Accused killer’s defence team warns of public pre-judgment
Downey lawyer has his hands full with amateur detectives and ‘perp’ walks
He has helped prove the innocence of Canada’s most well-known wrongly convicted. And, now, prominent Calgary lawyer Hersh Wolch and his co-counsel son, Gavin, are asking only that their client — Edward Downey, the man accused of killing Sara Baillie and her five-year-old daughter, Taliyah — be tried in court, not on social media.
He’s one of the most respected names in the Canadian legal world — a name also known by regular people across the country for helping such wrongfully convicted as David Milgaard, Steven Truscott and Guy Paul Morin gain their freedom.
So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Hersh Wolch’s co-counsel, Gavin Wolch, uses his moments outside the Calgary courthouse Wednesday morning to school the media and the public at large about the most rudimentary tenets of Canadian justice.
“We do have a principle in this country that people are tried in a courtroom, before a jury of their peers,” Gavin Wolch, who with his famed father will represent accused killer Edward Downey, says with exasperation. “And we would like that to be the way this proceeds — not a question of what happens in the news or people talking about his background from years ago.”
According to the junior Wolch, the pre-court buzz around Downey, arrested and charged last week for the July 11 murders of Sara Baillie and her five-yearold daughter, Taliyah Marsman, has created issues for the defence.
“We’ve seen the accused walking around in a jumpsuit,” he says of such events as the controversial Calgary Police Service tradition of the “perp” walk that was photographed and broadcast late last week.
The retention of the Wolch defence team kicks off the legal portion of the tragic story of Taliyah and her mother, on the eve of a public memorial service for the pair.
It is a beginning that continues the drama that started exactly one week ago, when Calgary police issued an Amber Alert after finding Baillie dead in her home and her child missing.
While any seasoned news editor would dismiss Wolch’s complaints about publicizing an accused’s criminal history, it is more than understandable that he might be frustrated with how the world of social media is hindering efforts to keep the legal process within the courtroom.
We saw it most recently in the trial of David and Collet Stephan, who were convicted last month for failing to provide the necessaries of life for their toddler, Ezekiel. Through their own Facebook page, they took a jury trial out to the greater world, an approach that more than riled the judge in their case.
Since the killings of Baillie and her adorable preschooler Taliyah, several social media sites have set up discussion pages about the tragedy, many of which serve as forums for rumours, conjecture and amateur detective exercises. We all know, though, that when it comes to social media and the chaos and confusion it can create, that barn door is shut and the cows long since gone.
Despite the news that the senior Wolch, a 50-year-veteran, will participate in what will likely be a jury trial in the next couple of years, the day of Downey’s first court appearance is a routine one.
After going through a halfdozen or so other cases, with all the accused men and women appearing on closed circuit television from jail in black and navy coveralls, it’s finally Downey’s turn. The 46-year-old looks straight into the camera as his defence successfully argues for an adjournment until Aug. 3, so they can review the case properly. For the couple of minutes he is there, the courtroom artist tries to capture his image on canvas as quickly as her paintbrush can move.
The courtroom gallery is filled with several journalists, along with a group of young women studying to be paralegals. No recognizable family members of Taliyah or her mom are present.
Then it’s all over. The court quietly empties of journalists as the judge gets on to the next case.
After court, I head to the northwest community of Panorama Hills to stand one more time over the shrine at the house where the little girl and her mother called home.
Five days after my last visit — and four since a nearby vigil attended by several hundred Calgarians — the shrine has tripled in size. Notes of love and despair are written in children’s crayon, tucked into a mountain of stuffed teddy bears, floral bouquets and burned out candles.
“You both will make beautiful angels,” reads just one of many letters, a testament to the effect such a horrible crime — the person accused of committing it still deemed to be innocent until proven guilty — has had on so many. “And you will be missed dearly.”