I went to court the other day to support a friend who was a witness in a vehicle collision trial where the accused was fighting a traffic ticket.
It was fascinating to see the changes in the court system over the last decade or so but also a good reminder of why I was never crazy about covering it.
When I started in Moose Jaw, I worked with courts and cops for the Times-Herald. You can watch the Law & Order series, all the CSIs in creation and read all the John Grisham that you can; nothing will prepare you for the tedium involved with a regular docket day at provincial court. I figured that out of 10 cases, eight would be set aside for future dates, one person would plead guilty and need time for a pre-sentence report and another would plead not guilty and set a date for a future trial.
At least for the most part you could count on there being copy to file and something would catch your attention.
It was something for me to go from covering university sports three years prior to covering something like a court martial for a former 15 Wing base commander, or one of the Colin Thatcher faint hope clause hearings. The eyes of the city and in some cases the province or the country were interested in what you were watching and it’s always kind of a thrill for a kid to stick an audio recorder in with a real media scrum involving out of town reporters.
Heck, at the Thatcher hearing, Christie Blatchford said she read and liked my stuff. I don’t know if she did or not but at least she thought enough to say it.
But then there were the murder trials. Thatcher had been a miniseries at the point I was covering the hearing and a lot of the evidence at the murder part of his hearing was old news.
For me, I became too personally invested in the newer murder cases. From the time the body was found and the Moose Jaw Police Service issued a press release, found a suspect and charged him, and then brought him to a bail hearing, the city was rife with rumours and holding its breath to find out when the trial would be.
And as exciting as that was, I developed insomnia once these trials would go on. You live at the courthouse during the day, write your stuff in the evening and then you’re back at it the same day, like binge watching a season’s worth of the TV show Bones every day except without the cutesy romantic fluff. It’s a whole lot of forensics and criminal psychology and what happens to a body when it starts decaying and ultimately it wore on me.
The worst part was driving by the locations of the crime scenes, knowing someone died there recently at someone’s hands. Doing the court beat isn’t just about getting copy, and it never was for me. It was about the people charged unjustly, the victims of violence and fraud, those who stole credit cards and those who had weird defences for not paying speeding fines. If you’re bringing up the Magna Carta in a Saskatchewan provincial court while you’re trying to fight the fact you went 76 km/h in a 50 zone, you’re swimming blindfolded without a life preserver in the ocean.
In this supportive visit to the Estevan provincial courthouse, I also noticed the video and phone conferences in some of the other provincial court matters. I’m not sure if it’s making anything faster but at least people don’t have to travel a long way to have their matters put aside for a month. Which is I’m sure exactly what King John had in mind when the people of England convinced him to sign the Magna Carta in 1215.
