In Honour Of Their Memory

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada, and Armistice Day and Veterans Day elsewhere. On this date in 1918, the guns of the Great War fell silent across Europe. It is a day of commemoration for the fallen of war.

These photographs are from last year in my photoblog, taken at the National War Memorial here in Ottawa, where today a national service will take place.

The ceremony itself begins with the march in of the veterans, led by the pipes and drums.

After the ceremony is done, the pipes and drums lead the march past.

Veterans are right behind.

It also includes active members from each branch of the Canadian Forces.

I close this post with two statues by the same artist, Ruth Abernethy, both larger than life, and both a twin of the other. The first is here in Ottawa, on Green Island where the Rideau River meets the Ottawa River. Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was the Canadian soldier, doctor, and poet who wrote the poem In Flanders Fields during the First World War, and would not live to see that war's end.

The other version of the statue is here in his home town- Guelph, in southern Ontario, where it stands outside the city's Civic Museum. In his hand he grips a notebook, with the first words to his most famous poem inscribed on the bronze page. A man whose words have left a lasting impact upon the world.

If It Should Please The Court

The following is a random line of thought, a closing argument of sorts. 

Incidentally, hiring me as your attorney would be a mistake. If I was licensed, that is.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have seen much throughout this trial. There has been a lot of muckraking and abuse of my client's good name. The prosecution has made points about video evidence and fingerprints and eye witnesses and this and that. But the sad fact is that this trial should not have even happened in the first place.

We are not disputing that a crime took place. We are not disputing that at all. We have acknowledged, reluctantly, my client's criminal past. Yes, it is true, he comes from a troubled background. Yes, he has spent the last twenty years in and out of prison on various charges. Everything from armed robbery to forged checks to drug dealing to littering.

We acknowledge all of that. We cannot dispute that these things happened. But one of the fundamental rights of a defendant is the right to defend themselves, is it not? It is, right, Your Honor? Forget I said that.

The point is that this trial should not have proceeded. It was unjust. A violation of legal principle in every way one can imagine.

Because my client is dead.

Okay, fine, I get it. We live in Alabama, where legislators seem to take a dim view of defendant rights. But surely the right of a defendant to defend themselves is fundamental to a just society. But my client is unable to. Because he's deceased. Assumed room temperature. Gone to the great beyond, depending on what one might have a view of on the afterlife, if any at all. 

The point is, he's dead. He died in a jail cell after getting arrested for stealing a bike, of all things.

And the simple fact is, we don't know what happened. Was it suicide, because he had multiple other charges against him outstanding? Was it a health thing, since he had a twenty five year addiction to recreational drugs? Was it running into the wrong person in jail?

We just don't know. But the point is, my client was not able to participate in preparing for his own trial. Because he was dead. And instead of having the simple decency to just chalk it up to 'defendant deceased, no further case' and release my client's body to his family for burial, the prosecution got a court order to have him embalmed so he could sit through the trial.

I ask, ladies and gentlemen, is this fair? The man is dead. This is demeaning to his family. It is demeaning to the very concept of justice. It is the very essence of wrong.

I have asked myself for months, why? What is his motive? Not my client, I can't ask him that, because he's dead. No, I refer to my colleague in the district attorney's office. I've known Mr. Sedgwick for years, and always thought him to be a reasonable man. Why try to railroad a man who's beyond justice? Why waste the court's time on a farce that will surely be overturned on appeal, because rest assured, I'm taking this all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to. 

Well, I figured it out. I know why he's been so gung-ho about this.

Ladies and gentlemen, this took a lot of digging. You see, my client went to school with Mr. Sedgwick when they were children. Children are children, sometimes they're good, sometimes they behave badly. But you see, one day in grade one, my client tripped Mr. Sedgwick, who fell into a mud puddle, and laughed at him. I only found out about this last night, incidentally. The point is, the prosecution has been holding onto a grudge for decades and is being petulant about something that happened so long ago that he's turned his back on his very duties as a lawyer. Instead, he uses justice to nurse an old grudge.

And I say, it's wrong. Just plain wrong. Now earlier on, I did mention my client's good name. Well, that's embellishing a bit, because he didn't really have a good name. But the point is, you can't pervert justice to settle old scores with someone who's already dead. Does that make sense to you? Because it doesn't to me. 

I expect Mr. Sedgwick was hoping on having my client buried in a penitentiary yard for all time. Note his facial expression, ladies and gentlemen. The flared nostrils and the flustered, irritated expression. He didn't want you knowing about the mud puddle incident.

I'm not asking you to condone my client. He's beyond that anyway. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am asking you to use your common sense. It does not make sense to put a dead body on trial. Especially for something as trivial as the theft of a bike. I urge you to remember that in your deliberations. To bring back a verdict of not guilty, regardless of the weight of the evidence. To be compassionate to the man's family and give them closure and let him have the peace he couldn't find in life.

And to tell the prosecution that he can go jump off a cliff. 

Thank you."