Dang, what is it with pig farmers?

[annie aronburg]

From Exclaim! April 2002 by auteur/pornographer Bruce La Bruce

http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/multiart ... 3&fid1=797

It's not accidental that my trip turns out so malevolently. Since my visit last year, Vancouver has revealed its dark side to the world in spades. First there was the brutal bludgeoning with baseball bats of a gay man who was found naked and bloody in Stanley Park, a crime, inevitably compared to the Matthew Sheppard case, which remains unsolved. Then, a month ago, there was the revelation of the Pig Farm, a location where the bodies of several women were unearthed, leading to speculation that up to 150 prostitutes from the east side may have fallen victim to a serial killer or killers over the past ten to 15 years. Naturally the police were lax in their investigation because the women who have been disappearing, many of them First Nations, many of them ravaged by drugs and HIV, were regarded as transient and disposable and not worth caring about.

The owners of the pig farm, which is located in a suburb of Vancouver called Port Coquitlam, are a couple of brothers named Pickton who are apparently upstanding members of the community, regularly hob-nobbing with police and local politicians at various functions. The brothers used to have parties on their property, dubbed "The Piggy Palace." The evidence points to one of the brothers in particular, who had been charged with attempted murder of a prostitute in the past. Now he's been charged with two counts of homicide. But wait, it gets more bizarre. One victim claims that she was abducted by the pig farmer and witnessed him slaughtering and skinning a prostitute as if she were a pig. Horror stories are now proliferating, like the theory that the remains of the prostitutes cannot be found because they were fed to the pigs. Shades of Hannibal. It is also well known that the brothers were selling sausages to local stores and restaurants. Shades of Soylent Green.

This was not a lone nut situation. This was organized crime.

Eh Eh

[Susserer]

This film vividly lays out the parapolitical climate in BC, that would allow for and perhaps facilitate scores of women to be processed like meat. It's not a precedent, my friends, it's a practice:

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewt ... 402#151402

[Susserer]

Judge suspends Pickton jury deliberations

The judge in the Robert William Pickton murder trial suspended jury deliberations temporarily on Thursday afternoon.

The reasons for Judge James Williams's decision were subject to a publication ban.

Williams said he will call the jury of seven men and five women back to his courtroom in the B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster when he is ready for them to begin their discussions again. He did not say when that would be.

Williams's decision came almost three hours after jurors sent him a written question, asking for direction as they consider whether Pickton is the person who killed each of the six women he is accused of slaying.

"Are we able to say 'yes' if we infer the accused acted indirectly?" jurors asked in their written question.

...

Judge advised jurors

Unable to answer the jury directly, Williams instead re-read two portions of the instructions he gave jurors a week ago, before they began their deliberations.

"It is not necessary to think Mr. Pickton acted alone to find him guilty of the offence," the judge read. "You may find Mr. Pickton acted in concert with other persons although you may not know who they are.

"It is sufficient if you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, having considered all the evidence, that he actively participated in the killings of the victims; it is not sufficient that he was merely present or took a minor role."

In another section of the instructions he re-read on Thursday, Williams used a specific example, discussing the allegations that Pickton shot Sereena Abotsway to death.

"If you have a reasonable doubt about whether or not he shot her, you must return a verdict of not guilty on the charge of murdering her," Williams said.

...

For Pickton to be convicted of a charge of first-degree murder, the jury must say yes to all five questions.

The questions are:

1. Is the victim dead, and was the victim killed by means of an unlawful act?
2. Was the victim killed at the time and place listed?
3. Is Pickton the person who killed the victim?
4. Did Pickton mean to cause the victim's death or mean to cause bodily harm that would be likely to cause death, and was reckless about whether or not it would cause death?
5. Was the victim's death planned and deliberate?

If the jury can say yes to the first four questions, but not the fifth, Pickton is convicted of second-degree murder. If the jury only agrees to the first three questions, Pickton is convicted of manslaughter.

If the jury can only say yes to the first two questions, Pickton is acquitted.

The question the jury sent to Williams on Thursday relates to Question 3.

...

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columb ... trial.html

[FourthBase]

Yowza!

Is a publication ban like that uncommon?

[Susserer]

This case has been fraught with publication bans. All the preliminary and pre-trial proceedings were banned.

That is not unusual in a sensational trial like this- one of a kind. What is unusual is how the information has continued to be carefully controlled:

Judge in Pickton trial sets media guidelines

VANCOUVER - The presiding judge at the jury trial of Robert (Willie) Pickton made a ruling Tuesday that sets out a "sensible and practical protocol" for media to gain access to trial exhibits.

... designate the exhibit into four categories:
• Unlimited access, allowing accredited media to view, copy and publish the exhibit.
• View-only access, allowing accredited media to view but not copy or publish the exhibit.
• Conditional access, allowing accredited media to view an exhibit that may be subject to conditions on copying or publishing.
• No access, which would prevent the exhibit from being viewed, copied or published by the media.

...

"Should a member of the accredited media wish to apply to change the designation of any exhibit, he or she shall serve the Crown and defence with an application returnable on a day when the court is sitting without the jury, subject to the scheduling direction of the court," Williams said in his ruling.
The judge pointed out that an exhibit list with their designated rulings will be posed outside the courthouse.

Vancouver media lawyer Dan Burnett said Tuesday that the protocol setting out the media's access to exhibits is the first of its kind in B.C.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/fea ... ab0b1936ca

So much for independent researchers.

[chiggerbit]

So, will all of the information and exhibits be available when the trial is done?

[Susserer]

Yeah. Right.

How it works up here is transcription services are contracted to produce transcripts of the proceedings. These are available on order for a time (?) and are prohibitively expensive.

Exhibit files would be retained by the law firms who control access.

I was a researcher of a controversial trial in BC once and from my notes I made a list of transcripts that I needed to complete a report I was writing. The defense lawyer allowed me access to his set but every single transcript that I had identified had been removed.

There are lots of people with information about the Pickton operation around. I've talked to more than one myself. A brave or suicidal investigator could go around and start collecting their statements. Maybe someday someone will.





EDIT: I completely forgot to discount the MSM! They aren't going to investigate or report anything other than what they allowed to. There will be books but you can bet that even authors like Stevie Cameron will be very careful about what they say.

Watch Kevin Annett's film about his attempts to get information about Residential School abuses into the public eye:
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewt ... b0f#151402

[Susserer]

The jury is back to deliberating but the judge's mistake opens up the possibility of a re-trial.

In which case, the judge has demonstrated "scrupulous judicial conduct" and the careless lawyers are to blame:

Pickton judge right to admit his wrong charge

Justice James Williams, who's overseeing the Pickton murder trial, deserves kudos, not criticism. He had the guts to avoid the sophistry available to judges and admit clearly that he made a mistake in his initial charge to the jury. This, it seems, came from the open-mindedness he displayed in hearing counsel's arguments on the jury's question that led to the amendment of his charge.

To be sure, an appeal court may still rule that the correction didn't do the trick and a new trial is necessary. But the chances of that happening came down considerably because Williams was absolutely clear that he had been wrong in the first place. No fudging.

What will turn out to be remarkable is if Williams is proven wrong only once in a charge to a jury after a gruesome, lengthy, emotionally charged and legally complex trial. For that, the relatives of the victims should thank him. His scrupulous judicial conduct certainly caused them concern. That was unavoidable, but imagine what a second trial would be like.

If someone's got to be blamed, which isn't necessarily the case, perhaps it should be counsel. It's hard to figure out how they missed the judge's error in the first place. Maybe they did object and the judge didn't get it the first time around, in which case, I admit, my criticism of counsel is entirely misplaced.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blog ... itive.aspx

[Et in Arcadia ego]

Pickton found guilty of six charges of second degree murder:

http://apnews.excite.com/article/200712 ... 4JN00.html

[Susserer]

Six counts of Second Degree Murder:

As defined in the Criminal Code of Canada, murder is considered one type of culpable homicide, distinguished from the offences of manslaughter or infanticide. [24]

In Canada, murder is classified as first or second degree.[25]

1. First degree murder is a murder which is (1) planned and deliberate, (2) contracted, (3) where the victim is an identified peace officer (4) in the furtherance of another serious criminal offence (kidnapping, robbery, harassment, terrorist activity, or using explosives within criminal organizations, etc.).
2. Second degree murder is all murder which is not First degree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder