A lawyer for three people accused of running a marijuana dial-a-dope ring under the guise of providing medicinal marijuana has asked a judge to toss out the case, citing a four-year delay in bringing the case to trial.
Defence lawyer Kirk Tousaw asked provincial court Judge Joanne Challenger to throw the case out, saying it's well beyond standards established by the Supreme Court of Canada to wait 46 months for a trial.
Jason Thon, 43, Kevin Moriarity, 42, and Debra McDonaldMyers, 32, were all charged with trafficking marijuana in November 2008.
The charges followed a lengthy investigation stemming from a Sept. 2007 CrimeStoppers tip in which police were told a club that said it was providing medical marijuana to sick people was actually a dial-a-dope operation. The group had been operating under the name the Compassion Association.
Following the lead, police searched the home of Thon, the alleged kingpin of the group, in Vancouver, as well as a storage locker. They seized nearly six kilograms of marijuana.
Since charges were laid, however, the case has languished in the courts for years.
Public records show between 20 and 30 court appearances have been scheduled. Two previous trial dates have been adjourned in the case, including one that had to be moved because Crown prosecutors and police had not provided proper information to the defence, said Tousaw.
Tousaw said he regularly raised concerns about unnecessary delays in the case, to little avail.
The delays have caused significant hardships for his clients, said Tousaw. While waiting for their trial, they have had to live under onerous bail restrictions, have been unable to find work and have suffered anxiety and embarrassment.
Those problems have grown "each time it has not proceeded to trial," said Tousaw.
Testifying as a witness at the hearing, Moriarity described not being able to go camping with his father or visit his parents at Christmas, and how he feels socially isolated after not being allowed to have a cellphone or laptop computer for four years.
One girlfriend broke up with him because of the constant stress and an employer refused to hire him because "they Googled my name and found I had been arrested in North Van," he said.
Moriarity said it seems unfair when he reads that people convicted of violent crimes are getting off with six months' probation.
Crown counsel Peter Eccles told Challenger that while prosecutors are responsible for some of the delay, some is also the defence's fault.
"These cases take time. They take a great deal of time," he said.
Eccles said it's not unheard of for defence lawyers to deliberately slow the process down, so they can ask for charges to be tossed.
Eccles said most of the harm suffered by the accused happened early in the process - when police named them publicly - rather than because of delays in the case.
Eccles pooh-poohed Thon's claim that he has lost potential consulting business, noting Thon told the government he had no income at all for several years prior to the charges being laid.
"A 47-month delay is not a get-out-of-jail-free card," he said, noting prosecutors will be seeking jail time if the accused are convicted of trafficking.
If the case does go to trial, the accused are expected to argue their actions shouldn't be considered criminal because they were selling the marijuana to people who needed it for medical purposes and who had Health Canada licences to use it.
Prosecutors contend the Compassion Association was the simply a front for a drug trafficking business that made more than $800,000 annually in gross sales.
