The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50815
death videos that Williams recorded, though the videos were not played in court and were not released. Defence lawyer Clifford is one of only a handful of people who has watched the tapes, or broadcast. Roughly 20 photos were released as a result of consultations before the proceeding. "We played a significant role in limiting the kind of material that would be promulgated as "I know Rob Scott, the judge, he agonized over it and felt that this is the coming trend, to have more public accessibility to the courts." RETIRED ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT JUSTICE TOM lAlly which run for roughly five and a half hours. "It's something that will carry with us until we finish practising and maybe even for all of our days," says Clifford. "We're never going to forget what we've seen," Edelson says. The videos are so graphic that police refused to make copies available to the defence as part of the usual dis- closure process. In order to see the tapes, Clifford and another lawyer had to travel 400 kilometres from Ottawa to Orillia, Ont., where they sat in a secure room and watched the tapes. Even Crown prosecutors had to travel to Orillia to view the tapes. At the time Clifford viewed the tapes, the defence did not know if the Crown wanted to play them in court. "The Crown had the discretion to play videotape evidence or not and as long as the Crown had that discretion, we felt it was incumbent upon us to have a representative of the defence team review the evidence given the seriousness and the unprecedented nature of the case," says Clifford. The defence team did not think it was necessary to play the tapes and was happy to learn the Crown would not seek to introduce them. "We saw no useful purpose ourselves in playing the tapes," says Edelson. "One concern we did have was that if family members were present in court, I mean, members of our team having seen the tapes, we knew that the impact on them would be irrevocable. They would not recover." The defence team succeeded in lim- iting the release to the media of evi- dence photos that could be published a result of that process," says Edelson. But the veteran lawyer cannot forget what he's seen. "A lot of it was extremely graphic, as you can imagine," he says. "Many of the photographs which we had access to were not shown in court for reasons, basically that they'd be too disturbing for the public to view." Edelson has a warning for other lawyers, particularly newcomers to the profession. "There's always been a view that the glory is in the murder cases, that these are the most dramatic, that these are most covered by the media," he says. "The bottom line is, if you're a young counsel and you haven't been exposed to a lot of this horror, you really have to think long and hard about whether you should be lead counsel on a case a couple of years out of the bar, quite apart from issues of competency, because you're going to see things that you may have trouble dealing with." Clifford notes the judge called it one of the most disturbing cases in Canadian judicial history. "That has an impact on the lawyers involved in the case and the way it impacts us is something that is private," he says. "It's something that we probably can't explain and nor do we want to try to describe it . . . but our palliative care comes from knowing, as Michael said, that we served our client in the highest order of the tradition of defence lawyers. We did our ultimate best for Mr. Williams." WITNESS PREPARATION A PRACTICAL GUIDE (Previous edition published as Witness Preparation Manual, Second Edition) Bryan Finlay, Q.C., T.A. Cromwell and Nikiforos Iatrou EXPERT INSIGHT AND PRACTICAL GUIDANCE FROM TOP AUTHORITIES Hardbound • 150 pp. September 2010 • $80 P/C 0100500000 ISBN 978-0-88804-509-6 This resource provides everything you need to know about choosing, preparing and examining a witness. In addition to providing "tried and true" tips for witness preparation, it addresses significant developments in electronic discovery, the law of child witnesses and the law of conflicts of interest and privilege. canadalawbook.ca For a 30-day, no-risk evaluation call: 1.800.565.6967 Canada Law Book, a Thomson Reuters business. CL0111 Prices subject to change without notice, to applicable taxes and shipping & handling. www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com JAN UARY 2011 31