Photo: canadianlawyermag.com
Marie Henein. Photo: canadianlawyermag.com

As a former legal advocate for the Seattle City Attorney’s Battered Women’s Project (BWP), I spent countless hours in courtrooms. The ongoing debate about the sexual assault trial of Jian Ghomeshi, his attorney, the complainants, the judge, the Peter Mansbridge interview, etc., has prompted me to reflect on the role I once played in helping prosecutors ( or the Crown, in Canadian terminology) put perpetrators of domestic violence behind bars.

The first known battered women’s shelter in the US opened in 1973, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Canada’s first centre for abused women and children — Interval House — also opened that year, in Toronto.

In response to the rising battered women’s shelter movement, Seattle officials launched, in 1978, an investigative unit specifically for the prosecution of domestic violence cases. I was among a group of four paid (non-lawyer) staffers who helped survivors prepare for the trial of their assailants — a process that took, on average, four to six weeks.

My duties included: reviewing domestic violence-related police reports (all of which were delivered to the BWP office), conducting interviews with survivors, photographing their injuries,  securing medical records, preparing sentencing recommendations for prosecutors, and accompanying survivors to court.

Most of the BWP cases were adjudicated by bench (or judge) trial. The conviction rate was about 83% and resulted in sentences that usually included a mix of jail time, counselling, financial restitution and a “No Contact Order” —  the breach of which immediately subjected the convicted assailant to arrest.

The passage of nearly four decades has not dimmed my memory of some of the files that I handled.  Purportedly distraught by the Falkland Islands war (!), a Seattle assailant shoved his girlfriend down a steep flight of stairs.  Another defendant, enraged by his wife’s refusal to rise, at 2 a.m., and help him clean out the aquarium, broke her nose. Yet another, upset by his partner’s decision to end their relationship, methodically sliced off her clothes with a butcher’s knife. The woman managed to escape and ran out of the house naked.  Alarmed neighbours phoned the police.

After three years on the job, I’d reached my limit of bearing witness to such profound distortions of “love.” I quit and moved to New York City to begin journalism school. While there, I  wrote a book —  Chain Chain Change: For Black Women in Abusive Relationships — which details the complex dynamics of domestic violence, especially as it is experienced by survivors of African descent.

As for complexities, media reports revealed that the Crown was cold-cocked by evidence that the defence unveiled at the Ghomeshi trial. It seems to me that the complainants would have benefited from the array of free support services that bolstered the morale of the abused women that I acccompanied to court.

That said, I’m mindful that sexual assaults are reported and prosecuted at far lower rates than are incidents of domestic violence. I’m encouraged by the impassioned debate that the Ghomeshi trial has generated and hope that the national inquiry on missing and murdered aboriginal women will help eradicate the gender biases that still rage throughout Canadian society.

On that note, here’s a message to the multitudes of men who refuse to confront their demons: Take a singed page from Wab Kinew and make an effort to walk worthy.

This brings me to the Peter Mansbridge “interview” with Marie Henein.  Along with the many already reported problems with the exchange, I was surprised that the purported “dean” of Canadian journalism failed to question Ghomeshi’s attorney about the relative merits/risks of trials by judge or jury, in sexual assault cases. Given the controversy surrounding the ruling of Justice William Horkins, I would have found it helpful to learn a bit about the factors involved in the judge/jury selection process.

1

Instead, I was left dumbstruck by Mansbridge’s absurd “Facebook Post-A-Rama.” And so, I posed the question to University of Ottawa Law Professor Constance Backhouse, the author of (among other works) Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975 and a woman rightly hailed as one of the top legal minds in North America.

Indeed, Backhouse led the external review of the Dalhousie University Dental School scandal. The well-wrought final report on misogyny, sexism and homophobia at the school bears her surname.

Here’s her response (abbreviated) on the judge/jury matter:  “The right to a jury depends on a number of things that relate to criminal procedure rules — a complex morass. … How does one decide which is better? Different lawyers will offer different strategies.  Some think judges are best for complex technical evidence.  Others want a jury because they think the jurors will get confused, toss their hands in the air, and just vote guilty or not guilty.

She continued:  “… Obviously, defence and Crown try to get judges/juries based on who they think will offer them the best chance of the result they seek.  All of this is hunch-based, and no one really knows. … So … it’s all over the place. … In the past years, there has been a definite reduction in the number of criminal jury trials. They take time and cost money, and the thrust has been to make the criminal justice system more efficient.”

As for Henein? Her deft handling of Mansbridge ranks high on what I’ve come to call the  “Oops Upside Your Head” Barry White (no relation) genre of interviews. In a masterful 1999 display on National Public Radio, the “Maestro of Love” schooled vaunted US interviewer Terry Gross, making plain what many have long decried as her obvious flaws behind the microphone.

I’ve now watched the CBC “exclusive” several times and my verdict remains the same. In less than 20 minutes, Marie Henein showed viewers exactly why Peter Mansbridge should make his way to the exit door.

Or as the Maestro might have put it, she stepped hard: “First, Last, Everything.”

YouTube video

The author of Alice Walker: A Life, Evelyn C. White is a freelance journalist in Halifax.

Evelyn C. White is a journalist and author whose books include Chain, Chain, Change: For Black Women in Abusive Relationships (Seal Press, 1985,) The Black Women’s Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves...

Join the Conversation

6 Comments

Only subscribers to the Halifax Examiner may comment on articles. We moderate all comments. Be respectful; whenever possible, provide links to credible documentary evidence to back up your factual claims. Please read our Commenting Policy.
  1. I’m sorry but this article confused me. The first part was a wonderful detailing of Ms. White’s resume and experience working in this field, along with some of her personal views. But then she launches into a criticism of the interview with Henein and that it’s so horrible, but doesn’t really explain why, other than to say Mansbridge should have asked her about why a judge as opposed to a jury. It could have been a good question to ask, but that alone doesn’t answer why Mansbridge should be turfed out. I think Bruce Wark in the above comment makes a better argument for why Mansbridge failed here.

    1. Totally agree with your assessment. Got more from Wark than the disjointed commentary of the columnist.

  2. This so-called “interview” actually violates most of the rules of effective interviewing that investigative journalist John Sawatsky has developed. Here a couple of Sawatsky’s rules that Mansbridge ignores: 1. Ask questions, don’t make statements 2. Ask open-ended questions that begin with the 5W words, what, when, why, how, etc.

    “Why did you take this case?” That was about the only effective question that Mansbridge asked. It put the onus on Marie Henein to supply information.

    From a professional point of view, the interview lacked a coherent focus. Here’s how Mansbridge set it up:

    “You’ve been a lawyer for 25-years, you’ve been practising law. You’ve done a lot of high-profile cases. At that moment when a trial ends, you walk out of the courtroom, are you still sort of in the moment or do you let it go as you leave the courtroom?”

    Lots of statements and no real question — and besides is how Henein feels when a case ends what this interview is supposed to be about?

    At nearly six minutes in, Mansbridge finally introduces his frame or focus:

    “Well, let’s talk about what would be a valuable assessment of the system because kind of central to the discussion I hope to have with you is 1. Was justice served in this trial and 2. Is the system failing? So, if we take the first one, was justice served?”

    The closed questions offer Henein a golden opportunity to say whatever she likes.

    Mansbridge does unwittingly put his finger on the key failure of the interview when he says “central to the discussion I hope to have with you”. But this is an interview, not a discussion. Viewers want to hear how Henein justifies her courtroom tactics and conduct, not what Mansbridge hopes to “discuss.”

  3. Why would anyone bother to watch Mansbridge in the first place? You shouldn’t be admonishing him – after all, it’s not his fault that he has been allowed to reach such depths of crapulence. He’s had a lot of help to get where he is. You should be mourning our loss of a public broadcaster, and the overall poor state of journalism in this country.

    As an American (I assume), you have access to a 4th Estate that does enough so say that you at least have something. Looking for any such equivalent in Canada is a critical mistake. It would have saved the above misplaced commentary, and replaced it with a properly viscous rant on the horrid state of Canada’s media.

    1. RE: The Whig

      My goodness, the morally superior and insufferable beings out there must truly struggle with society at times like these. Seriously, to think that because another person disagrees with a verdict, he/she must know nothing about the legal system, are obviously ill-informed, or uneducated, etc. It’s almost too much for one person to bear.

      The justice system is a roulette wheel, and in this case, based on the opinion of one imperfect and biased human (all humans have bias, get over it). Yet according to the author, anyone who disagrees with a decision rendered by such a system is an uneducated dweeb. A different judge could have come to a completely different decision. There is nothing to be gained by claiming some kind of moral high ground. In many cases, justice is bought by those who can afford it. This is the system Hauser is defending. It`s hilarious. Her sleazing in the line about the system being imperfect while bellowing it`s glory is especially comical. Oh well, another day on the internet…