Unequality Under the Law

"I knew there was a risk, but I did not know if I could or could not download if I didn't try. Without trying, you wouldn't get anywhere. You had to try. You had to take that risk."
"It's not going to take a signal of 70 m.p.h. and record it as 30 m.p.h. That doesn't happen. There are some assumptions you have to make, but the probability of error is very small."
Ford engineer James Engle

Photos from the crash site entered as exhibits in Natsis trial. Prominent Pembroke dentist Dr. Christy Natsis is on trial for dangerous and drunk driving causing death. Bryan Casey, 50, was killed in a head-on crash near Arnprior on March 31, 2011.    Photograph by: Handout photo , Crown exhibit

Not quite what Ms. Natsis' legal team wants to hear in their challenges to the Crown's contention of her guilt, having already successfully challenged their client's violation of constitutional rights on shaky ground, at the hands of the OPP, but scoring, nonetheless, in having the blood-alcohol level readings of two-and-a-half times the legal limits taken out of evidence after a judge concurred with their charges that the OPP had 'violated her rights' to a lawyer.

Yet another expert witness is being challenged by lawyers for the defence. Who question the amount of time it took Ford to download and interpret the data recorded from Ms. Natsis's 2010 Ford Expedition's power-train control module at the time of the crash in 2011. A delay occasioned in that year's model vehicle because coordination between Ford and the module manufacturer Bosch, hadn't been completed, and there was no mechanism in place through software that could download the data.

Mr. Engle had testified previously in his belief as an expert in the field that the data demonstrated Dr. Natsis was driving her vehicle about 87 km/h at the point of impact, which was when the PCM lost power. No attempt to brake was in evidence. While the defendant's lawyers attempted to take issue with the time lag in securing the data, it was irrelevant to the result. Some of the data was compromised, but not to the point of making the information sought inaccessible.

"This never should have been an issue in the first place", stated Mr. Engle. Who had reviewed the data, placed it in chronological sequence, then testified that the information recorded on the PCM was "tough to refute ... the probability of error is very small."

The trial, which had seen itself strung out over an unusually long period of time, underwent another hiatus of six months, and has now resumed. Before the trial was put on hold, an OPP collision investigator, a specialist in his field, had come to the conclusion that Ms. Natsis had crossed into Mr. Casey's lane, while intoxicated. Her defence team sought excruciating details to 'expose errors' and 'contradictions' they discovered within the report on the crash written up by the officer.

You can bet that someone charged with the offences that face Pembroke dentist Dr. Christy Natsis, without her financial resources, would never be able to hire the special legal talents of a high-profile legal team who could manage on behalf of heir client, to string out the trial where she faces charges of impaired driving, driving with a blood-alcohol level over the legal limit and dangerous driving, causing the death of a 50-year-old family man.

She has resources at her disposal through a sharp legal team that has experience and has built a reputation for defending difficult cases, and they most certainly know what they're doing on behalf of their client who insists on her innocence. Despite the presence of ample witnesses who previously testified they had gathered the distinct impression that the woman was unmistakably drunk.