The lawyer listserves have been filled with stories about this for days. Prisoners due in court at 10:00 being brought for 3:30 or not at all. The unfairness is made all the worse because, usually, the prisoner's family spends the entire day at court waiting to be sureties and then nothing happens.
Prison guards' action leads judges to toss out charges:
KIRK MAKIN
Globe and Mail Update
Frustrated Ontario judges are tossing out criminal charges or granting bail in absentia as a response to an apparent job action by prison guards that is preventing inmates from getting to court, defence lawyers from around the province reported yesterday.
The president of the Criminal Lawyers Association, Frank Addario, said his members are having great difficulty getting clients into court, or even contacting them.
"In the past month, there have been repeated delays in prisoner transfers at numerous facilities and detention centres," he said. "We are hearing of judges being so frustrated that they are releasing people on reduced bail to avoid having to bring them to court for release."
Mr. Addario said that in a typical case yesterday, Ontario Court Judge Hugh Atwood stayed weapons charges against a first-time offender because he could not be brought to court three days in a row.
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