COVID affects proceedings in van attack trial
CASE SET TO BEGIN IN TORONTO TRAGEDY, WITHOUT COURTROOM OR DOUBT
This past April, as rising COVID-19 cases forced a new sense of anxiety onto our plates, the second anniversary of the Toronto van attack retreated into an online memorial to prevent a mass gathering at the site of the deadly attack, even though the scene of this outdoor crime stretched over an agonizing two kilometres.
In an online broadcast, Toronto Mayor John Tory spoke of the city's resilience after a rented van was driven with purpose into pedestrians along the busy stretch of Yonge Street. “We will not be broken,” Tory said. “Let us take inspiration, both from those we lost and from the heroes who responded to the tragedy, as we rise to the challenges of today.”
The loss from that spring day certainly still hangs heavy, as the trial for the man behind the wheel of the van finally begins on Tuesday, Nov. 10, as do the challenges.
Just as the online service was unavoidably inadequate because of its physical isolation — for there is no better way to mourn the dead than to cling to the living for comfort — physical distance will be a feature of the criminal trial as well.
The moment a decision by the Superior Court of Ontario's chief justice limited the number of people in any physical courtroom in Toronto to just 10 due to COVID-19, it was clear the van attack trial could not possibly fit.
A trial is not an insignificant endeavour. It speaks to society's desire for justice that such effort and expense is exerted to hold people accountable for crime. It would take 10 people just to run this show, by the time the court staff, lawyers, accused and guards are accounted for, let alone everyone else who has a huge stake in its outcome.
With 10 people killed and 16 seriously injured in the attack, there is an army of victims and victims' family and friends who may want to witness the trial, to see the wheels of justice finally start turning. Many more lives were touched, including witnesses, people who rushed to help, and those who could have been among the dead.
And because the nation, and indeed many around the world, are watching this case — not only for its magnitude of pain but also its nexus to a peculiar brand of dangerous ideology — the need for space for reporters to be the eyes and ears of the public would require at least the full allotment of seats as well.
And so it was decided the trial will be held electronically
The judge, lawyers and other court officials will be connecting by Zoom video teleconferencing. The accused will be logged in on a video link from jail.
The hearings will not be publicly broadcast, but a live feed is open to members of the public at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, at 222 Bremner Ave., in rooms 718B and 716. Everyone must remain masked, pass a COVID-19 screeni ng questionnaire, and observe social distancing, the court said on Friday. Over the course of weeks, perhaps as little as two but possibly three times that, events surrounding April 23, 2018, will be in sharp focus once again.Alek Minassian, who turned 28 on Tuesday, of Richmond Hill, Ont., is the killer.
He killed 10 people that day as he sat behind the steering wheel of a large van he rented for the purpose of running into and over whomever he could. He tried to kill 16 more.
The judge knows it. His lawyers know it. His surviving victims and the families of those who did not make it home that day know it. He knows it, too.
In a Toronto Police Service's booking room shortly after his arrest, a staff sergeant asked Minassian if he suffers from any illnesses.
“Yes,” he replied. “I'm a murdering piece of shit.”
That same night, during an almost four-and-a-halfhour interrogation, Minassian told Det. Rob Thomas he planned and committed the van attack as part of an “incel rebellion.”
Incel, short for involuntary celibate, is a violent ideology held by some men who feel dangerously aggrieved by their inability to attract sexual interest from women.
Beyond just anger and misogyny, however, Minassian detailed for police the structured world view of incels and their aim of turning society upside down, so incels like him will be at the top, lording over sexually successful men and forcing attractive women into sex.
This bizarre, comic booklike narrative was what led to the van attack, he said. How did he feel, Thomas asked Minassian, knowing he just killed all these people.
“I feel like I accomplished my mission,” he replied.
So cold, so chilling. No wonder Minassian was keen not to face a jury, allowing for a rare murder trial before a judge alone.
The fact the public knows all this before his trial is also unusual.
Typically, material like the interrogation and booking video are not published before formally presented in open court at trial, but with no jury assessing the evidence, Justice Anne Molloy agreed to a legal challenge last year, mounted by Postmedia and joined by other news organizations, to allow release of the interrogation, and much of the other pretrial material, because of its compelling public importance.
At a hearing in March, Minassian formally admitted he rented and drove a van into pedestrians and that he planned it as an attack.
Since there is no doubt he did it, the trial will focus on his mental health and his criminal responsibility.
In pretrial materials, Boris Bytensky, Minassian's lead lawyer, said his client's “state of mind at the relevant time and in the days, weeks and months leading up to April 23, 2018, are expected to be the central issues at trial.”
According to Section 16 of the Criminal Code of Canada, a person is not criminally responsible for a crime committed “while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.”
Video statements, personal and medical history, psychiatric assessments and testimony from physicians and those who know and interacted with Minassian over the years can all help the court decide what mental state Minassian was in that day.
His mother, in an unrelated media interview before the attack, said her son had Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. The extent of his condition and his detailed medical history are not yet known.
It is also still not certain if the incriminating booking video will be admissible as evidence for the judge to weigh when deciding his guilt. His defence lawyers argued in pretrial hearings that it, and other items, should be inadmissible.
Molloy said she would rule on that at the end of the trial.
Because hi s i dentity and purpose are not in dispute, and since he was not charged with any terrorism
offences despite the crimes being ideologically driven, it seems unlikely the online incel enablers that helped radicalize Minassian will be probed deeply.
Nor is there likely to be much eyewitness accounting from the scene.
Any victim impact statements from his many, many victims will also not be heard unless there is a finding of guilt.
These accounts would also be delivered online or in writing. The isolation and electronic distance of those words, however, could not possibly mute their heartbreak and horror.