Poster meant no harm

Criminalizing this kind of conduct is not in society’s interest, they said in the 3-0 ruling. Jeffers and his family lost their Scarborough condominium in 2007 after they were unable to make mortgage payments. Distraught, he made posters, intending to put them up around the city. Some of them said: “Councillor Thompson. Help black. We black.” Some made no reference to the councillor but included photographs of the Jeffers family and alleged that they had been defrauded by the condominium corporation that owns the complex. “The Jeffers family fear for their life,” said some. The posters that got Jeffers into trouble bore a photograph of Thompson along with Jeffers’ phone number and the words: “Murder . . . help.” Acity of Toronto employee complained and Jeffers, now 60, was charged with counselling murder and with mischief under $5,000. At his trial, Jeffers, often dramatic, testified he never intended any harm, adding that Thompson had helped him in the past. (Thompson met Jeffers in 2006 and helped him with a sewage problem.) At the trial, Jeffers said he was asking Thompson, a fellow black man, to help him.

Justice Gail S. Dobney convicted him of both charges and imposed a suspended sentence and three years’ probation.

The Ontario Court of Appeal noted that Jeffers has a Grade 5 education and that he testified that he is “not too great” at reading and writing.

Justice Laskin said it was highly doubtful that Jeffers would want to see the death of the councillor to whom he was appealing for help.

“I agree with counsel for Mr. Jeffers that our society can accommodate the kind of nuisance caused by the appellant,” he said. “To convict him of one of the most serious crimes in our criminal law is, on its face, unreasonable.”

Jeffers’ lawyer, James Lockyer, said it was hard to believe “a group of cops, a Crown attorney and a judge gave (the posters) any credibility. It was obviously Jeffers saying he was being murdered, not that he wanted to murder Thompson.”

The entire episode was silly, Lockyer said. “It was a vulnerable man trying to make a point in an odd way but it was never about violence. It was about help.”

The past three years, since the conviction, have been tough on Jeffers, he said. “He has maintained, all this while, that he did nothing wrong, meant no harm.”

Thompson, meanwhile, said: “I wish him well.”