Charged: Less Than Meticulous Note-Keeping

For those who have an interest in justice, and the unimagined manipulations possible of the system of justice by unprincipled defence attorneys whose first order of business is servicing their clients' interests before serving justice, it is just as well for the blood-pressure of observers that the case of Pembroke dentist Christy Natsis is scheduled for a break. The trial that has already consumed six weeks of testimony and acrid defence accusations of witness bias, will require another four weeks to wind up.

It goes into a three-week hiatus, to convene again on April 15. This period of time may give the defence and the Crown both time and opportunity to regroup. Although from the grilling of witnesses by the defence, and the relentless pursuit of one witness in particular, in attempts to have him disqualified and his expert testimony and the evidence gathered under his charge of a mortal driving-while-under-the-influence incident, success was seen in throwing out evidence of alcohol impairment. When the trial resumes more of the same can surely be expected.

The defendant's lawyer has succeeded in skilfully manoeuvring witness testimony to demonstrate, in the opinion of the defence, professional ineptitude, discriminatory bias, and wrongful assumptions, alongside a deliberate violation of the accused's rights under the Constitution. That flawless ballet of concern for the law as it relates to the defence attorney's client alone, succeeded in persuading presiding Justice Kozloff that breathalyzer evidence indicating 2-1/2 times the legal blood limit of alcohol be disallowed.

The second act sought to have all evidence garnered by OPP collision investigator Const. Shawn Kelly be thrown out, relating to the impact between two vehicles, one driven by the accused, the other by the victim.  Const. Kelly testified that the gouge in the highway at the accident scene appeared two-thirds of the way inside Bryan Casey's lane, near the outside of the lane. The gouge is indicative of the point of "maximum engagement". Const.Kelly found the debris field west of the gouge, in the lane of the deceased.

Ms. Natsis has pleaded not guilty to impaired driving, driving with a blood-alcohol level over the legal limit, and dangerous driving, causing the death of motorist Bryan Casey when her Ford Explorer SUV hit his pick-up truck head-on.  And more latterly the report concluding that the accused was at fault for the fatal crash was seen to contain several errors that can be attributed entirely to a slip-up in keyboarding, and a failure in editing.

Const. Kelly has admitted to a number of "typos" in his report. He is a police officer, not a stenographer, though admittedly his casual research skills leave something to be desired. His expertise is in law enforcement, and does not, it appear, extend to producing a flawlessly detailed document. The errors representing casual slip-ups in an anything-but-casual context would likely be overlooked under other circumstances, but not in this particular case.

Const. Kelly confused in his report reference to Ms. Natsis being in her westbound lane immediately prior to the deadly collision. She was, in reality, in the eastbound lane, and swerved directly into the westbound lane to hit the victim head on. "All of these particular changes don't influence my report one way or the other. There may be some minor revisions, there may be some corrections, but it doesn't, in my respectful submission, does not (sic) change the completion of the report or the analysis of the report", Const. Kelly said in his defence.

He had voluntarily pointed out other errors in the report; the misspelling of an officer's name, a confused date, and a time reference off by a fraction of a second. This time around, it was Justice Kozloff himself, noting additional contradictions he encountered including the name of the towing company named in the report being misspelled and the vehicle weight for a Dodge Dakota such as that of the deceased's was incorrect, reacted testily.

All of which added fuel to the fire of the accused's demands that the case brought against her be entirely dismissed, alongside her lawyers' concerted attempts to besmirch the reputation of an almost-three-decades-experienced police officer, in service to their client's bid for acquittal.