction of Bill C-30 (1). These amendments were proclaimed into force after the Supreme Court of Canada declared—in R v Swain (2)—that the Criminal Code sections pertaining to the automatic detention of individuals deemed not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) were in violation of sections 7 and 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Objective: To describe the characteristics of individuals found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCRMD) after the 1992 Criminal Code amendments and to track their movement through the forensic system, as well as to unveil the changes to British Columbia’s forensic psychiatric system that resulted from Bill C-30.

Method: Profile information relating to persons found NCRMD between February 4, 1992, and February 4, 1998, in British Columbia was collected and analyzed. Community follow-up data was collected and analyzed for a 24-month period following a subject’s discharge from hospital.

Results: A substantially greater number of individuals entered the forensic psychiatric system in British Columbia after Bill C-30 was implemented. The post-1992 forensic psychiatric population contained fewer persons charged with serious index offences and a greater number of persons charged with relatively minor offences. The length of hospitalization for the NCRMD cohort decreased substantially after the 1992 Criminal Code amendments.

Conclusion: The Bill C-30 provisions have made the NCRMD defence an attractive option for defendants and legal counsel.

The study made a number of interesting points including the average length of initial hospitalization for persons discharged to the community according to the most serious index offence, presented in Table 2.

Not Criminally Responsible

What is NCR…
The notion that an individual who suffers from mental disorder may not bear the full weight of responsibility for their actions dates back to ancient times. Although various approaches to a legal test for criminal responsibility date back centuries in the Anglo-American tradition, some major historical trials during the 19th century in Britain culminated in the enunciation of the so-called McNaughten Rules (1843) in which the Law Lords of Great Britain indicated that for an individual to be found Not Responsible for their act or omission, their mental disorder must render them unable to know the nature and quality of the act or that it was wrong.

In the years following, courts on both sides of the Atlantic struggled with the meaning of the individual words of this rule. At the present time in Canada the Criminal Code dictates a test, derived from McNaughten, stating that for an individual to found “Not Criminally Responsible”, they must have been unable, by virtue of mental disorder, to appreciate the nature and quality of the act or know that it is wrong. Within Canadian jurisprudence, these individual words have been subject to judicial interpretation.

http://www.forensicpsychiatry.ca/

Canada – Guilty of Gullibility

exert from column by Charles Adler

Folks, I want to ask you a question. In the so-called trial held in a Canadian court room, a trial to determine whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty of murdering Tim McLean, do you know how many witnesses were called? Two. Both of them psychiatrists, who both agreed that the defendant was not criminally responsible because he was ill. None of the testimony was challenged by the Prosecution because the Prosecution agreed with the Defence on everything of substance and there was no point in challenging testimony they agreed with. So who was representing the victim’s family and the family known as the Canadian people? Were there eyewitnesses to the crime? Dozens of them. The passengers and the bus driver. Why weren’t any of them called? The so-called witnesses who were called, weren’t witnesses of anything. They were two doctors who talked to the accused, who under medication told a story of God and voices. We have no evidence that he is telling the truth, but we are told that he is a sick man, obviously a sick man. Jefferey Dahmer was a sick man. Charles Manson was a sick man. Paul Bernardo was a sick man. Because the man who killed Tim McLean and presumably ate his victim’s eyeballs – because he was sick and is sick – the rest of us are forced to be sickened by the notion that he is saved from a permanent incarceration by his sickness, which the witnesses say can be medicated away.

And so the family of Tim McLean will have to deal with a yearly review, a yearly report on their son’s killer. They will spend the rest of their lives praying that psychiatrists keep on giving Vincent Li’s mind a failing grade. But the system this week was all about feeling good, instead of doing good. It helped the “feel good” to not call any eyewitnesses to the crime. Eyewitness testimony of that July night, on that bus, would have left nobody feeling good. The truth of what happened does not contain a speck of “feel good” and the public would have gotten very, very angry. Instead we got two shrinks. Feel good practitioners telling us that Vincent was a good guy, had always been a good guy, had a bad night and doesn’t really know what he did that night. All he knows is that he heard the voice of God telling him to kill the passenger next to him. He knew enough to buy a knife, and carry it on a bus. He knew enough to butcher a relatively small man, a vulnerable man. He doesn’t really know what he did, but he knows what he was instructed to do by the voices. No need to challenge this testimony???? No, this is really as solid as the rock of Gibraltar. No one would think of challenging a doctor who deals with mental illness and has done hours and hours of interviews with a person who has murdered and cannibalized. (more…)

The petition for Tim’s Law

This petition has been started in hopes that the laws will be changed regarding persons being found not criminally responsible for their actions due to mental illness. They should still be held criminally responsible, and unable to re-enter society.

“Tim’s Law is if you voluntary take an innocent life you will lose your freedom for the rest of your life. I think that’s fair and reasonable and I think that’s justice,”

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/timslaw/index.html

Family wasn’t shocked

It was a verdict Tim McLean’s family knew was coming, one they didn’t want to hear.

Before a packed courtroom yesterday morning, Justice John Scurfield ruled Vincent Li not be held criminally responsible for stabbing, dismembering and decapitating McLean aboard a Greyhound bus last summer.

The decision means Li will not be going to jail, but a mental institution.

“Persons who are profoundly ill do not have the mental capacity to intentionally commit a crime,” Scurfield said.

“The goal of criminal law is to punish criminals, not persons who have a mental illness.”

Scurfield ordered Li to remain in a secure psychiatric facility until a hearing can be scheduled before the Criminal Code review board. Li is expected to then be committed to the Selkirk Mental Health Centre for long-term treatment.

Once lodged at the centre, Li will be subject to annual reviews to consider his release.

“We didn’t go into this morning with any surprises expected and we didn’t get any,” McLean’s mother Carol deDelley told reporters outside court. “We will now have to go on a yearly basis, instead of having a birthday party, to ensure Mr. Li is kept locked up to keep everybody else safe.”

“Knowing that killer might get out very soon is very hard,” said McLean’s father Tim.

At a trial earlier this week, two forensic psychiatrists testified Li is a schizophrenic who believed he heard the voice of God directing him to kill McLean.

McLean’s family is calling on the federal government to pass a new law requiring mandatory life sentences for murder, regardless of the offender’s mental state.

“There is still a possibility of him being freed,” deDelley said. “Is the likelihood there? I’m not sure, but the possibility shouldn’t even be there. He still did it, whether he was in his right frame of mind or not. There was nobody else on that bus holding a knife slicing up my child.”

Li’s two-day trial heard testimony from just two witnesses — the forensic psychiatrists who examined him. Crown attorney Joyce Dalmyn said because Li admitted killing McLean, there was no reason to hear testimony from the nearly three dozen passengers who were on the bus with them.

Awaiting clarification

Dalmyn said the Crown’s office is still awaiting clarification from the RCMP as to whether an NCR finding means Li will have a criminal record.

“Certainly it is something that the RCMP do track and is information that would be available to them were there any further finding or charges in the future,” she said.