‘GO-TO’ FOR JUSTICE
Former Crown prosecutor Scott Van Alstine has seen the highs and lows of the justice system
A look at the 45-year career of former Crown prosecutor Scott Van Alstine, known for taking on ‘big, ugly cases’ — including dozens of murder trials
Between 1982 and 2016, as Crown prosecutor, Scott Van Alstine prosecuted dozens of cases on Vancouver Island and the Interior. In more than 70 murder trials, he sought justice for victims and their families, an effort that often came with a personal cost. Louise Dickson reports on Van Alstine and his career in a feature beginning
Scott Van Alstine always took the tough cases.
“He was the go-to-guy for the Crown on the big, ugly cases,” says Nanaimo defence lawyer Stephen Taylor. “They’ll have to hire three prosecutors to replace him.”
For the past 45 years, Van Alstine has immersed himself in the most tragic stories in our province. Between the years of 1982 and 2016, Van Alstine was the prosecutor in more than 70 murder trials. Some are still talked about. Ruby Ann Ruffolo injected her husband with a fatal overdose of heroin, then drove his rigid body, feet sticking out the window of her car, to a Langford ditch.
Drug-addled Stephen Reid used a loaded shotgun to rob a bank in Victoria, then shot at the police officer who chased him.
Victoria real-estate agent Patrick Lees strangled his wife Laurie with his belt.
Bonnie Walford shot her lawyer to death in his Nanaimo office.
Many of the other cases he prosecuted have faded from public memory — but not from Van Alstine’s.
He has witnessed the consequences of anger, jealousy and evil. He has shepherded families dealing with the violent death of their loved one through court proceedings. And he has felt compassion for the families of an offender, who pay a horrible price for something they didn’t do.
“What’s remarkable is that Scott remains a believer in the essential goodness of people,” says Laura Ford, who was his co-counsel on the murders of two Duncan women by serial killer William Elliott.
“Scott has left an indelible mark, not only on the history of criminal justice in this province, but on those he has worked with over the years. He is, quite simply, irreplaceable.”
His last big case was the shooting at the Western Forest Products mill in Nanaimo. Laid-off mill worker Kevin Addison was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
At the Victoria courthouse, Van Alstine is considered a classic, old-time barrister, habitually jingling his pocket change and rattling defence counsel by talking about politics, the speeches of Winston Churchill or the latest biography of John F. Kennedy, his greatest hero.
Taylor says Van Alstine taught him how to handle the big trials.
“He would come to court in a six-week trial with a single piece of paper with 14 different highlighter colours on it. But it was a single piece of paper. And what I realized was you don’t have to be prepared for a six-week trial, you have to be prepared for tomorrow.
“Basically, it was as simple as that old saying about eating an elephant one bite at a time. When you broke down a trial to its components, the number of witnesses you had to be prepared for each day and what you needed from those witnesses, it became very doable. It took away a lot of my fear of the big, big trials.”
Gentlemanly, is how many describe Van Alstine. Low-key. Humble. Determined.
On this sunny, early summer day, Van Alstine is at home in Sidney with Peri, his wife of 43 years. He has traded in his waistcoat, tabs and gown for a rugby shirt, shorts and sneakers.
Their two children, Daniel, a school teacher, and Catherine, a probation officer, have given them five grandchildren. Van Alstine walks by a trampoline, a basketball hoop and tub of baseball bats on his way to the backyard pool.
“JFK loved to swim,” he says. “He had a bad back. Most people thought it was a war injury, but it was congenital.”
Then he changes tack, again, and looks at the pool where the grandchildren will spend a fair bit of their summer.
“The hardest cases are always ones that involve children,” he says. “There’s a life lost, so there’s always a tragedy. But when it’s kids, it’s the worst for me.”
Van Alstine pauses to consider how he got through all those tough, ugly cases.
“I don’t want to exaggerate, but put it this way: You want justice. Particularly when it’s a child and their whole life is before them and they don’t even know how precious and valuable it is. And the terrible impact on the families. It’s just, well, you think about it.”