For the second day in a row, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had to deal with a candidate problem. On Wednesday, he fired Andre Forbes, the Liberal candidate in the northern Quebec riding of Manicouagan, after the NDP revealed that Forbes had once referred to aboriginals as “Featherheads” and said they were lazy.
Today, the Conservative war room pushed around the transcript of a radio interview that Liberal candidate John Reilly did on March 31 with the Dave Rutherford Show. Reilly quit his job as an Alberta provincial court judge to run as the Liberal candidate in the riding of Wild Rose (Conservative Blake Richards is the incumbent). On the Rutherford show, the discussion turned to law-and-order issues:
Reilly: : I mean, this is one of my problems with the criminal justice system the way it is, is that I say we put too much emphasis on the offence and not enough emphasis on the offender. If you’re looking at what the Conservative government wants to do is say if this is the offence, you go to jail. And that's going to put people in jail that don't need to be there.
Host: But what kind of offences though?
John Reilly: Sexual assault.
Host: You shouldn’t go to jail for a sex assault?
John Reilly: Well, you know, there are sexual assaults and there are sexual assaults.
Ignatieff said he would not fire Reilly as his Wildrose candidate and noted that Reilly issued a statement in which he “unreservedly apologize[d]” for “the clumsy example” he used to talk about problems with the justice system. Ignatieff told reporters: “He has served the community with a long record of distinguished public service. He made one remark that he's going to regret for the rest of his life. He's offered an unreserved apology. I've accepted it.”
Reilly has had his sentences overturned at least three times by the Alberta Court of Appeal and was criticized by the high court in at least two.
- Earlier this year in February, the Alberta Court of Appeal criticized Reilly when it unanimously overturned his decision to give a conditional sentence to a drug offender. Joseph Dow was caught with what police said was “a potpourri of drugs” and later pleaded guilty to three counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking and one count of possession of the proceeds of crime. But Reilly did not send him to jail, letting him serve his sentence in the community rather than prison. “I've made comments before about how ineffective I feel imprisonment is,” Reilly said from the bench in passing sentencing. But the Alberta Court of Appeal gave Dow a 30-month prison term and, in the unanimous ruling accompanying that decision, Justice Patricia Rowbotham wrote: “It was not open to the sentencing judge to disregard guidance of this court, to disregard sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code and to set his own idiosyncratic policy. The sentence is demonstrably unfit.”
- Last fall, the Alberta Court of Appeal quadrupled a 90-day sentence Reilly had given to a man who sexually molested a 14-year-old developmentally delayed woman while the two were travelling on a bus. The appeal court put the man in jail for 12 months and the appeal judges wrote: “We find it particularly troubling that the trial judge stated effectively that a 90-day sentence served intermittently had the same deterrent effect as a 12-to 15-month jail sentence. This is clearly wrong. This court has pointed out and reiterates that in child sexual abuse cases, denunciation and deterrence are not secondary considerations in favour of rehabilitation or individualized solutions.”
- In March, 2010, the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned a conditional sentence that Reilly gave a former guidance counsellor who had plead guilty to two counts of sexual assault and one count of gross decency in a case in which three junior high school girls were molested. Reilly gave the offender a two-year sentence to be served in the community. The Alberta Court of Appeal overturned that and sent the man to jail for three years.
But in one case, the Alberta Court of Appeals said Reilly's sentence was too harsh. In June, 2009, Reilly sentenced a “spiritual healer” who molested a client's two teenage daughters to five-and-a-half years in prison. The appeals court thought that was too harsh and gave the man four-and-a-half years in jail.
From day one, I was told that in order to achieve a sound and functional democracy, justice, legislative and executive power had to be managed by an independent body of government. Here we have a questionable clerical jerk from some kangaroo court who quit the bench in order to bid for a seat in the federal legislature under liberal flag. Are we still under a democratic system of government ? Or is politic merely a sick joke these days, a puppet theatrical frame to misguide us about the real power issue ?
Too bad you are not upstanding anough to have actually posted the ENTIRE transcript from the Rutherford Show. Sexual assault has many definitions. The punishment should fit the crime. A slap on the butt in a bar and a brutual rape are two different conversations and should demand two different types of sentencing.
Well, from his judicial record, at least we can be sure he's a Liberal. Iggy should have fired John Reilly
David – you didn't correct this – even though I provided serious FACTS about sentencing generally from my daughter with 12 years of experience on the subject – and biased I might say against perpetrators.
However – apparently your peers at the Calgary Herald – supporting – even more surprisingly – actually did some fact checking on Judge Reilly – and look what they found! Enjoy!!
Run, Reilly, run; Ex-judge was criticizing the law, not condoning sex assault
Calgary Herald
Sat Apr 9 2011
Page: A10
Section: The Editorial Page
Source: For Calgary Herald
Two 19-year-olds, a man and a woman, are both extremely drunk at a party that is filled with sexual innuendo. The man goes to bed and passes out. The woman later enters the bedroom after her boyfriend passes out, removes her clothes and gets into bed with the man. He awakes and assumes that the woman, by her actions, has given consent for him to make sexual advances. He fondles her genitals with his fingers.
Clearly, the woman did not give consent and the man is therefore guilty of sexual assault. But should he go to a federal penitentiary for a minimum three years, as prescribed by law?
Former judge John Reilly, who heard the case, felt the man did not deserve such a harsh penalty, given the circumstances. After expressing that view in a radio interview, Reilly, the Liberal candidate in Wild Rose, has been excoriated for appearing to condone an unwanted sexual advance resulting in a serious sexual assault.
But Reilly never said he excused the assault. His issue was with the severity of the prescribed penalty. He used the case, awkwardly, as an example of why judges should have discretion in sentencing rather than having their hands tied by legislated mandatory minimum sentences, as championed by the Conservatives and which this paper has supported.
He has apologized for what he admits was a clumsy explanation of the issue. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, after strongly condemning the remarks, says Reilly will remain the candidate in Wild Rose.
Ignatieff made the right decision. Reilly, a political neophyte, should have been more careful in choosing his words, but the Liberals need not force his resignation, as demanded by Blake Richards, the riding's Conservative incumbent.
Tom Flanagan, a Conservative and former adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, expressed it well, saying Reilly was not defending sexual assault, but attempting to criticize mandatory minimums, an issue that deserves debate.
Flanagan criticized his own party for smear tactics after it sent a transcript of Reilly's interview to the media, along with a radio clip. Flanagan also lambasted Ignatieff for his harsh remarks about Reilly. He said the incident exemplifies “the worst side of Canadian political campaigning.”
Flanagan added the political landscape needs more people like the ex-judge.
The outspoken Reilly, already a long-shot in a riding staunchly conservative everywhere except for polling stations in and around Canmore, may again have handed the riding to the Conservatives. But Ignatieff is correct in letting Reilly remain. We hope that voters engage in debate over the issue he was attempting to highlight, rather than assuming he was foolish enough to commit political suicide by condoning a sexual assault.
Wascally Wabbit
What is a rap sheet and why do they look at it before you get off parole?