This is understandable given the importance of inside information to the success of criminal investigations and the crucial need to keep the sources of such information confidential in order for them to survive in their criminal milieu.

Criminal lawyers are obliged to respect the strong privilege the courts attach to the identity of confidential informers. Thus, as an exception to the constitutional right of a criminal defendant to receive full disclosure of the prosecution’s evidence, any information even tending to identify a confidential informant is withheld from the defence. Only in the rare instance where it is shown the informer might actually have been present during the commission of the alleged offence and could therefore have evidence potentially exonerating the defendant – the so called “innocence at stake exception” – can the prosecution be obliged to reveal their identity. In these rare instances the state invariably drops the case rather than jeopardize the safety of the informer.

News of the apparent suicide of the allegedly corrupt former officer wasn’t surprising to members of the criminal justice community given the animosity his treachery undoubtedly aroused in diverse factions of the criminal justice community.

In the NHL and even in junior hockey teams have players whose only role is “policing” and “firing up the team” by fighting, almost always against their role counterpart on the opposing team. Typically these fights are between “players”  well over six feet tall and two hundred pounds who are trained in martial arts and who wear no padding whatsoever on their hands. Obviously these bouts are not sanctioned by any athletic commission.

Given the lack of any role on their respective teams apart from fighting it is not much of a stretch to consider hockey enforcers as prize fighters acting in contravention of the Criminal Code. Why not simply send out the police to arrest the participants the next time an illegal hockey prize fight occurs?

This performance begs the question: Why didn’t His Lordship and/or Her Ladyship of Crossharbour deign to assert Mr. Black’s innocence under oath before the jury charged with judging him? Why would a man of his Lordship’s commanding dignity and eloquence fear cross examination by lowly government lawyers, to the point of standing mute as the court perpetrated the egregious injustice of convicting him of crimes of dishonesty? It would be enlightening to hear this upper class criminal explain why he only chose to proclaim his innocence to the judge when he knew very well it was too late, since she was bound by the jury’s prior determination of his guilt. Could it be that even in his delusional self righteous state he knew any innocent explanation of his greedy and arrogant actions would be discredited by a few simple questions?