Behind the scenes on Duff’s day in court
Our reporters have been skulking around the halls of the Ottawa courthouse as the Mike Duffy trial begins. Here’s some of what we saw and heard on Day One: Weeks of careful preparation and hours of tedious waiting for journalists almost went out the window Tuesday morning, thanks to a brief moment of confusion.
To ensure as many news media outlets as possible could follow suspended Sen. Mike Duffy’s trial, it was agreed that 20 of 60 seats in courtroom 33 would be reserved for journalists. The rest would be given to members of the public on a firstcome, first-served basis.
So a number of media outlets had people lining up in the wee hours before the courthouse opened, to snag a wristband giving the bearer one of the 40 public seats.
But these best-laid plans almost crashed when a court worker told several journalists who had been waiting outside for hours that they would not be allowed a wristband. Instead, they would have to sit in a nearby room and watch the proceedings by video.
The standoff was quickly defused and the journalists allowed admittance. And, as it turned out, there were even some wristbands left over for latecomers — public or press.
Duffy himself arrived at the courthouse shortly before 10 a.m., accompanied by his lawyer, Donald Bayne. The two waded slowly through a dense media crowd trying in vain to get him to answer questions.
At one point, Duffy paused to suggest to Bayne that perhaps they should make a public statement. “Let the guys get set up here,” he suggested, indicating a spot for the cameras near the courthouse entrance.
“No, no, no, Mike, we’re going into court,” Bayne replied firmly. Then, to the mass of journalists: “What we have to say, we will say in the courtroom; period.”
Meanwhile, Ann Chambers, who has worked at the small Tim Hortons on the first floor of the courthouse for a year, said staff were told that they could expect a hefty increase in customers on Tuesday. In addition to the Duffy trial, she said, there was jury selection happening for another big trial.
“Our baker was in at 5 a.m.,” Chambers said.
Early Tuesday, there weren’t quite as many people lined up for coffee as predicted. But Duffy’s trial will take 41 days, and even with extra staff, they can still only serve one person at a time, Chambers said, smiling.
Long before the Duffy trial began, defence lawyer Bayne had issued subpoenas for Ottawa Citizen reporter Glen McGregor and National Post reporter Stephen Maher, which essentially allows him to call them as witnesses to talk about articles they wrote on Duffy’s expenses.
Those subpoenas were briefly discussed on the opening day of the trial. And although McGregor was the first reporter to raise awkward questions about Duffy’s housing claims, in December 2012, Bayne referred in court Tuesday to the scribes’ “excellent journalism” on the case.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, at a news conference in faraway Vancouver on Tuesday, said he won’t be a witness at the trial and is not worried that Tory “insiders” appearing in court could implicate him.
Madeleine Cummings likes a good trial but was one of the few people at the Ottawa courthouse Tuesday who has no interest in Duffy. “I like trials with juries,” explained the 89-year-old, who is a regular at the courthouse. “I like to try and figure out the case and see what the jury says at the end.”
Cummings, who is in the midst of a long-running murder trial in Courtroom 34 next door to Duffy, has been attending trials for 30 years. “I needed something to do when I retired,” she said.
There has been much complaining — among the media — about the small size of the courtroom being used to accommodate the 41-day (and maybe more) Duffy trial.
Courtroom 33 is packed and while interest will undoubtedly wax and wane according to who is in the witness box, media and members of the public needed special passes Tuesday.
Two newspaper sketch artists were accommodated in the prisoner box, the ringside seat in any courtroom.
But far from attempting to inconvenience Duffy attendees, the court system has — according to the courthouse Trial Co-ordination Office — tried hard to accommodate as many press and public as possible.
Courtroom 33 on the third floor belongs to the Ontario Superior Court. The Duffy case is a Provincial Court trial — typically heard on the first floor, where trial courtrooms are all smaller. Superior Court people agreed to move one of its cases to the first floor, giving courtroom 33 over for the Duffy trial.
Some other trials are also entering crucial phases, even if all eyes are on the Duffy case. Barely 30 metres to the west of Duffy’s courtroom, for instance, it was Day 78 in a proceeding over alleged bid-rigging that has stretched on for seven months.
There, nine ordinary defendants — unrecognizable on Parliament Hill — have been presenting final arguments to a jury of 13. Excluding the legal community, the audience in Judge Bonnie Warkentin’s courtroom was 10 on Tuesday morning — higher than usual. Duffy’s courtroom, of course, was packed.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Judge Warkentin’s courtroom, an overflow room housed dozens more journalists and members of the public who wanted to follow the Duffy trial remotely.