The jury is in on Walsh’s career

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/10/2003 (8268 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HARRY WALSH, O.C., undoubtedly one of the best criminal lawyers in Canada, has reached this status I suggest, partly because of his profound allegiance to a pillar of criminal law that an accused is presumed innocent and that guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Mr. Walsh, 90, has been fearless and articulate in pursuing this principle. His reputation is such that he has been called to defend people across the country.

After he started practicing 66 years ago, it became clear to him that “the justice system is not infallible and not always just.”

History shows innocent men have gone to the gallows because of inadequate defense, poverty and flawed prosecutions.

In recent times we have the sensational revelations of innocent people convicted of murder including David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin and David Marshall. They spent decades behind bars before their innocence was proven.

Mr. Walsh was one who led the fight in Canada to abolish the death penalty and he succeeded in having a resolution for abolition passed by the Canadian Bar Association in 1975. The following year, Parliament abolished capital punishment.

It is a tribute to Mr. Walsh that he is so highly regarded by adversaries and colleagues.

Says John Montgomery, former Crown prosecutor and general counsel to the attorney general: “In my association with him for nearly 40 years, I can say this without hesitation. No lawyer at the criminal defence has practiced his profession more tenaciously yet with more concern for the highest ethical standard than Mr. Walsh. No more articulate person graced the bar. His eloquence before juries was incomparable.”

Mr. Montgomery sparred with Mr. Walsh in the Supreme Court of Canada and he says, “The deference paid to him when he rose to address them was an indication of the esteem in which he was held.”

Charles Dubin, former Chief Justice of Ontario, told Mr. Montgomery: “There is no better cross examiner in Canada.”

Mr. Walsh is a mentor to Greg Brodsky, who worked with him from 1959 to 2000. A lawyer of repute himself, he cannot say enough of Mr. Walsh. “He is responsible for everything I know,” he avers.

Nothing was taken for granted and everything checked again and again. Every day for four months he and Mr. Walsh re-examined a murder scene behind an apartment block at Stradbrook and Osborne. They observed two long projecting nails from a fence, evidence that the victim was impaled in a struggle and not stabbed.

Mr. Brodsky also learned this: “You don’t refuse impossible cases and don’t act as a moral barometer.”

“When he spoke,” says Mr. Brodsky, “he spoke in thunderbolts. That’s the way it seemed to me.”

I observed Mr. Walsh in action when I covered the Law Courts in 1946. He is not a tall man but his presence loomed large in his command of the scene — articulate, quick to respond to the unexpected, sure of the law.

The courts are a stage of the tragedy and drama of life.

Two young men in Flin Flon settled an argument with a dual at dawn. The survivor was charged with murder for he shot after his opponent had missed. He was acquitted as the Walsh team proved that a “click” showed the victim was going to take a second shot.

Dorothy Christie, 24, petite and pretty, was charged with murder, shooting her husband Edward, 26 while he slept. Tormented by her abusive husband she took 11 pills which a psychiatrist testified induced an “hypnotic trance.” This supported Mr. Walsh’s defence of automatism or sleepwalking.

The Crown prosecutor unwittingly helped the defence. He picked up the rifle, walked past the jury and approached Ms Christie who immediately collapsed in a faint. She was acquitted, the first in Canada freed on a defence of automatism. The overflow audience erupted in cheers.

Mr. Walsh is not one to boast about his accomplishments and they are many, including his triumphs at the bar. He has been named one of the ten best lawyers of the century in Manitoba, the only one living today.

His beginnings were humble, selling newspapers at the age of 12 and into university at the age of 15 to pay his tuition. He had a concern for the underdog and so became a founder of Legal Aid.

He has one son Paul, also a lawyer, with whom he practices in the same firm, a daughter Arlyne in Toronto and three grandchildren.

His door was always open to the public. No phone calls were screened. Today he is in St. Boniface Hospital recovering from a broken leg but here a client visited who insisted no one else would do.

Mr. Walsh has won many honours and on Oct. 23 he receives another from his alma mater. He will be awarded the Doctor of Laws, the highest honour the University of Manitoba can bestow.