Despicable Client

But it would appear that the client and her defending lawyer are equally matched in moral turpitude.  Making a good pair, they present equally as examples of the kind of private and social conscience that society really, truly does not need.  However, society reflects a full compendium of human types, those with consciences and those without the full weight of themselves as responsible human beings. 

Responsible to behave in a manner consistent with decency and justice.

Responsible to know that the manner in which they comport themselves often has larger ramifications, impinging on the well-being of others around them, intimates and strangers alike.  In the social compact that most people of goodwill and conscience recognize and honour, we understand that in behaving in socially reckless ways we are not honouring ourselves, nor those around us.

In some obvious instances when people decide to pass on vital social parameters of public behaviour their acts of social disobedience become reckless to the degree that they pose a distinct and direct potential of doing great harm to others.  And sometimes that behaviour and that risk and the outcome of both taken together result in disaster.

In the case of Pembroke dentist Christy Natsis who exited a drinking establishment and against the advice of a companion felt herself sufficiently in command of herself to drive away from the parking lot and return home in an inebriated state, a man whom she did not know personally, but who was someone's son, someone else's husband, and someone's father was killed as the result of a grievous collision she caused.

She was seen to be exiting the establishment by people who noted her condition of inebriation and who expressed to one another concern at this woman whom they did not know, departing in her vehicle, clearly mentally and physically impaired.  Their testimony at the trial currently underway to establish guilt or innocence of gross malfeasance, has been unscrupulously picked apart by the defendant's lawyer, seeking to establish that their testimony is unreliable.

He has suggested to one witness that her relationship with the family of the deceased, which is to say her compassionate concern for their loss, though personal strangers to her, has rendered her testimony tainted.  Because the evidence against Ms. Natsis is so overwhelming, placing her plea of "not guilty" in obvious disrepute, it would appear that her defense attorney Michael Edelson's plan of action is to discredit all witnesses for the Crown.

Another witness, a long-haul truck driver, who along with another driver witnessed the events leading up the crash that took the life of Bryan Casey, has testified that Ms. Natsis' erratic driving was enough of a concern to him driving a truck with a flatbed trailer that he maintained a defensive distance from the SUV she was driving.  "I didn't take a chance", he said; "I wanted to have time to brake."

When next he saw that SUV it was in a  ditch on Highway 17 near Arnprior.  The SUV was stopped in a scene of destruction, and close to it was a smashed white truck.  He stopped his own truck and both he and his companion exited to try to give assistance.  He spoke of an "odour of alcohol" on the woman's breath who was sitting uninjured in the driver's seat of the SUV.  Clearly prejudicial.

"I didn't stay there because myself, I'm against people who drink and drive.  I didn't pay too much attention to her.  I found that the man was in more need of my attention", he explained.  And that appears to be when the woman who is on trial for dangerous driving causing death and impaired driving causing death was served again by her attorney.  Who set about identifying 'inconsistencies'.

Of some of the details that the long-haul truck driver Christian Bissonette laid out to the court; how he forced the driver's side of the SUV open to check if there were injuries sustained by the driver; his account of how the SUV had brushed up against a concrete barrier in a narrow portion of westbound Highway 17, for example, Lawyer Edelson snapped back "None of that is in the police statement."

"No, because the police is not like a lawyer or a person that asks a whole gamut of questions", responded Mr. Bissonette.  And Mr. Bissonette, much like another witness who was there at the scene and who acted out of goodwill for others, does not agree, much like the previous witnesses, with Ms. Natsis's pleading not guilty to dangerous driving causing death, impaired driving causing death, and driving with a blood-alcohol level exceeding the legal limit.

Which simple fact does nothing to minimize the honest and just recollections they are revealing to the court, and which lawyer Michael Edelson is doing his utmost to discredit.