OTTAWA — Canada’s highest court has dismissed a bid by a mentally challenged repeat sex offender to have multiple convictions for sex offences reversed on the grounds he was unfit stand trial for any of them.
The man, now 31 with an IQ of 55 and the intellect of a second grader, was declared unfit, based on new psychiatric evidence, to stand trial in 2011 on charges of sexually assaulting two women a year earlier. Because of this, the Supreme Court was asked to quash 14 similar convictions dating back as far as 1996 when he was a youth.
He had pleaded guilty to all the charges and was convicted in court, but his fitness to stand trial was never raised during those cases. That prompted some of the top court judges Friday to raise questions about the competence of the legal experts involved in his earlier convictions.
In the end, the court ruled too much time had elapsed since his convictions, and dismissed his case to have them reversed. Of the seven justices who heard the arguments, only Thomas Cromwell offered a dissenting opinion.
“The Supreme Court did not look at the merits of the file,” said the man’s lawyer Lida Sara Nouraie. “It’s a case that I believed in and there’s no other comments I can make.”
During the hearing Friday, the man’s co-counsel, Christian Desrosiers, concluded his remarks with what he called a “brief moment of indignation.” He argued “civil society” has recognized that his client “required protection” because of his mental incapacity — a legal guardian was appointed to make important decisions for him in 2003. If his client is “not empowered to hire his own lawyer,” Desrosiers said, he questioned how he could possibly be capable of pleading guilty to a crime.
“This is a person who needs the protection of civil society and I would beg you to afford him similar protection in criminal law,” Desrosiers said.
The man cannot be named under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act because the case centres on a number of crimes committed before he turned 18. Youth offenders cannot be identified, under the law.
The man admits he has no control over his sexual urges and has been detained at the Pinel Institute ever since the 2011 ruling in which Quebec Court Judge Helene Morin found he could not participate in his own defence due to his intellectual disability, but remained a threat to society.
The plan was to try to teach him about the legal proceedings against him and his case was in limbo for more than two years as a result. He made headlines over the summer after escaping from the institution but was caught within a matter of days.
Meanwhile, a panel of psychiatric experts at Pinel re-evaluated his file and last month determined he is now fit to stand trial on the two 2010 sex assault charges. A judge must still review the panel’s findings before deciding whether the case should proceed to trial.
He’s scheduled to be back in a Montreal court Monday where legal aid defence lawyer Charles Benmouyal is expected to make a request to take over the case.
The man’s most recent charges relate to a pair of sexual assaults involving women who were jogging on Montreal’s Mount Royal. Court documents and parole records describe someone who is unable to control his urges, and sees sexual violence against strangers as a way to channel his anger toward women he knows. During the last decade, he has at least twice failed to cooperate during court-ordered sex offender programs while incarcerated.
— With files from the Montreal Gazette.
