Courts curtailing in-person hearings as COVID surges

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This article was published 01/11/2020 (1526 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s courts are reinstituting measures to reduce the number of in-person hearings as Winnipeg enters its first day under code-red restrictions and COVID-19 tightens its grip in the province’s jails.

The Manitoba Court of Appeal announced Monday all appeals will be heard by videoconference and all motions and applications by teleconference until further notice.

The high court made a similar move in the early days of the pandemic last March, but resumed in-person hearing in late June.

In a separate notice issued on Friday, provincial court Chief Judge Margaret Wiebe announced in-person hearings would not be returning to a dozen northern First Nation communities “for the foreseeable future.” These communities include Gillam, God’s Lake Narrows, Lac Brochet, Oxford House, Peguis, Poplar River, Pukatawagan, Shamattawa, South Indian Lake, Split Lake, and Waywayseecappo.

As of Monday, there were 115 active cases of COVID-19 at Manitoba’s seven correctional centres, including 82 at Headingley Correctional Centre, with another 13 listed as recovered. Twenty-one of the Headingley cases involved staff.

“All centres have created and are utilizing plans and procedures to isolate and provide care to the individuals who may require it,” a Manitoba Justice spokesperson said, in an email to the Free Press. “Manitoba Corrections is continuing to manage inmate populations and reduce numbers in the centres, and a dedicated Crown attorney and Legal Aid duty counsel are in place to reduce unnecessary prisoner transport and detentions.”

Headingley went into code-red lockdown last month, suspending all inmate-lawyer visits. Under the lockdown, inmates who test positive for COVID-19 or are symptomatic cannot be moved from their isolation area to a video room for court appearances.

Courts are adjourning trials, sentencings and other matters “because we can’t even get the clients onto a video screen for their appearance,” said Gerri Wiebe, president of the Criminal Defence Lawyers Association of Manitoba. “There’s absolutely the possibility people are spending more time in custody because they literally can’t get their day in court.”

Wiebe said matters are more pressing at the Winnipeg Remand Centre, which is again banning all in-person inmate visits.

“I was made aware that as of 9 (a.m. Monday) the earliest phone appointment available to the remand centre was 12:30 (p.m.),” Wiebe said.

That kind of long lag time is forcing some lawyers to book their clients into bail court, just so they can be brought to a room where they can talk to them via video link.

“So, clients get transferred to the bail list just to appear in court on the video screen for the lawyers to have the ability to talk to them, which is obviously a hugely inefficient use of court time,” Wiebe said.

“The resources are not there for us to be able to have the (same) type of contact with our clients if we were able to just walk across the street to speak with them,” she said. “That is extremely difficult for the whole system because when defence counsel can’t get instructions, then the court sits there and waits and the whole system bogs down.”

Travel restrictions imposed on jail inmates resulted in the postponement of a homicide trial set to start Monday. The trial has been reset for next spring. Details of the decision cannot be disclosed as they were the result of a closed-door, pre-trial hearing.

In another courtroom, Jordan Belyk participated in the first day of his second-degree murder trial via video from Headingley Correctional Centre. But court heard the trial could be adjourned if Belyk — charged in the October 2017 killing of 19-year-old Brittany Bung — chooses to testify.

“Our position is he is entitled to be in the courtroom, and we would want whatever steps are necessary to ensure that takes place,” Belyk’s lawyer Saul Simmonds told Queen’s Bench Justice Joan McKelvey.

“We’ve made very clear that for whatever reason should the court decide (Belyk could not testify in person) because of whatever medical circumstances the court and the province are dealing with at the moment, we would address the issue of adjournments,” Simmonds said.

Similar adjournment requests typically result in delays of several months or even a year, depending on the availability of lawyers and the presiding judge.

Meanwhile, a jury trial for a man accused of sexual assault opened Monday with a judge reassuring jurors about the precautions in place to keep them safe.

“I’m sure it’s at the forefront of everyone’s mind today, given that we have been raised to a level red alert,” Queen’s Bench Justice Shauna McCarthy said.

That trial is starting with 14 jurors, two more than the standard 12, to allow for a possible COVID-19 related drop-off.

If the jury remains intact by the time deliberations begin, extra jurors will be selected at random and released from duty.

 

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca