Canada - Richard Robert Mantha: kidnap, drug & assault several women, Chestermere, Alta., 2021–2023

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musicaljoke said:
Everyone on the jury would need to be able to speak and understand French fluently.
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Yes. It's a pretty pathetic tactic. They had the first witness speak today and she had a translator for her testimony.

calgary.ctvnews.ca

Woman tells Calgary sex assault trial accused attacker offered her construction work

One of seven women who have accused a man of sexual assault says she was trying to leave the sex trade when he approached her on the street and offered her construction work.
calgary.ctvnews.ca calgary.ctvnews.ca
 
AutumnFalls said:
Yes. It's a pretty pathetic tactic. They had the first witness speak today and she had a translator for her testimony.

calgary.ctvnews.ca

Woman tells Calgary sex assault trial accused attacker offered her construction work

One of seven women who have accused a man of sexual assault says she was trying to leave the sex trade when he approached her on the street and offered her construction work.
calgary.ctvnews.ca calgary.ctvnews.ca
Click to expand...

It wouldn't surprise me to know that none of the victims speak French. It is a pathetic tactic indeed.
 
Update on the trial:

One of the victims was found injured, bloody, no shoes, sexual assault and cold on the side of the highway. She's lucky that she ran in the right direction towards the highway rather than deeper into the fields.

The defence is attempting to discredit victims on the basis that they used drugs prior to the assault. He chose vulnerable women to victimize because he believed it would be easy to discredit them.

 
otto said:
Update on the trial:

One of the victims was found injured, bloody, no shoes, sexual assault and cold on the side of the highway. She's lucky that she ran in the right direction towards the highway rather than deeper into the fields.

The defence is attempting to discredit victims on the basis that they used drugs prior to the assault. He chose vulnerable women to victimize because he believed it would be easy to discredit them.

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I was just waiting for the "they're unreliable because they're prostitutes and druggies" thing to come up. I don't like Mantha's lawyer at all.
 
AutumnFalls said:
I was just waiting for the "they're unreliable because they're prostitutes and druggies" thing to come up. I don't like Mantha's lawyer at all.
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Mantha is fluent in English. He requested the trial be conducted in French. Mantha is creating every obstacle he can. French immersion education is available in Canadian schools across the country. It is typically formal French for futures in international linguistics, not Quebecois French dialect. I wonder whether Mantha understands everything in formal French.

Opinion: Mantha specifically chose vulnerable victims because he views them as inferior to others. He presumes that no one will take a street worker seriously. In his opinion, they are throw away people. They won't be missed. He relies on drug addiction so he can mess with victims' memories. He believes that drug addicts cannot think straight. He wants the trial conducted in French because he believes it will further disadvantage vulnerable victim witnesses during his prosecution.

"Good Samaritans who stopped on the side of the highway after spotting a bloodied, weeping woman testified at Richard Mantha's sexual assault trial Monday, telling the judge she found the victim on the ground, wet and freezing cold with no shoes.

... He is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting women in Calgary's sex trade.

... Avery was sitting on the ground weeping but eventually curled up into the fetal position. Her pants were down and she was wet and freezing cold ... blood on her face and her knuckles were swollen and bloody.

The 911 operator asked if Avery had been assaulted, choked or sexually assaulted. Through Pridmore, Avery answered "yes" to each question."​

 
André Ouellette is an experienced lawyer who has had close ties to the prosecutors office at times during his decades long law career. He's good, but he may not always be nice. Ouellette has to come up with reasons to discredit eyewitness testimony because the alternative means that his client is guilty. It's the only strategy he has, and he is directed by his client regarding how to poke holes in victim testimony.

"Mantha's trial, which got underway Friday, continued Monday with defence lawyer André Ouellette's cross-examination of Avery."​

same link as above CBC
 
otto said:
Mantha is fluent in English. He requested the trial be conducted in French. Mantha is creating every obstacle he can. French immersion education is available in Canadian schools across the country. It is typically formal French for futures in international linguistics, not Quebecois French dialect. I wonder whether Mantha understands everything in formal French.

Opinion: Mantha specifically chose vulnerable victims because he views them as inferior to others. He presumes that no one will take a street worker seriously. In his opinion, they are throw away people. They won't be missed. He relies on drug addiction so he can mess with victims' memories. He believes that drug addicts cannot think straight. He wants the trial conducted in French because he believes it will further disadvantage vulnerable victim witnesses during his prosecution.

"Good Samaritans who stopped on the side of the highway after spotting a bloodied, weeping woman testified at Richard Mantha's sexual assault trial Monday, telling the judge she found the victim on the ground, wet and freezing cold with no shoes.​
​
... He is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting women in Calgary's sex trade.​
​
... Avery was sitting on the ground weeping but eventually curled up into the fetal position. Her pants were down and she was wet and freezing cold ... blood on her face and her knuckles were swollen and bloody.​
​
The 911 operator asked if Avery had been assaulted, choked or sexually assaulted. Through Pridmore, Avery answered "yes" to each question."​

Click to expand...
I think you're probably right on Bout Mantha using everything to delay and obfuscate things. Although, as a fellow Canadian, I would argue that small towns often don't have French Immersion available.
 
AutumnFalls said:
I think you're probably right on Bout Mantha using everything to delay and obfuscate things. Although, as a fellow Canadian, I would argue that small towns often don't have French Immersion available.
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True. French immersion k-12 across Canada is typically in cities with IB programs, not everywhere.

Mantha, who lived in English speaking Alberta for years, first delayed the trial by requesting that the Alberta trial be conducted in French, then by requesting that the 7 charges be tried separately ... meaning victims would have to re-testify at different trials.

That failed, so today he is alleging that the victims are drug addicted street workers with faulty memories who cannot be trusted - even though one victim was found on the side of the TransCanada Highway with no shoes, no purse, bloodied face, injured, cold, pants down, disoriented but alive. She had escaped assault, choking, or sexual assault. Lucky to be alive.

The defence lawyer's job is to defend the client according to his (client or lawyer) best interests. Second from the right. Link
 
I see he's electing to be tried in his mother-tongue, french in his case and IAW Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

If he is actually bilingual (not just someone who can 'get by' because 'getting by' doesn't necessarily mean one knows enough english language to understand the laws and court system process) ... I hope the judge fires the maximum allowable at him even though it can't be considered as 'aggravating' to want to be tried in your native language.

I also speak french (and have the certified federal govenment testing and profile stating so) being a native New Bunswicker, but if I ever comitted a crime in Quebec .... I'd be insisting on ab english trial.
 
Vern said:
I see he's electing to be tried in his mother-tongue, french in his case and IAW Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

If he is actually bilingual (not just someone who can 'get by' because 'getting by' doesn't necessarily mean one knows enough english language to understand the laws and court system process) ... I hope the judge fires the maximum allowable at him even though it can't be considered as 'aggravating' to want to be tried in your native language.

I also speak french (and have the certified federal govenment testing and profile stating so) being a native New Bunswicker, but if I ever comitted a crime in Quebec .... I'd be insisting on ab english trial.
Click to expand...

Me too.

Our family is bilingual, and I and our kids are French first-language, but I have not worked in French for years now, and would absolutely not expect to follow legal procedure in it. The systems differ too between Québec and the rest of Canada, and several have noted here I suspect this is less about Mantha's charter rights than it is about making things as difficult as possible for his victims and their families.

Pickton in the making, IMO.
 
Third victim testifies ...

"The third woman to testify at Richard Mantha's sexual assault trial told the court she discovered what happened to her after a friend sent a clip of a video she says showed her being raped for three hours and 40 minutes.

The defence lawyer is not scoring any points by arguing that the victim, who was involuntarily drugged, does not remember whether she was drugged again later on the same day or within 2 days. The missing memories might be due to GHB?

"I fought for most of the whole time, which was three hours and 20 minutes, and in the last 20 minutes, my body went limp," said the woman whom CBC News is identifying as CB.
...

Defence lawyer André Ouellette began cross-examination of CB Wednesday afternoon.

"Considering the passage of time, the use of alcohol, drugs, there are things that are not very clear, your memory is not complete," he suggested. CB agreed. She also confirmed that she had not viewed the entirety of the video, only a short clip that lasted "minutes" or "seconds."

Ouellette also pointed out discrepancies between CB's statement to police and her testimony in court. For example, CB told police that she wasn't sure if, after her first encounter with Mantha, she met him later the same day or within a day or two. In court, she said it was later the same day."

 
The defence lawyer is making a point about memory with each of the witnesses.

I think the defence closing arguments will try to make a strong case that all witnesses admit that drugs interfered with their memory during the time they were with the suspect. In some cases, but not all, there were years of drug abuse.

That is, the defence will argue that, because the suspect drugged the victims with noxious substances known to cause stupification, they were stupified; in a stupor without memory, and therefore their testimony is unreliable.
 
The prosecution must have more evidence. We've heard about the 3h40m video where victim 3 is collapsed in the last 20 minutes of the video. I suppose they need an expert witness to testify about the medical cause for collapse while stupified on drugs and raped for nearly 4 hours.
 
Pre-trial custody and sentence reduction: for each day that Mantha is in pre-trial custody, he receives 1.5 days off his sentence. The longer he delays, the shorter his sentence.

I thought Andre Ouellette was the right man for the job, so firing his lawyer probably has a different motive than having a good lawyer.

"Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R v Summers, 2014 SCC 26 (CanLII) that the loss of eligibility for parole and statutory release was a circumstance that could merit the granting of enhanced credit. After the Summers decision, courts in Alberta began granting 1.5 to 1 credit in most sentencing decisions."​


Mantha will appear in court on March 1, 2024 to inform the court about how he will proceed.
 
Mantha argued that his lawyers are not properly defending him, and that he deserves 30 days to find new counsel. He alleged that defence lawyers, who have vigorously cross examined victims, don't seem to care about him.

He seems to be talented at playing the victim.

"On Tuesday afternoon, following a lunch break, defence lawyer Kim Arial told the judge that Mantha was "discharging" her services as well as those of co-counsel André Ouellette.​
​
Arial and Ouellette vigorously cross-examined each complainant.​
​
"I don't think it's fair to me to sit here and put my life and my future in the hands of people who don't seem to care," said Mantha.​
​
Mantha argued he should be given time to find new representation. "I've read some of the Charter of Rights and I would like 30 days minimum to be able to obtain legal assistance," Mantha said. The judge agreed to Mantha's application for an adjournment."​

CBC
 
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