Sheep-napping case dismissed today, due to excessive delay getting to trial

Montana Jones, lawyer Genevieve Eliany, and Michael Schmidt, emerge victorious from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket this morning, with a verdict of “case dismissed”.

A full courtroom gallery of supporters and reporters listened intently this morning while Madame Justice Laura Bird read out her reasons for judgement on the motion of Michael Schmidt and Montana Jones, which was asking to have the CFIA’s case against them dismissed due to excessive delay. In short, Justice Bird did grant the requested dismissal of the case. Read the full “Reasons for Judgement” at this link.

While Justice Bird did attribute responsibility for eight months of the total 53 months delay to the defense, she concluded that the prosecution was primarily responsible for causing the delay through a failure to devote sufficient staff resources to getting the disclosure material out to the defense in a timely manner. Instead it dribbled out over the course of years, the last 5,000 pages of it arriving just in time for the scheduled start of pre-trial hearings in April of 2015.

Medical journals — trustworthy or not?

From Jon Rappoport’s blog:

“Let us begin with a statement made by Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, perhaps the most prestigious medical journal in the world—a journal that routinely vets and prints thousands of medical studies:

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” —Marcia Angell, MD, The New York Review of Books, January 15, 2009

You might want to read that statement several times, to savor its full impact. Then proceed to this next one, penned by the editor of The Lancet, another elite and time-honored medical journal that publishes medical studies:

Richard Horton, editor-in-chief, The Lancet, in The Lancet, 11 April, 2015, Vol 385, “Offline: What is medicine’s 5 sigma?”

“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness…

Update on motion to dismiss sheep-napping conspiracy charges

From lawyer Karen Selick:

The Montana Jones / Michael Schmidt motion to have their charges dismissed for unwarranted delay is just about to start its third day of hearing today (November 23).

I was present for the first day. Lawyer Genevieve Eliany did an excellent job of presenting the case for dismissal, based on affidavit evidence provided by Shawn Buckley.

The judge, Madam Justice Laura A. Bird of the Superior Court of Justice, is both a former Crown and a former defence lawyer. She appeared to be thoroughly familiar with the material that had been filed for the motion.  We are cautiously optimistic that she will decide in favour of dismissal.

Justice Bird has already set a date for rendering her decision: Monday, November 28 at 9:00 am sharp. Observers are welcome to attend, but please ensure that you arrive on time. The place is the Newmarket Courthouse, 50 Eagle Street West, Newmarket.

And if you haven’t yet renewed your donation for this cause, we could still use your contribution. Here’s the link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-defend-farmers-charged-in-rare-sheep-case/x/10508017#/

Thanks very much to those who recently contributed.

Motion to dismiss sheep conspiracy charges against Michael Schmidt and Montana Jones to be heard Nov. 21, 22, 23 in Oshawa – open to the public

Lawyer Shawn Buckley with Montana and Michael at the Durham Regional Courthouse in Oshawa, which is where the Nov. 21, 22, and 23 motion to dismiss the case will be heard.

This just in from lawyer Karen Selick:

Can you be in Oshawa, Ontario on Monday, November 21, 2016?  That’s the day when lawyer Genevieve Eliany will try to persuade the Superior Court of Ontario to dismiss the charges against Montana Jones and Michael Schmidt due to the inordinate delay in reaching trial.

We’d like to see lots of supporters in the courtroom, so if you can arrange to attend that day—or on November 22 or 23 (yes, this motion is scheduled to take three full days to argue)—please come out and show your support. If you can attend for all three days, that would be wonderful, but if you can spare only one day, we’ll still be glad to see you.