What would a not criminally responsible verdict mean for Toronto van attacker’s future?
Posted December 16, 2020 1:27 pm.
Last Updated December 16, 2020 1:33 pm.
If admitted van attack perpetrator Alek Minassian is found not criminally responsible, as his defence team is arguing, he could end up in a psychiatric facility indefinitely, one criminal defence expert says.
But other defendants who have received the same verdict have been released in just a few years.
Minassian drove a rental van down a Yonge Street sidewalk in April 2018. His stated goal was to hit as many pedestrians as he could. His spree killed 10 people and injured 16 others.
At the judge-only trial, Justice Anne Molloy heard testimony nearly exclusively from forensic psychologists and psychiatrists. The experts had interviewed Minassian and administered tests to understand his state of mind.
The defence is arguing that Minassian, who is on the autism spectrum, lacked the ability to fully empathize with other people, and therefore to entirely appreciate how his actions were wrong.
One expert testified that Minassian compared his actions to playing a video game.
“He’s already said he would consider doing this again they like to up the ‘kill count.’ So that’s extremely disturbing,” notes criminal defence lawyer Kim Schofield, who has been involved in other not criminally responsible trials and is closely following this case.
Autism alone has never resulted in a NCR verdict in Canada. Section 16 of the Canadian Criminal Code states, “No person is criminally responsible for an act committed or an omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.”
The law places the burden of proving such a disorder on the defence.
RELATED: Canadian cases where an accused was found not criminally responsible
If Minassian’s defence is successful, Schofield said he would not walk free. Instead, it’s expected he would end up in “a secure psychiatric facility,” such as Whitby’s Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences.
Post-trial, his case would be managed by the Ontario Review Board, which would hold an initial hearing within three months of the verdict, and decide what level of supervision is needed.
“The status of how he’s held would be reviewed on a regular basis,” Schofield adds, “and victims are notified of the ORB hearing. It’s a process that’s well represented on every side.”
Nick D’Amico’s sister Anne Marie was one of Minassian’s victims. He told CityNews at the beginning of the trial that his hope for the outcome is simply that the public is kept safe.
“At the end of the day, we can’t bring back my sister. We can’t turn back time and erase the events that happened,” he said. “Now it comes down to — you can call it justice, or you can call it protecting the rest of society from any further danger.”
The review board must take into consideration the “need to protect the public from dangerous persons, the mental condition of the accused, the reintegration of the accused into society and the other needs of the accused,” according to its mandate.
Ontario Shores operates a 20-bed secure forensic rehabilitation unit, where those who have been found NCR are given “recovery-focused treatment.”
There, a team of specialized doctors and nurses provide “support and assistance in a safe and therapeutic environment as patients move towards a less restrictive environment and ultimately return to the community,” the centre states on its website.
The team also sends annual reports on patients to the review board. After a hearing, a board can recommend a person stays in hospital, discharge them with conditions, or give them an absolute discharge.
Historically, killers who have been found NCR have been released after a handful of years inside a hospital.
In 2011, Richard Kachkar stole a snow plow and went on a two-hour rampage, killing Toronto Police Sgt. Ryan Russell. Witnesses heard Kachkar yell about the Taliban, Chinese technology and microchips. He was found not criminally responsible at trial in 2013 and was held in the secure unit at Ontario Shores. In 2018, the Ontario Review Board gave Kachkar a conditional discharge.
Rohinie Bisesar fatally stabbed a stranger in a Toronto pharmacy in 2015.
In 2018, a judge found that Bisesar was in the throes of a psychotic episode due to untreated schizophrenia at the time of the attack.
Earlier this year, the Ontario Review Board gave the director of the mental health hospital where Bisesar lives the discretion to allow her to live in supervised accommodation in the community.
Dr. John Bradford, a forensic psychiatrist testifying in Minassian’s defence told the court in November that he “can’t get his head around” how Minassian’s autism would lead to a not criminally responsible verdict.
Psychosis is a key component in 90 per cent of successful NCR cases, and it can be treated with medication and therapy.
Doctors agree Minassian doesn’t suffer from psychosis or schizophrenia. His autism spectrum disorder is a complex developmental condition and can’t be cured or treated with a pill, a factor that Schofield said makes it unclear how he would be released.
“Most likely it would be an extremely lengthy period of time,” she said, “Unless something happens in treatment and a doctor can say, ‘We can now stop this.’”
