Don Lewis Inquest , How Much Justice Can You Afford?

By Ben Meisner

This is the third in a four part series about the inquest into the police shooting death of Don Lewis.  In part one,  Meisner looked at the  credibility of the  Constable's version of events.  In part two,  he  talked about police investigating police.

Part 3

When you leave the Inquest into the death of Don Lewis in McLeese Lake, there is one question that stands out

"How much justice can you afford?"

It was never more apparent than at the inquest watching two house wives , Dolores Young, (whose son Kevin St. Arnaud was shot to death by a police officer in Vanderhoof) along with Sara Lewis the widow of Don Lewis, trying to put together a credible cross examination of a witness.

  You see,  Sarah Lewis can't afford a lawyer,  and the Coroner has no mandate to give her funds to have legal counsel.  The lawyer who had started the proceedings on her behalf Cameron Ward, had asked to have the inquest adjourned until the Lewis family could raise some  funds to pay for counsel.  That was denied as was a request to provide funding for  a lawyer. You can bet the lawyers for the Mounties are being paid, handsomely, and if your tax dollars can be used to pay  for them, why not for the  family of the  victim?

The two women tried their best but they were in way over their head in this one to a point that it became painful for me to watch the proceedings.

I say painful because you could see it in the manner that Coroner Shane DeMeyer tried to conduct the inquest to give both  an opportunity to get their licks in. I like DeMeyer as a Coroner.  He, like me ,I’m sure could see what was going on and he came very close to stepping over the bounds several times. He was seeking the truth and that is what we were all there for I believe.

I also should make mention of Mitch Houg, the Coroner’s Counsel, he too was (in my lay opinion) over the line several times in his attempt to let these two women raise their issues and surely in his mind he also must have been thinking, and ‘how much justice can you afford’.

I also think that I should mention David Butcher the lawyer for the RCMP, he could have been on his feet objecting to the line of questioning and the comments being made, and he too must have felt down deep that somehow the system isn’t just quite right.

Butcher and Andrew Kemp were both there representing the Mounties. I have watched Butcher at work and in spite of looking like a pompous little Englishman, he does have a heart in there and he and Kemp (for about 6 grand a day) are expected to deliver for the RCMP and they do.

That folks is what’s wrong with the system, I don’t for a moment believe that Const Cole Brewer went out of his way to shoot Don Lewis , but the other facts surrounding the matter don’t come out when you call upon two women with virtually no experience to take up the position where experienced Counsel should be.

Cameron Ward, who spent the first three days of the inquest on his own dime trying to make the whole thing credible, earns a lot of praise from me. He is always doing this kind of work for someone. He believes in right and that has cost him a lot in his years practicing as a lawyer. He has tried to get funding for the victim's family given that the RCMP, or for that matter any other police force, head to the inquest with every expense paid. That money comes right out your pocket and if government is going to do it for one, if they are interested in the premise of fair play, they owe it to do it for everybody.

We are seeing every day more erosion of the average individual's ability  to get a fair hearing. government using your money to battle you just doesn’t seem to add up to being "fair".

We will never have a sense of fair play until such time as we are prepared to level the playing field in the Coroner’s inquest and if the purpose of being there is to seek the truth it is important that we seek to do just that.

Watching the examination of witnesses by these two women at the Lewis Inquest became so painful, and I felt so badly for them, I had to get up and leave. My sense that in this country we have fair play for everyone, just seemed no more than some very hollow words.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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