Networked Knowledge - Media Report

[This version of the report has been edited by Dr Robert N Moles

On 31 May 2007 Kirk Makin the Justice Reporter for the Globe and Mail reported “Baltovich's lawyer blasts Crown for attempt to put writer on the stand"

He said a defence lawyer dared the Crown yesterday to put the author of a book about the Robert Baltovich murder case in the witness box at Mr. Baltovich's forthcoming trial, saying the move would inevitably backfire and further damage its already frail prosecution. In a blistering attack against the Crown's attempt to subpoena notes, interviews and tapes used by author Derek Finkle to produce his book, No Claim to Mercy, James Lockyer, a lawyer for Mr. Baltovich, said the Crown's crumbling case has led it to resort to desperate measures. "If my friend will guarantee to call Mr. Finkle at the trial, I will gladly support it," Mr. Lockyer told Mr. Justice David Watt of Ontario Superior Court. "I couldn't think of anything more helpful to the defence ... I don't mean to be rude, but it gives a good idea of how desperate my friends are to find anything to hang their hats on. "This entire application is an act of desperation," Mr. Lockyer said. "They want to get their hands on something - anything - to recreate their case against Mr. Finkle. They are looking for something they can distort, and I say that from experience, into some way of showing that Mr. Baltovich is guilty."

Using words such as "ridiculous," "unbelievable" and "much ado about nothing" to disparage the Crown's reasons for issuing the subpoena, Mr. Lockyer said that Mr. Finkle's book contains nothing that cannot be found in trial transcripts. "The book itself is a repetition again, and again, and again of the author's view that Mr. Baltovich is innocent," Mr. Lockyer said. "Can you imagine my friend calling Mr. Finkle before the jury?" Mr. Lockyer said that if he thought there was the slightest chance that it might blunt the Crown's single-minded pursuit of Mr. Baltovich, he would "be pleading" with Mr. Finkle to hand over his research material instead of opposing the move. Mr. Baltovich is accused of murdering his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, 22, who disappeared from a University of Toronto campus one evening and was never seen again. Arrested after a lengthy police investigation, Mr. Baltovich was convicted of second-degree murder in 1992. He won a retrial in 2004. The retrial is scheduled to begin in September.

Earlier yesterday, Crown counsel Philip Kotanen said that, given Mr. Finkle's apparent friendship with Mr. Baltovich, the accounts of what Mr. Baltovich and various witnesses told the author in his book cannot be trusted without closer scrutiny of Mr. Finkle's research materials. But Mr. Finkle's lawyer, Iain MacKinnon, said it is unfair to paint the two men as being friends. "Any relationship between a writer and his subject is tricky, and there may be a friend-like atmosphere," Mr. MacKinnon said, but he said that does not amount to a true friendship where either party owes allegiance to the other.

Source: 31 May 2007 Kirk Makin Justice Reporter Globe and Mail “Baltovich's lawyer blasts Crown for attempt to put writer on the stand”

See also

Dr Charles Smith Homepage
Canadian Issues Homepage
List of Australian, UK and USA miscarriage of justice cases
Article on Australian miscarriage of justice cases
Article on UK miscarriage of justice cases
Article on USA miscarriage of justice cases

Top of Page