[andyt]

$1:

The Supreme Court of Canada is hearing arguments Thursday on whether victims of domestic abuse can hire a hit man to kill their partners, a controversial issue which tests the limits of the defence of duress.
The case involves a Nova Scotia woman, Nicole Doucet, who tried to hire an undercover RCMP officer to kill her husband Michael Ryan.
The high school teacher was arrested in March 2008 and charged with counselling to commit murder.
She was acquitted of the charge two years later after the Nova Scotia Supreme Court accepted her argument that she thought she had no other way out of an abusive 15-year marriage to a man who repeatedly threatened her and her daughter.
At trial, her lawyer successfully used the criminal defence of duress, arguing that she had no other avenue of escape from the situation. Duress is usually used when someone involuntarily commits a crime after being threatened by another person.
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal upheld the ruling, saying the marriage amounted to a "reign of terror."
Lee Lakeman, from the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres, said Doucet repeatedly sought help from the police before trying to hire the undercover officer.
"This woman was trying to prevent her own death and the death of her child, and she was left on her own without the protections that she's entitled to according to Canadian law," Lakeman said.
James Stribopoulos, who teaches at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, said the case would likely have had a different outcome if she had tried to kill her husband with her own hands.
"She probably would have had, if she had acted out and actually struck him or killed him, a valid claim of self-defence in light of how the Supreme Court has modified self-defence to deal with the unique position of battered spouses," he said.
The Supreme Court recognized battered woman syndrome in a landmark 1990 case. It outlined how a woman in an abusive relationship who kills her partner can use the Criminal Code’s self-defence provisions to argue for an acquittal.
But Nova Scotia prosecutors say the self-defence provisions and the defence of duress were incorrectly applied in this case.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/top-court-hear ... 48042.html

[Benn]

Uh, this is whacked. I mean ok, he starts beating you and you stab him in his sleep. While I don't agree with that either as a defense (had to be in the heat of the moment IMO) going out and finding a hit man and planning his death out for cash is pushing the limits a bit too far and opening a shit show of a can of worms.

[BartSimpson]

Benn Benn:

Uh, this is whacked. I mean ok, he starts beating you and you stab him in his sleep. While I don't agree with that either as a defense (had to be in the heat of the moment IMO) going out and finding a hit man and planning his death out for cash is pushing the limits a bit too far and opening a shit show of a can of worms.

Not if you hire the right hitman.

[DanSC]

This made it all the way to the Supreme Court?

What happened to calling the cop...

Oh right. You'd have to call the RCMP.

[Brenda]

If you can hire a hit man to kill your spouse? You gotta be kidding me??

I think EVERY ONE with a partner should be very careful after an argument if this passes. Prove "domestic abuse". Oh, don't have to, just saying you were abused (mentally, physically or emotionally) will do.

[Benn]

DanSC DanSC:

This made it all the way to the Supreme Court?

What happened to calling the cop...

Oh right. You'd have to call the RCMP.

Rimshot?

[Benn]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Benn Benn:

Uh, this is whacked. I mean ok, he starts beating you and you stab him in his sleep. While I don't agree with that either as a defense (had to be in the heat of the moment IMO) going out and finding a hit man and planning his death out for cash is pushing the limits a bit too far and opening a shit show of a can of worms.

Not if you hire the right hitman.

Could be. Never ceases to amaze me how many people think they can get a good hit form someone asking something like, well, what the average person can scrounge up, and find one that easy.

[Benn]

Bumping due to updates in the trail. Just gets stranger and stranger. Lower courts taking the wife's abuse testimony as her word and no one calls the husband as a witness to refute it. Supreme court thought that stunk and granted a stay in proceedings.

http://t.news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/ex ... were-wrong

[Brenda]

Wow. I can't believe he was never heard, that her story was just taken for truth. There is a reason why you lose custody of your child. MAJOR fuck up by the legal system. And a man's name shattered because he was in a bar fight 30-some years ago??

[saturn_656]

I've been reading articles on this situation for the past few weeks. I didn't post them here b/c nearly all of them were filled with nothing but heresay.

The allegations against Michael Ryan were never proven in a court. He isn't facing charges AFAIK. Mr. Ryan claims he never had the opportunity to stand in court to refute his wifes claims which were central in her defence.

However, in nearly all the articles I've read. Mr. Ryan is depicted as wife-beater and a monster. Declared all but guilty by the courts and their trusty sidekicks in the media.

No trial.

[desertdude]

Now ain't that a bitch.