TURMEL: "Life for Laughing Grass" Trial June 17 2004

JCT: Now that the Court of Appeal has ruled that the word 
marijuana had not been deleted from Schedule 2 of the CDSA, 
I have 90 days to file an application for leave to appeal to 
the Supreme Court of Canada. After being found in possession 
of 3.3KG of marijuana on Parliament Hill, my trial on the 
charge of possession for the purpose of trafficking of less 
than 3KG was slated for November 20. I sought to adjourn it 
7 months. 

We're slated in Courtroom #7 but first, Federal Crown 
Attorney Allyson Ratsoy wanted to try getting an available 
date with a 3-hour period so that we might just submit both 
my motion and her consent and not have to wait around for a 
judge. Great, I thought. But when we got to the booking 
office, the June book wasn't there but in Courtroom #5, the 
"everybody-starts-there" court, like on Law & Order. No way 
to avoid seeing our judge in Courtroom #9 now but if it's 
granted, his clerk can call over to #5 to get us our date. 

The motion was heard before Ontario Court Justice Lajoie. 
Ms. rose at the first chance to introduce my motion and say 
they had no objection as long as they weren't held 
responsible for any of the delay. I explained that I'd been 
charged in May, moved to quash in June and expedited by the 
Court of Appeal to be heard in July and the decision came 
down last month. My having to file in the Supreme Court of 
Canada by January, the Crown by March, and hoping for a 
decision by June, we'd want an adjournment to a date in 
June. 

Judge Lajoie simply checked for sure that I wasn't going to 
raise the issue of delay, I said there would be no such 
thought, (Har har har har, a Turmel case not in a rush!!!) 
and he said he was granting the adjournment. But the book 
for dates that far in advance was over in #5 court and he 
told us we'd have to go there to get it. Too bad. 

Over in the #5 is the "everybody-starts-there" court, 
usually, the Defence lawyers get in order and do all their  
cases at the same time. But there seems to be no priority 
for the Crown to step in and get things done so we might 
have had to wait until the end of the list. Imagine, here's 
a Crown employee having to sit through a couple of hours of 
book-keeping with me because there's no way for the Queen's 
Worker to automatically step into the line for a short 
matter. 

Fortunately, Allyson isn't a shy wall-flower. She spoke with 
the girl who was next, then rose after the lawyer had 
finished his case list to ask if she might interrupt the 
regular schedule for a quick matter sent over from Lajoie. 
The clerk got uppity and asked if she'd gotten the consent 
of all the lawyers in the room. Nasty. Ms. Ratsoy responded 
that no, she'd only interrupted to ask the judge for 
clearance. ("Not you," I'd have added but I don't have work 
there). The other lawyer waved that it was okay. No other 
lawyers objected. So the judge let her go on. 

She asked for the 3-hour period. That's fine by me. If the 
law's still alive when I get to trial, I'll be guilty 
anyway, right? I'll be betting on an appeal, not on a 
defence; when they've got me on tape insisting I want my 
laughing grass back. 

The nasty clerk says: It says here that it's booked for 4 
hours, not three. When was it changed? Allyson just shrugged 
and repeated: we want three hours. The clerk looks at me and 
asks if reducing the number of hours is all right with me. 
Maybe she was hoping for an ornery opponent to help her give 
Ms. Ratsoy an ulcer. But I appreciated Ms. Ratsoy's boldness 
in moving us along and not wasting our time and repeated: 
"Three hours," too.

Done. June 17th Courtroom #9. 



--
Abolitionist Slave Leader John C."The Banking Systems Engineer" Turmel
for UNILETS interest-free time-based currency in U.N. resolution C6
to Governments in the http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm 
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel 519-756-1325 USENET: can.politics