Les MacPherson

  • Les MacPherson

    Les MacPherson
    funny lawyer
    Image by Sheila Steele
    It was only a lead-in to a funny story about life and death and retirement, but it was publicity, nonetheless . . .

    Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenix, October 18, 2005

    They (matters of life and death) came up the other day in provincial court. I was there to look in on the preliminary hearing in a murder case. Unfortunately, I can’t reveal what’s going on. There’s a court-ordered ban on publication. This even though the defendant, Wilfred Gordon Hathway, wants shouted from the rooftops every detail of what he insists is a wrongful prosecution.

    Of course, Hathway is not the first defendant to make this claim. But neither would he be the first to be right. Either way, he is the first defendant I know of who wants all proceedings against him made public, including his preliminary hearing. To deny him this right only makes him appear more credible.

    It doesn’t help that the publication ban is ambiguous. An order on the courtroom door seemed to suggest that the ban was partially lifted, but the part that was lifted is still covered by the general ban. I think. We could have asked our lawyer to try and make sense of it, but, as it so happened, there was no evidence presented that day anyway. Rather, the hearing was delayed for procedural reasons. To pay a lawyer to fight for our right to report on procedure did not seem like a justifiable expense.
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