I woke up this morning and noticed a few emails in my account telling me there’s a story about my court appearance yesterday in the Irving paper!
I didn’t even know the Irvings were in the court room?
I said - That’s funny! They never talk to me or my lawyer.
I was certain in some way they would discredit me and I was right on!!!
AGAIN!!!!
The story went ok until the Irvings began to tell the public that I was banned from the Legislature for harassing the public and its staff!
This is a lie and to this day? I still don’t know the reasons that I’m banned but one thing is certain. I will find out who lied to have me banned.
I’m going to send a letter to the editor on this one. How come the Irvings always have to dis-credit people in their papers.
This is the reason we need a talk show in Saint John!!!
NB Telegraph-Journal | News - As published on page B4 on September 28, 2006
Blogger to argue police violated his Charter rights
Khalid Malik
Telegraph-Journal
SAINT JOHN - A lawyer for a blogger charged with obstructing a peace officer at the Atlantica conference earlier this year will use the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to defend his client.
Harold Doherty served notice Wednesday when he appeared in Provincial Court to set a trial date on behalf of Charles Joseph LeBlanc.
"It will be a very interesting trial," Judge William McCarroll said as he set aside a full day for the proceedings to take place on Nov. 2. "I am looking forward to it."
LeBlanc, of Fredericton, and Andrew Morgan Webber of Halifax, were charged with obstructing a peace officer during a protest at the international Atlantica conference held in the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre in late June.
Webber initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty and apologized. He was granted an absolute discharge because it was his first offence.
Doherty supplied a brief to the court when the judge asked how he planned to use the Charter for the defence.
Doherty said he will seek a stay of proceedings under a section of the Charter because LeBlanc's rights were breached under three different sections. He said his client's rights were violated when LeBlanc was arrested arbitrarily and without justification.
His rights were also breached when a police officer retrieved LeBlanc's digital camera from the floor after his arrest and, without a search warrant or reasonable grounds, viewed the images in the camera and then deleted them, his lawyer contends.
Doherty said the "intentional deletion of images" was in fact a deletion of evidence that might have assisted LeBlanc in the presentation of his evidence for his defence.
He said the photographic images were of the events, people and places that had figured in his arrest.
The lawyer also said in the brief that LeBlanc's arrest, search of his camera and deletion of images, constituted a breach of a section of the Charter that guarantees freedom of thought, belief, opinion and experiences, including freedom of the press and other medium of communication.
In a letter to this newspaper, LeBlanc maintained that he wasn't a protester at the conference. He was covering the Atlantica conference for his blog and happened to be in the area when the protesters ran through the doors at the Trade and Convention Centre.
Bloggers are the journalism style of the future and the trial will determine how bloggers should be treated in New Brunswick, he said in the letter.
LeBlanc has been banned from entering the provincial legislature or its grounds by a committee of provincial MLAs. The committee said he was banned for showing disrespectful behaviour and harassing legislature and security staff and members of the general public.
3 comments:
I too am eager to see what happens because on the face of the evidence before the Saint John court, I would say that Charles is innocent of the obstruction charges. There is video evidence from TV that he was not obstructing police as charged. More importantly, had he been able to use the pictures in his digital camera that were deleted by the Saint John Police aka Keystone Kops, he could have easily demonstrated his physical position in the melee that ensued that day, thus absolving him of being in the middle of the kerfuffle and proving that he was documenting it as a blogger.
But there is more to this case than meets the eye - the final paragraph in which the reporter says Charles was banned from the legislature for "Harrasment" : where is the evidence for that? There is no evidence, that's the sticky little problem which keeps raising its ugly head and will come back to bite a few politicians in the proverbial butt I dare say.
The decision to ban Charles from the Legislature was made behind closed doors, by a small group of seven or eight politicians, among them Shawn Graham and Kelly Lamrock whose true democratic colours will soon be on full display when they find themselves firmly esconced in the seats of power.
In a democracy, one of the most fundamental tenets of our justice system is that the accused as the RIGHT TO KNOW what the charges are against him before he can be found guilty. To this day, Charles still doesn't know the SPECIFICS of the "charges" against him. That's because there were no "charges" per se: rather, the decision to boot him out of the legislature was based on an emotional response, a dislike of Charles based on a negative perception and stereotypes about poor people like Charles who get uppity and don't know their place at the bottom of the social dung heap.
Certain high-powered politicians, their supporting bureacrats in government, employees of the legislature and political hacks who make and shape opinion have decided poor people like Charles are a "pain in the butt". Well tough baloney for them. If they can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. As a citizen of a democracy, Charles has the RIGHT to know who complained about him to the committee that had him barred from the Legislature, what the actual substance of the charges were, and the dates and times of the so-called harrasment incidents so he can mount a defense instead of being tried and hung without a jury by a secret cabal in Fredericton!!!
I'm looking forward to Saint John!!! As the judge said "This is going to be interesting...."
The article attributed the harrassment charge to committee and did not say if it was right or wrong.
Charles will be found Guilty :
If he's not, every clown like him will be going nut's, thinking their Real Media.
I hope they make a fine example of him.
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