Editor acquitted of threat charges
Ward News publisher still faces charge of promoting hatred
The editor-in-chief of a Toronto publication accused of promoting hatred against women and Jews is not guilty of threatening political consultants Warren and Lisa Kinsella with death, an Ontario Court judge ruled Monday in a written decision.
The decision to acquit James Sears, 55, follows the dismissal of the same charge against the publisher of Your Ward News, LeRoy St. Germaine, 76, in October.
Both men continue to face rare criminal charges of wilfully promoting hatred in a trial that is expected to conclude later this week.
A civil lawsuit filed by Lisa Kinsella is also ongoing.
Justice Dan Moore said it was not “seriously contested” that Sears wrote the passage at issue in the summer 2017 edition of the newsletter: “there was the chance that some hothead who cares deeply about me and my family would lose it and do something illegal, like bludgeon the Kinsella’s to death (sic).”
Moore found that, in the “plain and ordinary meaning of the words,” the passage does not constitute a threat to kill the Kinsellas, adding that a threat must be forwardlooking.
Though it was possible to interpret the passage as a threat to kill — which justified the laying of the criminal charge through the unusual process of the Kinsellas going directly to a justice of the peace — it does not meet the reasonable doubt standard which requires Sears to be acquitted “unless the only reasonable interpretation of the passage is that it is a threat,” Moore wrote.
“Having considered all of the evidence, I am unable to find that the threat to kill interpretation ... is even the most likely interpretation, let alone the only reasonable interpretation,” he wrote.
Moore did accept the Kinsellas perceived the phrase “bludgeon the Kinsella’s to death” to be a real threat to their safety, but said their interpretation was biased by their understandable and justified “negative views” of Sears and Your Ward News.
There is a long and “extremely hostile” history between the Kinsellas and Sears which included the publication of articles and images by Sears that were “derogatory, demeaning, insulting, rude, crude” and designed to incite an attentiongrabbing response from Warren Kinsella, Moore wrote. When Moore declared the acquittal in the courtroom Monday morning, Sears said, “Thank you, your honour. Merry Christmas.”
After court, Sears said the Kinsellas are attempting to shut down the publication through “death by a thousand cuts.” He said the acquittal in the death threat case was what he expected and expects a similar outcome in the trial for promoting hate because “we never crossed the line.”
The Kinsellas said the ruling was disappointing, but that they would continue to oppose the publication.