Court File and Parties

COURT FILE NO.: 893-17 DATE: 20170622 SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO

RE: R. v. Clinton Haggart

BEFORE: The Honourable Mr. Justice J.S. Poupore

COUNSEL: Philip Zylberberg, counsel for the Crown Daniel Baker, counsel for the Accused

HEARD: June 12, 2017

Endorsement

[1] This application is brought by the Crown for an Order pursuant to section 521 of the Criminal Code of Canada, vacating the Judicial Interim Release Order given by Justice of the Peace Seguin and substituting therefore a Detention Order.

[2] The test to be applied on a review is found in the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. St. Cloud, 2015 SCC 27, 2015 S.C.C. 27 at paras. 120 and 121.

[3] The justice of the peace gave excessive weight to the fact that the accused was not blessed with having family members or friends that could come forward to act as sureties. The justice went on to state that it would be preferable to have a surety, however she released the accused on his own recognizance.

[4] The justice placed insufficient weight on the extensive criminal record of the accused when she considered the primary and secondary grounds.

[5] On the primary ground, the justice failed to adequately analyze the accused’s record. A detailed review would have shown that since the dated offence of failing to appear, the accused was either in jail or he failed to be granted bail because of the seriousness of the offences with which he was charged. Simply put the accused was not given the opportunity to breach because he was for the most part in jail.

[6] More importantly is the justice’s failure to analyze the accused’s record in relation to the secondary ground. Her brief reasons are contained on page 45 of the transcript. One short paragraph deals with her assessment of the weakness in the Crown’s case. Here the justice refers to the parties both being intoxicated at the time of the alleged offence. However, she failed to mention the other possibly corroborating evidence. A second short paragraph states that releasing the accused without a surety would be tantamount to a detention order. What the justice did not do is state clearly why releasing the accused on his own recognizance was appropriate given his long and serious record.

[7] The justice also failed to consider the fact that the accused’s grandfather who was in the courtroom had previously stood as surety for the accused but eventually pulled the bail. Further, the justice did not deal with the accused’s drug problem and how he failed to cooperate with his probation officer.

[8] In fact, the probation officer stated in his report that the accused is a “very, very high-risk offender.” The officer went on to say that it was obvious that the accused was lying to her about his alcohol abuse.

[9] The accused was released on his own recognizance to live with his grandfather. The conditions imposed meant that the accused was to report to various bodies during the week. This would make any form of house arrest meaningless during working hours.

[10] To compound the situation, the grandfather was going to be at camp and not in the household occupied by the accused for the summer months. This release order went totally against the weight of the evidence before the justice.

[11] I ordered the immediate detention of the accused after the hearing. These are the reasons for my doing so.

The Honourable Mr. Justice John S. Poupore Date: June 22, 2017