In the Jan. 30 Telegram, there was a letter to the editor (“Politics and policing shouldn’t mix”) written by Tim Buckle, retired staff sergeant and past-president of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Association.
I am not in the least concerned about the games of musical chairs or other childlike behaviour, office politics and non-confidence votes, or leaks of cabinet confidences at RNC HQ.
What I find concerning is something Buckle wrote: “It was also suggested that police should not be consulting with Crown attorneys except for complex legal issues. In 1998 the Supreme Court of Canada also cautioned against this activity.
“A former chief (of the RNC) created separation between police and prosecutors by hiring two lawyers, both former experienced Crown attorneys, eliminating the need for police to consult with outside agencies for investigative matters.”
John Careen died of injuries received in a fall from the open seventh-floor window of his room at St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital on July 28, 1998. The window was opened by the constant care nurse assigned to him.
At the time of his death, and for almost three months prior, he was detained under the Mental Health Act and was a patient at the Waterford Hospital.
On June 28, 2000, I wrote the superintendent/officer in charge of the Criminal Investigation Division, Major Crime Unit, at the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and asked that John Careen’s death be investigated with a view to charges being laid under Criminal Code of Canada Section 215 (duty of persons to provide necessaries) and/or Section 220 (causing death by criminal negligence).
John Careen died of injuries received in a fall from the open seventh-floor window of his room at St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital on July 28, 1998.
The officer in charge wrote back within a week to inform me he would have the file reviewed by an investigator.
The constable chosen to do the review had been a member of the responding team at St. Clare’s during the initial investigation in 1998. That information surfaced years later. So much for a clear-eyed and objective second look into the violent death of a citizen.
At the direction of the officer in charge, the constable wrote the senior Crown attorney of the day and requested a legal opinion be provided into John Careen’s “sudden death.”
The senior Crown assigned a Crown attorney to the task. The Crown attorney provided the legal opinion to the chief of the RNC and, in a few weeks of its receipt, the superintendent/officer in charge “leaked” a copy to me on Nov. 14, 2000.
On reading the cover letter, there was no doubt I was given the confidential document to get me to go away and stop asking questions about the death of my brother.
What happened in Room 7173 at St. Clare’s can hardly be considered as involving complex legal issues, even for a rookie cop or articling law student.
Was there a more obscure reason for the police and prosecutors to ignore the mandated separation of their roles?
According to Buckle’s letter, not only should I not have a copy of a Crown attorney’s legal opinion (my most prized possession, despite its omissions and flaws), but the RNC shouldn’t have requested one and the senior Crown attorney should have refused to comply with the request in order to maintain the required separation.
In the past 20 years or so, I have written various officers in charge, every RNC chief of police from Len Power onward (except Richard Deering), justice ministers, assistant justice ministers, directors of public prosecutions, senior Crown attorneys, the Crown attorney who wrote the legal opinion, and many others.
The total content of those officials’ few terse letters returned to me? “You have the Crown’s legal opinion. The file will not be opened…” And: “We have nothing further to add…”
I will end with a caution to Andrew Furey, Ches Crosbie, and Alison Coffin during this mild yet dangerous winter election. Some guardian angel or new and improved saviour might pick up the tab for every red cent the Newfoundland and Labrador government and its Crown corporations owes the bankers, yet if we don’t have the rule of law and justice for all, we are mired in a far worse poverty, and morally bankrupt.
Tom Careen
Placentia