New Trial Ordered in Sex Assault Case After Ontario Judge Refuses to Explain Verdict

Justice Susanne Goodman failed to produce reasons for acquittal

despite request from Crown

By Alison Crawford, 

Ontario's Court of Appeal has thrown out an acquittal in a sexual assault trial and ordered a new one after the trial judge failed to deliver her reasons for her ruling. Canada's judicial watchdog is now looking into the judge's conduct. (CBC)

Canada's judicial watchdog is initiating a complaint against Ontario Superior Court Justice Susanne Goodman after the province's appeal court issued a blistering rebuke of her judicial duties.

In a decision handed down Thursday, Ontario Court of Appeal Justices David Paciocco, Jean MacFarland and David Doherty quashed Goodman's acquittal of Stanislaw Sliwka, who was accused of viciously physically and sexually assaulting a woman over several months. The judges ordered a new trial.

"Our order directing a new trial is a terrible result for everyone involved in this proceeding," the justices wrote. "The trial judge's failure to give reasons, despite her repeated promises to do so, has frustrated the proper administration of justice."

Not only that, the justices noted this wasn't the first time Goodman had failed to do her job.

"Nor is this the first time that this trial judge's failure to provide reasons has required this court to order a new trial. It must be the last time," reads the ruling.

Norman Sabourin, executive director of the Canadian Judicial Council, told CBC News Thursday that he had read the decision from the appeal court relating to the Sliwka case and had "decided to initiate a complaint against Justice Goodman, in keeping with my authority," 

Goodman acquitted Sliwka on all charges on March 11, 2016, without thoroughly explaining how she arrived at her decision. She told the court she needed three more days to issue her detailed written reasons.

She never did.

Crown counsel, who wanted to appeal the decision, was stuck. After months of contacting the trial judge's office and not getting a written decision, the prosecutor wrote directly to Goodman to advise her that "as no reasons had been produced, the Crown would argue that the appeal should proceed on the basis that no further reasons for judgement existed."

Goodman never responded.

Ontario Court of Appeal

'Brief' oral comments

In her submission to the Court of Appeal, the Crown's lawyer Karen Shai argued that Goodman's "brief comments on March 11, 2016, were never intended as an adequate explanation of her acquittal of the respondent on all counts."

Goodman submitted that while brief and "arguably less than can reasonably be expected from a trial judge, [the comments] adequately explained the trial judge's reasons for acquitting the respondent." She added that if the Crown really wanted to appeal her verdict, prosecutors could just review the trial record.

The panel of appeal court judges had none of it.

"Trial judges must give reasons for their verdicts. Reasons that explain to the parties and the public the result arrived at by the trial judge are crucial to maintaining the proper level of transparency and accountability essential to the maintenance of the integrity of the trial process and public confidence in the process," they wrote in Thursday's decision.

As for Goodman's brief oral comments at the time of her verdict, the appeal court said she didn't explain how she analyzed evidence or contradictions in testimony. They said her "silence" on evidence given by police raises questions, not to mention the fact she never addressed each of the eight counts separately.

"There is no way of knowing how the trial judge arrived at her verdicts. Without any semblance of a road map to those verdicts, the Crown's right to appeal from the acquittals is rendered illusory," wrote the panel.

Goodman was a family lawyer before she was appointed to Ontario's Superior Court in 2000. 

The Ontario Court of Appeal ordered a new trial in another one of Goodman's cases in 2011 after she took 25 months to deliver her ruling in the case of a man who'd been caught carrying a loaded weapon.

Iraqi Refugee who Raped 10yo Boy at Austrian Swimming Pool has Conviction Overturned

The good news is, he is still in custody until

his re-trial next year

    © Nora Stribrna / Reuters

An Iraqi refugee who raped a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool, calling it a “sexual emergency,” has had his conviction overturned after a court in Austria concluded that the 20-year-old attacker may have been unaware the boy did not want to be abused.

The assailant, identified as Amir A., was taken to the Theresienbad pool in Vienna in December of last year as part of the integration process into Austrian society. He was also provided with a 15-year-old translator to help him integrate.

Once at the pool, Amir A, who had worked as a taxi driver in Iraq, dragged a 10-year-old schoolboy into the changing rooms, locked the door and violently sexually assaulted him.

 The boy, known only by his first name, Goran, told a lifeguard he had been attacked, and the police were called. He suffered severe internal injuries and was rushed to a children's hospital. He is still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

After the incident, Amir A. reportedly returned to the swimming pool as if nothing had happened, continuing to have fun and using the diving board.

The assailant, who came to Austria via the Balkans in September 2015, confessed to the rape, saying he had acted because of a “sexual emergency” as he had not had sex for four months. When asked if such actions were legal in his home country, he admitted he knew that “such acts were forbidden in any country of the world,” Kronen Zeitung daily reported.

So, he dragged the the boy into the changing room; he locked the door; he caused severe internal injuries to the boy; he knew it was illegal behaviour; but he didn't know the boy didn't want to be sexually assaulted! How does that make any sense? Anyone suffering severe internal injuries is going to be screaming in pain; how can that be interpreted as consent? Did the rapist cover the boy's mouth to mask the screaming? Isn't sodomy by an adult with a 10 year old child considered rape regardless of circumstances, in Austria?

In June, a court found Amir guilty of grave sexual assault and rape of a minor, and sentenced him to six years in prison. A court awarded the boy’s family €4,730 (US$5,150) in compensation after prosecutors described him as suffering “profound despair,” the newspaper reported.

But on Thursday, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict and ordered a retrial, Heute reported.

The court ruled that while the verdict with regard to the serious sexual abuse of a minor was “watertight,” the written verdict on the conviction of rape cannot be sufficiently proved.

The new trial is likely to take place in 2017, until which time the 20-year-old will remain in custody. In the event that the charge of rape is proved in the new trial, the attacker could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, Vienna Online reported.

The mother of the victim, who herself moved to Austria as a Serbian refugee, said her son suffers from severe panic attacks and can only sleep with the  help of medication. He "screams and cries" and is "often frightened," she said, as reported by Heute.

There have been a number of reports of similar attacks by asylum seekers at swimming pools across Austria and elsewhere in Europe.

A 37-year-old mother and her four-year-old son were subjected to a sexual assault in the quiet southern Austrian town of Klagenfurt in March, Kurier daily reported.

Authorities in the Austrian town of Mistelbach issued a temporary pool ban for refugees following a sexual assault by a “dark-skinned’ man on a 13-year-old girl in June.  According to Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung, the girl was first followed by a young man into the women’s changing room. Once there, he forced her to perform oral sex. The girl, however, fiercely resisted and started shouting, forcing the attacker to flee.