There’s the letter of the law, and there’s the spirit of the law.
This week, Byron Sonne’s trial for allegedly building a cache of explosives in advance of the June 26 and 27 2010 G20 summit went by the letter of the law. Superior Court Justice Nancy Spies is deciding whether Sonne was wronged under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Then, she’ll move into his actual criminal trial. The Charter arguments were supposed to take three days. They’ve already taken two weeks.
For those interested in the letter of the law, this trial is a class in Canadian human rights. November 14 started off with Spies ruling that Sonne’s rights were not violated when Toronto Police were granted a search warrant for his house on June 22, 2010, the day he was arrested. The warrant was granted based on four potential criminal charges; Spies found three of them ineligible. To her, one viable charge—that Sonne might be intending to provoke fear in police by taking their photos and threatening to destroy the G20 fence or security cameras—kept the warrant alive. In the minds of Sonne’s lawyers, if one charge went down, the warrant should go down.
So unfolded a day’s worth of legalese and misunderstandings: whether the elimination of some of the charges was a "facial" or "sub-facial" hit to the warrant, destroying its structure or merely its extremities. Now, Spies is reviewing her decision. Only one of the four possible Charter breaches has been ruled on. At lunch hours in the courthouse's basement cafeteria, you could see dogged members of the audience discuss the intricacies of “24-2 analysis”—referring to the remedies a judge can offer someone whose Charter rights were breached—like they’ve been wearing powdered wigs for decades.
For those interested in the spirit of the law, the trial ranges from farcical to frustrating. Section 11 of the Charter guarantees the right to a speedy trial, and it’s already been 18 months since Sonne was first arrested. On November 17, Crown Attorney Elizabeth Nadeau requested permission to re-interview an explosions expert from Defence Research and Development Canada who testified during the preliminary trial in February. Nadeau wanted to ask questions about Sonne’s model rocketry hobby, based on a piece in Toronto Life (full disclosure: written by this same reporter). Spies became annoyed, asking why the Crown was mentioning this now when the article was published in the spring. She then sighed and began looking at her calendar. The criminal trial could be delayed until February, possibly later.
That model rocketry might explain the chemicals in Sonne’s house isn’t a new idea to the Crown: it’s what Sonne has been saying ever since his arrest. Most of the week was spent discussing when the accused first spoke with his lawyer. On the stand this past week, a number of police officers testified that Sonne was denied a phone call for hours because they didn’t want him to call an accomplice who would set off an explosion. All of them also said that he told them about his interest in building model rocket engines.
Perhaps that’s not a plausible answer. It certainly wasn’t for Detective Tam Bui, who questioned Sonne at length both before and after he had spoken with his lawyers. In two interrogation videos taken in June 2010 and shown in court this week (one you can see here), Bui doesn’t accept any of Sonne’s explanations for the contents of his house. Bui asks about a white powder in the fridge; Sonne says it’s almond flour. Bui asks about a tray full of rocks and crystals, “that’s kitty litter, officer,” Sonne says. Bui asks about various chemicals; Sonne tells him that he makes model rockets and is an "amateur farmer."
“How can you tell me it was fertilizer?” says an exasperated Bui. “Give me a break, man.” Bui returns again and again to a supposed detonator, dismissing Sonne’s denials. Eventually he suggests that Sonne “throw yourself at the mercy of the court,” and admit to making a bomb and a detonator in order to guarantee bail for Sonne’s then-wife, Kristen Peterson, who was arrested as well.
“Sometimes people need to man up and take responsibility,” Bui says.
“You can’t tell me to go up there and lie, to just plead out,” Sonne responds.
At times this week, it seemed as though that still could happen. When Spies mentioned holding off on the criminal trial until 2012, Sonne’s mother, Valerie, slumped noticeably. The family received about $3,000 in donations before PayPal cancelled their account, citing an undefined legal risk. During one break, Sonne’s father, Bue, joked that it was about enough to pay for one day in court. Sonne's friends and supporters from Hacklab, some of whom come to court every day, speculate that the Crown is purposefully delaying the case to get him to plead out, to get one solid conviction to justify the G20’s astronomically expensive security and uneasy social legacy.
One hopes that isn’t the case. A tactic like that might fall under the letter of the law, but it most definitely would not be in its spirit.
