Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. That’s the sound of the clock running on Alberta Crown prosecutors following a decision last week by a Court of King’s Bench judge who stayed charges against three alleged drug dealers even though their case would have been tried within guidelines established by the Supreme Court. Justice Kent Teskey said even though the trio’s case was to conclude in less than the presumptive ceiling of 30 months set by the nation’s top court, the accused were victims of unreasonable delay.
Teskey found that even though their Fort McMurray trial was scheduled to end July 18, a full week before the presumptive deadline, their Charter right to be tried in a timely fashion was breached. In the seminal Jordan case, the Supreme Court said any delays of 30 months or more in getting an accused person to trial in the superior court would amount to unreasonable delay, but said exceptional circumstances could extend that period and any time attributable to the defence would be deducted from the timeline. “The difficulty in this case is that, to the extent that this case falls under the presumptive ceiling, it does so by inches rather than miles,” Teskey said in his written ruling.
Teskey said because of the Supreme Court guidelines cases have tended to take longer, rather than less time, to get resolved. “I reflect that most criminal cases in the Superior Court of Alberta now generally fall toward the limits of the Jordan ceiling,” he said. “.