'G20 Geek' Byron Sonne Cleared of Explosives Charges 278
New submitter davegravy writes "Byron Sonne, the Toronto-based security consultant, chemistry hobbyist, and geek who was arrested leading up to the Toronto G-20 for alleged plans to bomb the event, has been found not guilty of all charges. Sonne was held in prison for 11 months without receiving bail, and the ruling comes two years after his arrest. Sonne is considered by many in the Toronto security community as a champion of civil rights and a sharp critic of security theatre."
Retaliation (Score:5, Informative)
An update to the story:
Sonne has already announced plans to sue the Crown and Toronto Police [macleans.ca]
Re:Retaliation -- slim (Score:5, Informative)
Good luck to him -- even if he waits longer to get a jury trial, the judge will still set damages and cannot assess anything resembling punative damages under Canadian law. At most he will get actual, proveable damages, two years salary (should try for overtime:). And might actually get costs awarded against him if he rejects a higher "paid-into-court" settlement offer.
Re:Retaliation -- slim (Score:5, Informative)
apparently while there's no law that would force unjust imprisonment to have a compensation by default in canada, the courts can find it appropriate and do it anyways.
story at http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2011/04/14/17995011.html [canoe.ca] has a list of some large compensations.
Re:How does it work in this case? (Score:5, Informative)
The first thing Sonna said after how happy he is to be free, is that he's going to keep doing the same sorts of things that got him in trouble. And he's also suing the government. It doesn't sound to me like the prosecutors were particularly brilliant in their making an example of him.
Re:Retaliation -- slim (Score:5, Informative)
I'm afraid you do have an overly sunny impression of our approach here in England.
I was a witness in court a while back. It was a simple trial related to a motoring accident, which would take only a few hours. It had been aborted on one occasion a few months after the event in question, reasonably enough IMHO because there wasn't enough time left at the end of the day to be sure of hearing the case fully in one session. It was then tried on a different day, several months later still.
The defendant was found not guilty. In their summing up, the magistrates criticised the police report that was given as evidence, and noted that evidence by one of the prosecution's own witnesses was a major factor in the not guilty decision. In short, the magistrates did not seem to have a very high opinion at all of the case that had been made by the prosecution.
As a witness, I was entitled to some basic cost-of-living expenses for my trouble, and in practice my employer had paid me my normal wage despite missing the two days of work. However, I discovered later that the defendant (who, remember, was found not guilty, and had presumably already had about a year of stress since the accident with the case hanging over them) was entitled to nothing by way of compensation for either the lost time or the reduced quality of life.
It turns out that in England, you can have your day in court -- in fact, you might not get much choice about it, and it might be more than a day -- but only at your own expense. It's no wonder that so many people pay up the fixed penalty fines for traffic offences they cannot possibly have committed, if it would cost them more than the fine to take time off and travel to a faraway court near where the alleged incident took place in order to defend themselves.
It's a shame. I think rules that mean you can lose out even if you have done nothing wrong bring the entire justice system into disrepute. It's not as obvious as a couple of recent high profile cases when someone died after the police made a mistake, but in a way this sort of widespread, low-level abuse is just as insidious, and the kind of middle ground that we're talking about in TFA is the next logical step.
Re:How does it work in this case? (Score:0, Informative)
Your logic is weak. There's just as good of a chance that people will see this and think "The government is going too far, and I need to do help fight this." The type of people who see this and think "Well, I don't want *that* to happen to me, so I'll let the government do whatever it wants." are the kind of people who only would have joined in after the real difference-makers had done their job anyway. The people who really are willing to fight for change will see Sonne as an inspiration, especially because he's continuing the fight.
Re:Could have been worse... (Score:4, Informative)
We now have two choices: Gitmo is NOT unconstitutional, or Barack Obama is a demagogue and lying sack of shit.
I can't believe I'm about to defend Barack Obama, but...
His hands are kind of tied. He's not emperor, you know. Whether he thinks it is constitutional or not has very little bearing on his ability to do anything about it. He's not allowed to move them to the US, and he can't send them to other countries. So what is he supposed to do?
Re:Could have been worse... (Score:5, Informative)
No. In reality, lawful combatants who are captured become POWs and are entitled to one set of rights. Unlawful combatants (aka civilians with guns) who are captured are not entitled to the rights of a POW, but ARE entitled to the rights of a civilian. There is no category that is not entitled to any rights.
The fact that the U.S. government chooses to ignore those rights brings a mark of shame that will take quite a while to fade.
Re:Could have been worse... (Score:4, Informative)
The US Constitution does NOT apply to you, me or any 'one' person. The Constitution applies only to the government. It is the set of rules with the government must follow to be considered legitimate.
It's a mistake that is commonly made, and a dangerous one for people to believe since the document was NEVER intended to be some sort of protection of the people. There are a few affirmations, but the document itself is only a limited list of authorities granted to the government.
It grants us (the people) nothing. Everything we have, we have had regardless of the Constitution.