The Sudbury bribery trial is on a break until Oct. 10, when defence lawyers will bring in a motion to dismiss the case.
The 10th day of the trial wrapped up quickly Wednesday morning in the Ontario Court of Justice, when Judge Howard Borenstein ruled against the Crown's attempts to ask certain questions of Sudbury MPP Glenn Thibeault.
At issue were the nature of the “commitments” the Ontario Liberals made to Thibeault to convince him to leave the federal NDP in 2014 to run for the provincial Liberals in the Sudbury byelection.
While including such things as having signs and pamphlets printed in Sudbury, the three key commitments were a fully resourced and professional byelection campaign, income replacement for Thibeault, and paid campaign jobs for two of his staff.
The dispute arose over court procedure. Normally, the Crown cross-examines its witness, then the defence gets a chance to ask questions. The Crown is allowed to re-examine the witness at that point about any new testimony, but the defence isn't allowed to ask questions a second time.
Late Tuesday, after the defence finished questions for Thibeault, Crown prosecutor Rick Visca tried to ask questions about two of the commitments: the income replacement and the paid jobs for two staffers. During his cross examination by the defence, Thibeault said he was told the income replacement and paid jobs were “doable.”
He testified he was unsure whether the Liberals offered them, but he knew the NDP did. So his questions were about party policy – do the Liberals have the same policies as the New Democrats when it comes to elections?
When the defence finished their questions for Thibeault, Visca wanted to ask Thibeault whether he was changing his testimony.
Thibeault listed income replacement and paid jobs for staffers as commitments when he was interviewed by Elections Ontario in 2015, Visca argued. Now was he saying it wasn't a commitment, but it was just doable?
That's when the defence cried foul. By waiting until his re-examination to ask the question, the defence argued Visca was trying to sneak in a question that the defence couldn't respond to in their questions to Thibeault.
Visca knew he wanted to ask the question, they argued, but didn't do it in his first cross examination because the defence would counter it. Now he was trying to sneak in the question when they would have no chance to ask Thibeault questions to clarify his reponse.
Borenstein agreed with the defence on Wednesday morning, and Thibeault was dismissed as a witness. At that point, Lougheed lawyer Michael Lacy and Sorbara lawyer Brian Greenspan told the judge that when court resumes Oct.10, they would be moving for a directed verdict.
In other words, they're going to argue the Crown hasn't made the case and the judge should dismiss it and throw out all the charges.
