Man spends weekend in jail after calling judge “a fool”

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This article was published 11/01/2016 (3568 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man ended up spending a weekend in jail after calling a judge “a fool” during a raucous court hearing.

Tensions were high last Friday as one of the leading members of the so-called Freeman On The Land movement was sentenced to three years in prison for numerous drug and weapons offences. Dean Clifford was convicted at trial last year following a 2013 raid of a property in St. Andrews.

The courtroom was packed with several supporters of Clifford. Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin repeatedly cautioned the group to show respect to the process but ran into several obstacles. At one point, a man was ejected for refusing to stand up.

As Clifford was being led away to begin serving his sentence, one man began screaming at sheriff’s to take their hands off him. He then yelled out “Judge, you’re a fool” as Martin prepared to exit.

Martin immediately issued a citation for contempt of court. Jordan Dawson was taken into custody and told he would have to re-appear before Martin on Monday morning to deal with the consequences.

“I want to start off by apologizing for my conduct. It was definitely uncalled for,” Dawson told the judge after his three nights behind bars. “I guess I was thinking it but not realizing the words were coming out of my mouth.”

Dawson said he is not part of the Freeman movement and was simply in court as an observer. He said he got angered during the proceedings when Martin referred to some people in the gallery as “clowns.”

“That was regrettable and I shouldn’t have done that,” the judge admitted Monday. He accepted Dawson’s apology and said the contempt citation would be stricken off the record. Dawson was released with no further punishment.

“We’ll just chalk this up to a regrettable incident,” said Martin. He asked Dawson how his time in jail went.

“Everyone was very polite. I think if you treat them right they treat you right as well,” Dawson replied.

Martin said he’d “bent over backwards” to be patient with Clifford and his supporters. Clifford has repeatedly balked at any legal proceedings against him, saying he was in court under “extreme threat and duress.”

“I’m not representing any thing or being. I’m sorry the law seems to offend people around here,” he said at the start of his trial.

Clifford is just the latest Freeman On The Land to raise the ire of local justice officials.

Last spring, another member was convicted of running a marijuana grow operation. Scott Peters called the judicial process “interference with a person’s right to self-govern” and said he was being unlawfully prosecuted.

Peters was found with 56 marijuana plants in the basement of his North End home by police executing a court-authorized search warrant in 2012. In his closing argument at trial, he demanded to be allowed to face his accuser in court — Her Majesty the Queen.

Peters also gave a rambling, 100-minute closing argument in which Peters railed against the government and sounded off against fluoride in drinking water, the public school system and monosodium glutamate among other things. He is also currently pending on child pornography charges.

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Last January, a Winnipeg man charged with illegally soaring over the city in a powered paraglider told a judge he should be exempt from prosecution. Tony Gibson, 35, claimed he is a sovereign individual whose civil rights are being abused. His case remains before the courts.

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A fight inside a crowded St. Boniface house party ended with one man dead and another now on trial for his killing.

Jorden Fries, 25, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder for the June 2013 slaying of 23-year-old Kyle de Vasconcelos. His jury trial began Monday.

Crown attorney Libby Standil gave a brief summary of the case in her opening statement. She said Fries had attended a home on Notre Dame Avenue when he got involved “in an altercation” near the front door.

Several witnesses reported seeing a man then run away from the house. A trail of blood was visible, and it led to a nearby location where de Vasconcelos’ body was found by a woman walking by.

He was rushed to hospital but couldn’t be saved. Cause of death was attributed to a stab wound that punctured his heart, court was told.

The Crown plans to call several people who were at the party and then left in a vehicle with Fries, including his current girlfriend and another long-time male friend.

“He will tell you about a comment the accused made in that vehicle,” Standil told jurors on Monday without providing any further details.

Standil said de Vasconcelos also suffered a number of other injuries to his body.

The trial is set to last three weeks.

www.mikeoncrime.com