Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan
Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan
'Free Man on the Land' jailed for a year for contempt and a tainted identification acquittal
A man who denied being a human being or being subject to laws turned a wrestling match with RCMP officers into a year in jail for contempt of court following days of nonsense arguments, interruptions, and refusals to behave in court.
Find out more as I tackle the case of Rex vs. A Man Known as Cameron Hardy, and explore the bizarre "Free Man on the Land" theory, which suggests that one is not subject to the laws of Canada. I'll also detail the legal basis for the provincial court's authority to punish someone for contempt in the face of the court.
Also, on the show, the reasons a man was found not guilty of being the person who stabbed and threatened security employees in a Campbell River Walmart are reviewed.
Learn how media coverage and social media impacted the case, leading to the security guard's wife giving conflicting statements to the police.
Ultimately, find out why the judge determined that the remaining evidence was not enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a man found near where the property stolen from Walmart was the same person who stole it and stabbed the security employee.
Finally, the unprecedented resignation of Justice Russell Brown from the Supreme Court of Canada is discussed along with the desirability of permitting investigations into allegations of judicial misconduct to continue even if the judge being investigated resigns.
Follow this link for a transcript of the show and links to the cases discussed.
time for legally speaking, joined as always with michael mulligan, barrister, solicitor, with mulligan defense lawyers. Morning, michael, how we doing. Thank you. Morning, i'm doing great. Always good to be here, always good to have you here and hopefully my voice holds together this week and i'll ask you, because a little rough, my apologies, and feel much better now. On the agenda number one sentencing a man known as cameron hardy to one year in jail for contempt of court. That's not something i see very often you're quite right.
Michael Mulligan:Uh, this is a good story. It's a case of the prince robert, and i should say, when you get a criminal case, or really any case, there is at the top of it ordinarily a style of cause which shows who the parties are in the case, and this one is styled as rex versus cameron hardy, also known as a man known as cameron hardy. And so what is that? what's going on here? the background of it it started all the way back in may of 2021 and the police were called to a local liquor store where two men were refusing to wear masks. So it was right at the beginning of covid, and the police wound up dealing with the eventually, the person, the man known as carmen hardy. They identified him by a firearms license that he had in his possession and he was refusing to wear a mask and refusing to leave the store and eventually wound up in a wrestling match with several rcmp officers that involved. That wound up down on the floor and one of the officers watches getting pulled off and broken, and eventually the man wound up getting arrested for obstructing the police officers. So that's how the case started. Things did not go well, however, as the individual arrested was somebody who subscribed to a version of what we, i think, have mentioned before, this concept of free man on the land. This is group of people who have come up with this sort of cockey theory that they're not human beings subject to laws in canada, and this fellow was one of these people and so, for example, after he was arrested, the desire was to release him, to come back to court to deal with the obstruction charge, but he would do things like refuse to sign the paper work to be released, prompting him to appear then in front of a judicial justice where he would begin yelling things like you've kidnapped me, you've stolen from me, you've abused me and would not answer questions. The theory I guess this sort of cockey theory is that the person is not a human being, but they're somehow something else that's not required to adhere to any laws or requirements, and the individual eventually, after multiple, he stayed in jail for several days because he wouldn't put on a mask to walk down to appear in court, he wouldn't sign anything and eventually he introduced himself as a man commonly known as Cameron Hardy by special appearance. I guess he's got some theory that he's some person who's commonly known by that, but he's not a person And things did not go well for this individual.
Michael Mulligan:Eventually he would refuse any assistance. He would refuse to get any legal advice. He would in court repeatedly just speak over the judge, read various nonsense in court, refuse to come into the courtroom, wouldn't answer anything. Eventually various judges wound up concluding that a not guilty plea should be entered and the trial date would be fixed. But then there were a total of four trial dates when the man would do things like show up but refuse to come into the courtroom, or come into the courtroom and then begin reading sort of monologues of nonsense and over talking the judge and refusing to participate in any meaningful way. So that eventually led to the judge determining whether the man was in contempt. And there are a couple of things to be known about that.
Michael Mulligan:First of all, the man was being tried in provincial court right, which is where most criminal cases occur in BC, except for very serious ones. And the provincial court is a court of statutory jurisdiction. The authority of the court arises from statutes like the criminal code, and that's different from the superior court which would have some inherent jurisdiction to do things like find people in contempt who are not complying with court orders right. That's where we have all these contempt proceedings. When there's a court order and it's not complied with, that's not an authority the provincial court has. To the extent it has any authority to do something, you need to find a statutory basis for it.
Michael Mulligan:But section nine of the criminal code, which is a section that provides that you're not subject to being convicted of common law offenses or breaches of the acts of parliament of England and Great Britain sort of on the theory of reception of law at the time of confederation However, it does specifically say that nothing in this section affects the power, jurisdiction or authority that a court judge, justice or provincial court judge had immediately before April 1st 1955 to impose punishment for contempt of court. And so there is a statutory authority that remains, or there's authority that remains because of that section, for the provincial court to punish somebody for contempt in the face of the court, which is a different thing from somebody who's like not following some court order right. Like, for example, if a provincial court judge placed somebody on a period of probation. That's provided for in the criminal code. If somebody didn't follow the probationary orders, the person could be charged under the criminal code with, you know, not following the probation order And there's a whole section dealing with that right. A provincial court judge couldn't say I find you in contempt for not following my probation order and sentence you to jail. That's not a power the provincial court would have.
Michael Mulligan:But the conduct of the man known as Cameron Hardy occurred in the face of the court, like in the courtroom, right, okay, and there is it's necessary that, of course, could they have some capacity to control what's going on in the courtroom. Otherwise you wind up with somebody like the man commonly known as Cameron Hardy able to, you know, stand in the courtroom and just yell things out or refuse to be quiet or interrupt everything, and there'd be no way to stop it, right, yeah, and so the provincial court judges do have that authority to punish summarily for contempt in the face of the court. And so the judge dealing with this wrote a very long decision It's forty or sixty, nine pages long detailing the entire history of this man and what he had done in the face of the court to intentionally interfere with the court's process and make arguments which judge described as pretty blunt. His arguments were not merely legally false, but often just in stupid.
Adam Stirling:There's some useful jurisprudence.
Michael Mulligan:That's right. He had no hope of success. Thus, logically, the only purpose was to frustrate the court and waste government resources. He was truly the author of his own misfortune. Ultimately, the court tried to do things like appoint an abacus, like a lawyer, to sort of represent him, or not represent him, but argue his side of the case and try to explain things to him. But the man had no interest in any of that.
Michael Mulligan:The judge that went on to sort of think about things like look, is this a mental illness? And who didn't know? it doesn't appear to be a mental illness, right, even though what the man's doing, um, you know, sort of flies in the face of what most people would do with reason. Um, if we didn't know. He's a man seems to have sort of adopted this uh, prokite philosophy of being not a man, not a human being, but a man known as something, uh, and so found no, it's not a mental illness, uh, it is simply somebody who's engaged in contemptuous behavior in in the face of the court. And he sent some man to one year in prison with the message that that kind of behavior is unacceptable, uh, and to send the message to other like minded individuals that doing things to intentionally sort of defy the court, interrupt it repeatedly, waste days in court, read nonsense, uh, do all of these various things which the judge found in part he was doing to a sort of audience of others or like minded people. That was entirely unacceptable and needed to be deterred and others needed to be deterred from uh following that path. Uh, and so one year in prison for the attempt.
Michael Mulligan:He was also interestingly just found guilty of the uh obstruction count uh, which the judge took pains to sort of explain and have amicus and so on. On that count, interestingly, the crown took position that he should be sentenced to three days in jail because he's not going to follow any other order or period of probation. The man refused to provide any information at all about himself or his background. The judge, interestingly, on the obstruction count, wrestling with the police officers, declined who had a three day jail sentence and instead found they should be treated like anyone else without any previous criminal record who had engaged in that conduct and it would not ordinarily attract that conduct to jail sentence. And so instead in post, a period of three months probation with 10 hours of community work service, which is very interesting, right, but clearly the concern here was, you know, the reason for that long sentence was to deter the sort of contemptuous behavior that this man has engaged in by his nonsense conduct since that event back in 2021. But the you know reason dictated that you know that didn't impact what the appropriate sentence would be for the underlying wrestling around with the police officers and pulling the officers watch off.
Michael Mulligan:And so it will be interesting to see what the man known as Cormick Herman Hardy chooses to do with his probation order, whether he's gotten the message that he's going to need to comply And I should say he will start the probation order once he finishes his one year jail sentence for contempt And so it will be interesting to see whether that period of time has caused the man to focus upon the need to comply with the orders of the court and not engage in nonsense intended to interfere with the process, or whether the man commonly known as Carmen Hardy finds himself back in front of a judge if he doesn't complete the community work service. So the tale of the man known as Carmen Hardy may not be over, and it will be interesting to see whether the sentence imposed was sufficient to drive home the message that you do, in fact need to comply. You are a human being and the laws apply to you, and so that's the tale of sentencing a man known as Cormick Herman Hardy.
Adam Stirling:All right, we're going to take a quick break legally speaking with Michael Mulligan from Mulligan Defense Lawyers. We'll continue right after this Legally speaking on CFAX 1070 with Michael Mulligan, barrister and Solicitor with Mulligan Defense Lawyers. Michael, i know that some story that has been mentioned on our open lines, and it's certainly one that I found less than satisfying with the outcome, but I'm hoping you can help us understand it A man accused of being a shoplifter who stabbed a security guard in Campbell River and a finding of not guilty. What happened there?
Michael Mulligan:Well, first of all, there's no doubt that there was a very serious crime committed in Campbell River, as the judge explained in his reasons. the facts there included a individual coming in disguised, wearing a wig and mask and glasses and so forth, came into a Walmart, used a shopping cart, was loading television sets into the shopping cart and then wound up stabbing a security guard, threatening another security guard who happened to be the first security guard's wife and that'll be relevant in a moment threatening other people, and then fled the store, finally throwing away the televisions here in a yard, and the case was made. the issue in the case, really the only issue in the case, was whether the crown had proven beyond a reasonable doubt whether the man who was arrested and charged later was the man who committed the crime. Because what happened? The reason the accused got arrested is some hours later, the accused was found near where these TVs were disposed of, thrown away, and he was arrested. The other fact that led to him being arrested was that he had tattoos on his arm that seemed similar to tattoos in a video taken of the person who committed the crime, who was in the store.
Michael Mulligan:Okay, so that was really the case against this person. there was nothing else. The case was made more difficult by virtue of the fact that there'd been a power disruption at the store, resulting in there being no video footage from the store available from the store security system. Furthermore, the police tried taking, searched for fingerprints and all the things, but found nothing, so the case turned on a combination of what I've just told you about. that circumstantial evidence person was near where these TVs were disposed of some hours later and a similar tattoo on an arm. Now the other piece of evidence was interesting And this is a, i think, sort of a cautionary tale about the impact of media coverage of cases before there's a trial and the impact of social media And it was dealing with the evidence from the security guard who was stabbed. his wife was also working as a security guard.
Adam Stirling:Yes.
Michael Mulligan:And she had picked out the accused from a photo lineup and identified him in court, right, they're saying, well, that was the person. But here's the problem. She, of course, this person in the store was wearing a wig, mask, sunglasses, right, and the person who picked this fellow over the photo lineup the wife, the fellow security guard indicated when she gave a statement to the police at close and time to when this occurred. She indicated that she did not know the name of the person involved, right, or it might have been somebody who'd come into the store on other occasions. But then there was all kinds of media coverage, including pictures of the accused. She was posting online about this event and what happened to her husband. Pictures of the accused were posted online. Then what happened is the woman came and gave further information to the police, saying that, oh yes, she had another job prior to the Walmart, one where she did patrols car patrols, you know, looking like might be hired by downtown businesses to keep them safe from people who might do harm. She did that kind of work. And then she said, oh yes, she knew this person. His name was Nate, that's how she knew him, And she was familiar with him from all of her work, dealing with him on multiple occasions, spotting him doing well, working in this driving security job, completely inconsistent with what she'd said the first time. The police asked her, and she was asked in court, whether she had looked at pictures of him online, and she gave her to this equivocal answer to that.
Michael Mulligan:The judge concluded that the only inference that could be drawn by her after her first statement, concluding that she knew this person from previous dealings right, and was therefore able to identify him by his eyes, was simply not reliable And that her evidence in that regard well, perhaps understandable she might have persuaded herself that she was able to. Obviously, she had a traumatic experience. She was there, her husband was stabbed, could have died right, an awful traumatic experience, so he was careful to you know, sort of in an understanding way. So, look, it's understandable. She may have persuaded herself that she could identify this person. But given what she initially said and then how her story about that changed, which then led to this identification, the judge found that her evidence was simply not reliable, that he just couldn't rely on this picking out of the photo lineup or the in court identification, and so what the judge was left with was the fact, this man was found near where the televisions were some hours later, so that's something that circumstantial evidence.
Michael Mulligan:Furthermore, he had tattoos on his arm which were similar to some tattoos which were in a video taken by a bystander. But the judge said look, i can't exactly compare these things. I don't know how common those tattoos are. I've got this sort of, you know, bystander video that shows some tattoos on a person's arm. And then the descriptions by other people who were in the store like there were other sort of bystanders around were descriptions like well, he was roughly five foot eight or five foot 10,. Somebody else thought he was six feet tall, they thought he was between 16 and 20, one of them because his voice was out of a punk ass kid. So that was the kind of description he was left with And the judge concluded that, because he could not rely upon what the wife was describing, he simply could not be satisfied that the only reasonable inference from the fact that this man was near where the TVs were sometime hours later or that he appeared to have a similar tattoo.
Michael Mulligan:Just wasn't enough.
Adam Stirling:Yeah, there was a reasonable doubt that they'd arrested the wrong guy. Yeah.
Michael Mulligan:And that's why he was acquitted. And so it it really does bear careful scrutiny as to what went on here, because, sort of on the face of it, you have somebody saying I'm outraged, I was stabbed. My wife identified him, found him in a photo lineup, what could possibly be the problem? Yeah, And It's an example of why we're very fortunate to have sort of a careful, reasoned analysis as to what's going on. Right, that goes on for 41 pages, You know, carefully analyzing.
Michael Mulligan:Well, what can you properly draw from? what evidence is there? And those little bits were certainly enough to be suspicious, but not enough to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. And so it's also a cautionary tale in terms of how retrial publicity can sometimes undermine evidence ultimately at a trial. And so you know that there's a difficult weighing there, because many of these things are of, you know, very significant interest. Right, This is a really serious activity, right, Somebody was stabbed. They could have died. It's outrageous. And so it's certainly understandable why that would get the attention it did, And it's also perfectly understandable how upset the person was who was stabbed, right? Yeah, Of course everyone wants a neat ending to it, But this evidence just wasn't enough to get there, And that's why we had the result we did.
Adam Stirling:We have just under three minutes remaining, michael, supreme Court Justice Brown retiring immediately Your thoughts on that.
Michael Mulligan:Well, this is a first legal first right. He, of course, was the Supreme Court judge who was accused of wrongdoing at a or having an altercation at a conference down in Arizona. He was alleged to have been in a drunken state and following in an unwanted way a woman back to her room and getting punched. There was much disagreement between the former justice and the about that And there was an investigation that was ordered. There's provision to investigate the conduct of a judge. That investigation was literally about to commence And I think the day that the investigation proper was going to commence, justice Brown resigned and or retired, and it's an interesting outcome. His lawyers indicated that they had evidence they thought would contradict the claims originally made, including they had say they had obtained video footage depicting the entire interaction and some evidence from the bartender and so on. But that's the outcome. The other interesting thing about it is that the authority of the judicial council that would conduct the investigation ends on the judge's retirement, so they don't have any authority to continue the investigation. That's different from some other professional organizations like, for example, the Law Society in British Columbia that would regulate lawyers. They are not deprived of authority by somebody just popping up and saying I resign. They could carry on with an investigation, come up with a decision, they can impose other penalties, fines or prohibitions on somebody practicing in the future, other things they might think would be appropriate And of course you would get some answers which might be important for the public in terms of confidence in the administration of justice. So one of the queries here I think people should think about is would it be appropriate, are some changes to this investigative process currently being contemplated? Would it be appropriate to permit a continued investigation into the conduct of a judge, even when there's a resignation right, to sort of figure out, was there some impropriety or was there not?
Michael Mulligan:We're all left sort of wondering what happened here and you're left wondering with hey, you say you have some video that contradicts what happened. Where is that? We're not seeing it. Everyone's left in a bit of a quandary. So clearly a problematic event and sort of on a personal level. You know Justice Brown had some connections to Victoria, having practiced here personally. That's really not too good. I'm really sorry about that And obviously it's going to be a difficult thing, i'm sure, from a personal and family perspective. So that's the, at least for the moment, an end of that tale And we'll have to wait and see what happens. We'll have to be in a point appointment of a replacement and we'll wait and see whether and what changes happen to the process to investigate these things in the future. Thank you, michael.
Adam Stirling:Pleasure as always. Thank you so much. Have a great day. All right, michael Mulligan, with Mulligan Defense Lawyers, legally speaking here on CFAX 1070, during the second half of our second hour every Thursday.