More on Don Smith: Summary of case (from appeal which will be held February 8, 2005 at Ontario Court of Appeal) | press reports of trial | The Smith's ordeal for the last two years | Don Smith in his own words | The appeal on Judge Helen Pierce's outrageous instructions to the jury and the verdict will be heard February 8, 2005 in Ontario Court of Appeal)

 

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Sermonette: June, 2004

 

 

Warning: Anyone who is sensitive about bare tits or fake blood should be careful about scrolling down this page . . .

 

Don Smith phoned the office of the registrar in B.C. to make sure there had not been appeal on Judge Low's decision in R. v. Price (the Steve Sweet pornography case). He was told there had not been an appeal within the 30 day period but that a judicial review had been requested. Could anybody enlighten me about what this means (as you are aware, Smith has been banned from the internet and the Ontario government has seized the copyright on his creative material, satirical experiments with special effects == all of which was tamer than the Sweet videos -- no genital nudity, no sex.)

 

 

 

The police not only failed to serve and protect Don and Lorna Smith and their children but actively participated in setting them up for false charges and community shunning

 

 

 

Don Smith, formerly of Fort Francis, Ontario, set to appeal obscenity conviction

 

Brian Greenspan, who is gaining a good reputation as a civiil rights attorney is handling the appeal for Don Smith.

 

Smith, a soft porn video artist, was convicted after a stunning series of violations of his basic charter rights by OPP cop Scott Gobeil. The persecution of the Smith family happened against the backdrop of a community with way more than your average number of fundamentalist Christian churches per capita and was preceeded by a smear campaign which almost tore the family apart.

 

Smith, who had suffered severe back injuries which prevented him from working at most jobs for which he was qualified. He needed to make money and he wanted to make movies. He learned his skills and produced several small videos which spoof violence against women. He hired models, paid them, and developed his own special effects techniques to create pierced arrow wounds and other obviously impossible images. No one was under age in any of his videos.

 

Smith was given no help by the Winnipeg lawyer he hired. Darren Sawchuk seemed to be ashamed of his client, although he didn't hesitate to take Smith's money. He missed the dates for filing important documents. He failed to get experts, although Smith was able to secure two excellent experts himself, at the last minute.

 

Howard Leibovich and Christine Bartlett-Hughes, a prosecutor who breathes some understanding into, if not jutification for the term feminazi blew into Fort Francis to prosecute the case. The truth was not in their quiver of prosecutorial arrows. The jury lapped up their innuendo and it was left to circuit court judge Helen Pierce to deliver the coup de grace, a guilty verdict and a punishing fine. It doesn't matter that she is brain-dead: she appeared to be asleep through much of the trial. She woke up long enough to drone on at length about the harm Don Smith had done to women, although no hurt women had been presented to her court. She was going to make an example of him, she said.

 

She refused to accept the expertise of to men with doctorate degrees, claiming they knew no more than an ordinary person. She also ignored the testimony of two of the models who appeared in Smith's videos and told the court they had been well treated and well paid.

 

Although there is cartoonish violence in Smith's work, there is no genital nudity and no sex.

 

Greenspan appealed Smith's sentence in April, 2003. The appeal was denied, based on an understanding that the appeal on conviction would proceed quickly to court. The Crown also presented to the court two precedents for sentencing which were not accurate; in fact, they were stretched to the point of falsification. It would seem that any suggestion of harm to capital W women -- that imaginary monolithic half of the population so fragile it cannot be trusted to think or speak for itself -- signals stern vengeance.

 

Thirteen months ago, I wrote a sermonette, verging on a screech-rant, linking the Smith case to abuses in Saskatchewan and Iraq. (Warning again -- more skin and blood). How much or how little has changed . . .

 

Thirteen months later, the appeal has not yet proceeded. Meanwhile, Smith continues to endure harsh restrictions, which include having his whole family prohibited from having the internet in their home. His children (shown above in a picture taken five years ago) are home schooled.

 

Smith and his wife continue to be harassed by members of the OPP. The case has cost the family hundreds of thousands.

 

Last month, a B. C. judge acquitted a B.C. man on 20 counts which are arguably more serious than those Smith was convicted for. His well-reasoned 26 page decision is posted here in pdf form.

 

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The appeal has finally been set for February 8, 2005. Some expediting!

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.
William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell

Truth suppress'd, whether by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com

If you hold the mouth of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb

Truth crushed to earth will rise again. --William Cullen Bryant

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Who we are:

Publisher Sheila Steele

Co-founder: Richard Klassen

New: injusticebustersblog. Participate!

Our activism contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the civil trial.

Index to the stories on this website

This is not regularly updated so if you are looking for a particular story and you have a name or keyword, please use the site search engine(at the bottom of the page) which IS regularly updated

Index to Saskatoon Police stories

This is a pretty good scrapbook for the 1998-2002 period.

More Sermonettes

2001

January: Legal Treachery to keep Dueck's lies safe

2002

March, 2002 -- Gay Bashing still a legal sport in Saskatoon -- Even when it turns to murder

 

2003

 

Feb. 1: Where we stand

Feb. 15, 2003: Has Saskatchewan learned anything?

March 1: Connecting the dots

March 23, 2003: From Micro to Macro

March 25, 2003: About libel and malice

March 27: Gangs of Saskatoon: the police and prison guards

April 28, 2003: The Naked Truth

May 5: How low will they go?

May 15, 2003: Come clean Calvert, Cline!

May 30: Still smearing Milgaard - defamation is alive and well on the lawn of the Regina legislature and Precendent has been set as we reclaim our institutions

June 11, 2003: --Eric Cline carries on a corrupt tradition

Nov 7: Courage -- the only reward is justice

November 20: Just following orders

November 24: Mayor Atchison, community policing and graffiti

November 25: Michael Jackson

November 30: Corrupt officials must be severely punished: otherwise they just keep on putting the administration of justice in disrepute!

December 1: Christmas comes early for injustice warriors

December 4: Wide open Saskatchewan?

December 16: Crawling through the tunnel of justice since 1991

December 24: The Crown keeps right on breaking the law

December 30: Who will find justice under their tree?

 

2004

 

January 1. 2004: Unprecedented publicity and Happy New Year

January 8, 2004: Malice still afoot

January 10, 2004: Shame and mugshots

January 14, 2004: Telling more truth about the undefamable: McKillop and Quennell, the static duo

January 17, 2004: Fifth Estate returns and A working class hero is something to be

January 22,23, 2004: Justice is still prevailing -- it is just taking longer and Bits and pieces are now coming together to tell the story of the century

January 27, 2004: Telling the truth about the undefamable, restoring reputations to the defamed.

February 5, 2004: Negotiations and strategies: getting an intransigent government to remedy its damage

February 10, 2004: How many lawyers does it take to ruin a province? and Lawyer continues to treat people's lives as a cruel game: monopoly?

Febrary 16, 2004: Calvert is not King Arthur

March 29, 2004: Counting down to the damages trial

April 16, 2004: The internet, the courts and now the movies -- We will so what it takes to get justice

May 1, 2004: If Frank Quennell is any example of what former Justice Minister Chris Axworthy called "evolving," Saskatchewan is ready to kiss justice good-bye!

May 27, 2004: Some observations on Saskatchewan and justice

June 7, 2004:Media coverage of Monique Turenne's story illustrates journalistic laziness

June 8:, 2004 -- The police not only failed to serve and protect Don and Lorna Smith and their children but set them up for false charges and community shunning

September 2, 2004: A tale of three cops: Dueck, Gobeil and Schinkel -- with an update on how they get away with criminal obstruction of justice

November, 2004: Wilfred Hathway, Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns -- RCMP stings offensive to community standards

November 11, 2004: Rogue Platoon? Identifying the rotten apples in Saskatoon Police Service and why we need a full public inquiry into our whole justice system

November 28, 2004: Can Justice Minister Quennell take a few more steps? The Prosecutors' office is still harbouring crowns who put the administrative of justice in disrepute

November 12, 2004: Saskatchewan Justice in chaos: The Stonechild report suggests it is.

November 28, 2004: The price for being a good judge or a good prosecutor

December 30: When the government interferes with the judiciary, we know a Police State is a dangerous possibility (The government appeal of the Klassen/Kvello decision)

 

2005

 

Jan 1, 2005: Chewed up digested and spit out

Jan. 5, 2005: More on chief Sabo

February 18, 2005: Tunnel vision: Darren Koehn, Wilf Hathway and Leon Walchuk

March 2: Fixing the system: Time to quit talking and implement previous commission recommendations

March 19, 2005 : Injustice as ShowBiz