Originally Posted by
16hypen3sp
Tl;Dr at bottom.
Alright guys... the moment we've all been waiting for, for so long, has finally arrived.....
I arrived for the afternoon trial session at 1245 for a 1330 trial start. Was told outside the room that morning matters were still ongoing and to head into a different room to wait. Apparently the system is really backed up due to Covid. I took a seat facing the entry to watch for the witness, expecting them not to show given how messed up this whole thing got and Covid numbers increasing.
About 10 mins later.... she walked in. How did I know what she looked like? There was a bulletin sent out by our local Catholic school board naming her the Bus Driver of the Year for 2020 back in Feb.
So with that, I knew things were proceeding.
Then the court decided to break for lunch around 1340. I carefully watched to see which Judge was presiding. I saw him walk by and felt my chances of winning just get wiped off the map. It was an older fellow who is known around here for being a wee bit biased towards the Crown and against the defense. In that moment, I mentally prepared myself to lose big time. I had no hope, I mean none. Totally defeated and we hadn't even entered the court room yet.
1440 rolls around... finally it's time to enter. Hand full of us go in and I was the first trial up.
I expected the cop to be there but he wasn't. I brought that up first thing and the Judge took a look at the ticket. Since the officer only issued the ticket and wasn't party to the event, I was told by the Judge he wasn't required to be there. I dropped it and moved on.
Crown called the witness. Asked her the usual stuff, but the she kept injecting her own opinion of the maneuver being unsafe. The Crown also said that it was more serious because it was around a bus full of kids. (I think I should have objected to that as irrelevant but I missed my chance). The Judge told her to stop putting her opinion in. They then played the video. Judge confirmed with me prior to the video playing that I've seen it.
Video played. Very anti-climactic. Lol, literally a 11 second clip.
That was it from the Crown. Time for me to cross-examine.
I had prepared a page of questions, starting with the whole safety aspect of the maneuver itself. I was following along with everything I typed out. Got about 3 questions in and the Judge essentially shut me down saying I was talking about things that never happened (like getting rear ended and crushed into the bus). He also wanted to know more about that terminology (crush zone, crumple zone) as he had never heard of those terms before.
I moved onto the whole lane definition thing. Things got interesting here. I asked the witness to provide her opinion on what a lane is. The Judge interjected saying that the witness shouldn't have to know what the definition is..... this obviously raised my eyebrows a bit. So I asked if she knew what the legal definition of a lane was or if one existed. To my surprise, she said yes.
So I asked her to describe what the legal definition of lane was and she ended up saying it was where the lane markings were.
I asked the Judge if I could read the definition to Court. He asked "off what?" I replied with "Use of highway and Rules of the Road Reg Section 1 (t)".
He flipped open some document, paused for what seemed like forever, and then allowed it.
I read it to the court. Turned back to the witness and asked if she knew about the specifics of the definition, which she didn't.
I then went on about the truck being in their own lane, bus in their own lane, and motorcycle in their own lane so why did she have a problem with the motorcycle.... but this then devolved into a full argument session. It wasn't going well and the Crown eventually piped up and said I was entering an argument phase instead of cross-examining. I agreed and then moved onto the stunting part of my questions?
I asked why her statement read nothing of the sort in terms of being distracted or startled but then, under examination, she felt "distracted or scared" or some nonsense. She didn't have anything to say and I was done so that was it.
Crown had closing arguments. Basically said witness was distracted and she was driving a bus full of kids. Didn't really have much else to say.
Closing arguments from me again consisted of safety increase (Judge shut that down again) and then lane definition (which again turned into a full blown argument over what a lane is, with the Judge going back and forth between me and his documents but then getting tired of it and ultimately saying "There's no lane there. You can say it 27 times. There's no lane. The lane is the markings).
At this point, I'm saying to myself, yah I'm fucked.
My last argument centered around the term stunting itself. I explained it was a broad term and that the events need to be of substance to declare a person 'distracted or startled'. I did this by using a previous judgement of "stunting" that I got off CanLii that was done in Alberta Court in 2016. I asked the Judge if I could read it to the Court. He agreed but only to the end result. I read it out saying that the Judge ruled that "the conduct complained of must of a compelling nature, such that the effect or consequence of that conduct on the users of the highway is or is likely to be SERIOUS AND SIGNIFICANT." Otherwise, everyday activities would fall within this section.
That was it for me. I sat back down and prepared for the verdict.
The verdict: the Judge hummed and hawed for a moment and then said "There isn't enough here for a conviction on stunting. There isn't enough evidence for stunting. Not guilty."
I was floored. How the hell did I manage to pull that off!?!?!
Pretty sure it was the final portion of my closing arguments that made the difference, because before that, I was in a bloodbath.
That was it. Done. Feels fucking awesome to not have this hanging over me anymore. It's over, it's finally over.
Tl;Dr - I beat it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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