Judge Erupts in Angry Tirade Against Pro-Life Activist

[Edward Kennedy]

A ahole is still an ahole, even in judge's robes.

[T.G.]

http://townhall.com/columnists/benjamin ... silence_it

If You Can’t Beat The Truth, Silence It
Benjamin Bull
Apr 03, 2012

A gut-wrenching example of the lengths to which men will go to silence the voices of conscience recently played out in an Ontario Court of Justice. There, Judge S. Ford Clements sentenced pro-life advocate Mary Wagner to 92 more days in jail, on top of the 88 days she’d already spent behind bars, all because she has been walking into the waiting rooms in Canadian abortion clinics and sharing hope with the women who are waiting to have their babies killed.

And the story gets worse. Clements was so outraged by Wagner’s passion for life that he lashed out at her in front of the court:

You don’t get it, do you? What’s the rule of law? You’re required to abide by it … You’ve lost the right as a citizen to be anywhere near an abortion clinic or to speak to an employee.

You’re wrong and your God’s wrong. You have complete contempt … There is a right to (abortion) in this country … You don’t have a right to cause (abortion-seeking women) extra pain and grief the way you do.

There are many ironies in Clements’ angry words, not the least of which was the fact that he equated Wagner’s message of Christian hope with “extra pain and grief” for women preparing to have an abortion. Yet Wagner has not been going into the waiting rooms to cause extra pain and grief but to impart good news which may, God willing, lead some women to walk out of the waiting room instead of having an abortion: thereby sparing a child’s life.

Note, too, Clements’ bombastic proclamation of “Your God’s wrong.” Most obvious is the fact that it’s not a judge’s business to make such a pronouncement. But ever since Adam and Eve stood in the Garden of Eden, man has been trying to prove God a liar or a heavenly miscreant. This judge in Canada is no different.

The good news is that Wagner was not intimated by Clements’ verbal outbreak, nor was she swayed by his low opinion of God’s judgment on matters of life and death. Rather, when asked whether she would stop going to abortion clinic waiting rooms and ministering to women for a period of three years—three years being the length of probation for having gone to the waiting rooms in the first place—Wagner said she would not stop going.

So Clements has tucked Wagner back into a cell for 92 more days.

I guess the message is: If you can’t beat the truth, silence it.

[T.G.]

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/yo ... pro-lifer/

‘Your God’s Wrong,’ Canadian Judge Tells Pro-Lifer
In jail for 92 days more, Mary Wagner says, ‘I am at peace.’
by STEVE WEATHERBE 04/04/2012

A Canadian judge who appeared never to have heard of civil disobedience not only condemned pro-life hero Mary Wagner as he sentenced her for entering a Toronto abortion facility — he condemned her God as well.

A pro-abortion spokesperson approved the judge’s words but the head of the Canadian Catholic Civil Rights League said they suggested an anti-religious bias and she was considering a complaint to the Judicial Council.

“You’re wrong, and your God’s wrong,” Justice S. Ford Clements told Mary Wagner, 38, as he sentenced her to 92 days in jail for her November intrusion into a Toronto abortion business.

His comment, first reported by LifeSiteNews, who had a reporter in the courtroom, was confirmed by Wagner's attorney.

In sentencing Wagner to 92 days, Clements ignored a joint recommendation from the Crown prosecutor and her own defense attorney that she be sentenced to the 88 days she had already served before trial.

The joint submission recommended three years probation as well, but the judge asked Wagner if she would promise to stay away from Ontario abortion facilities during the three years.

“I will not,” she declared.

Clements’ comments on God came in the middle of a tirade against Wagner for what he evidently viewed as her insensitivity to the feelings of women using the abortion facilities. “You don’t have the right to cause extra pain and grief in the way you do,” he told her. However, according to Wagner’s defense lawyer, Russell Browne, the Crown introduced no evidence from clients of the abortuary as to “pain and grief.”

Browne told the Register he would be looking closely at the transcript of the sentencing hearing for “an apprehension of bias” on the part of the judge, adding that he was planning to appeal both Wagner’s sentence and her conviction for “mischief to property.”

“It certainly caught me by surprise,” Browne said of the judge’s comments. And the judge, by asking Wagner about her intentions to re-offend, may have been “forcing her to testify” against herself, which is unlawful in Canada, as it is in American law.

Browne said he would appeal the sentence on the grounds that Wagner’s 88 days already served was in line with previous sentencing for second offences for abortuary occupations. Her intentions during probation should have been immaterial to what was, in Browne’s view, a technical matter.

Browne will appeal the conviction on the principle of Wagner’s constitutional right to free speech.

The judge, said Browne, apparently wanted to mix it up with Wagner over her comments about obeying a higher law than the law of Canada. “He did say, ‘If you don’t like the law, then go change it; don’t disobey it,” said Browne, so the judge didn’t need to launch an attack on his client’s faith.

Joseph Ben Ami of the Ottawa-based Canadian Centre for Policy Studies called Clements’ comments “profoundly absurd,” adding, “They call into question whether the judge is without bias. Even if I were an atheist, this, to me, is a stupid thing for a judge to say.”

Ben Ami added that there is a tradition in Western culture for laws to be changed through civil disobedience. “It’s absolutely a good thing that there are people willing to go to jail to change the law. But here the judge seems to be saying the law is there to protect people’s feelings.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association declined to comment on Clements’ remarks. However, Mary Ellen Douglas of the Campaign Life Coalition of Canada termed Clements’ remarks “very biased and anti-Christian.” She also scoffed at testimony during the trial from the abortion facility’s owner to the effect that Wagner’s presence made her fearful. “Some of us pro-lifers might be scary, but not Mary. She is the gentlest of souls. They just can’t take anybody saying that abortion is killing a baby.”

While the coalition does not enter abortuaries or enter the so-called “bubble zones” courts have established around some facilities, said Douglas, it does not criticize Wagner or Linda Gibbons, Canada’s other pro-life prisoner, for doing so. “The distance we stay away does make it hard to reach the women. Linda and Mary take the route they do to take the message to the women,” she said.

However, Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, told the Register, “Mary got what she deserves. What she doesn’t deserve is this reputation for being meek and mild. She’s actually quite aggressive. She goes right into clinics and even the ones who just stand there and do nothing are harmful because the anxiety, stress and fear it creates can increase the risk of medical complications, both physical and psychological. The clinic staff have to continually deal with this fallout.”

As for the judge’s comments, Arthur said she was glad to “hear someone tell it like it is.”

On the other hand, Joanne McGarry, executive director of the Canadian Catholic Civil Rights League, called the comments “very inappropriate. She added, “We are considering a complaint to the judicial council.”

Wagner, contacted through her lawyer, said she remained committed to her vocation of counseling women seeking abortion. To her mother, Jayne Wagner of Nanaimo, British Columbia, she said, “I am at peace, Mom.”

Register correspondent Steve Weatherbe writes from Victoria, British Columbia.

[T.G.]

http://lifesite.net/news/after-judge-te ... ers-file-a

After judge tells arrested pro-life activist ‘your God’s wrong,’ lawyers file appeal
by Peter Baklinski
Thu Apr 05, 2012 16:15 EST

TORONTO, Ontario, April 5, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After an Ontario Court of Justice judge erupted in a lengthy, angry tirade against pro-life activist Mary Wagner two weeks ago, telling her, “you’re wrong and your God’s wrong,” and sending her back to jail for mischief and failing to comply with probation orders, Wagner’s defense team has decided to appeal the decision. They also said they may launch a judicial complaint about what they called the judge’s ‘bias’ during the sentencing process.

The charges brought against Wagner stem from her November arrest at Bloor West Village Women’s Clinic, where she brought roses and pamphlets into the abortion center in an attempt to reach 10-12 women who were lined up to have their babies aborted. Wagner was reportedly asked to leave several times, but she refused.
Pro-life activist Mary Wagner

Wagner has been arrested on several occasions for peacefully entering abortion facilities in Toronto, where she attempts to dissuade women from having their babies killed.

During the ruling, Wagner’s defense counsel Russell Browne and Crown attorney Derek Ishak made a joint submission to Mr. Justice S. Ford Clements to have Wagner’s punishment lessened. The judge overruled their submission.

Wagner’s defense team, Russell Browne and Peter Boushy appeared on SunNews last week and told host Ezra Levant that they have solid grounds upon which to file an appeal.

“Firstly we are asking the higher court to overturn the conviction, the mischief count, and to overturn the sentence of 6 months. First of all, it is clearly excessive, secondly there was a joint submission between Russell and the Crown which was jumped by the judge,” said Boushy, Wagner’s lead counsel for the appeal.

The appeal was filed with the Superior Court of Justice on March 28th.

In the appeal, Wagner’s defense team argued, “the honorable justice erred during the sentencing process when inter alia [among other things], he stated ‘your God is wrong’ thus giving rise to reasonable apprehension of bias.”

“Our judges are to be unbiased. Furthermore, there is to be no unreasonable apprehension of bias,” said Boushy.

Boushy told LifeSiteNews that there has been an expression of interest from the Catholic Civil Rights League and the Christian Legal Fellowship to possibly intervene in Wagner’s case.

Even though Wagner will be out of jail by the time the appeal is heard, Boushy said that filing the appeal is important for “policy reasons and for administration of justice reason.”

“At the end of the day if people like Mary Wagner and Linda Gibbons insist on breaking the law, it’s in society’s interest and the interests of the pro-life movement that they be treated fairly,” he said.

Wagner’s defense team was instructed today to appear before the Superior Court judge in a ‘practice ready court’ on June 26th to advise the judge about the stage of the appeal process.

Boushy told SunNews that his team will wait to consider filing a complaint to the Judicial Council against Justice Clements until the official transcripts of the case have been received.

“Out of fairness to the judge we are going to wait for the transcripts. We ordered four copies of the transcripts. Hopefully we will receive those in the next month or two.”

Levant commented on his show that religious people ought to be “outraged” by Justice Clement’s blatant attack on religion.

“To me, to say ‘Mary Wager you’re a waste of resources, Mary Wagner stop bugging me, stop bugging these abortion people’ I think that’s all within the ambit of the criminal law [in reference to] nuisance, trespass, mischief,” he said.

“But then to say ‘You’re wrong and your God is wrong’…I put it to you Russell [Browne], that if this was said to a Muslim, a Jewish, a Buddhist, or a Sikh defendant, it would be an outrage.”