Mike on Crime by Mike McIntyre Read Free Book Online Page A

people could have become victim to his rage.
    THURSDAY DECEMBER 6, 2001
    The verdict was in: Joey Wiebe would not be going to prison. Wiebe gave a weak smile towards his weeping biological mother as Justice Brenda Keyser took only two minutes to deliver her verdict—not criminally responsible for second-degree murder due to mental illness.
    Defence lawyer Greg Brodsky hailed the decision as potentially groundbreaking in law, saying the courts had finally recognized the emotional devastation felt by children who witness domestic abuse. He said the troubling case was the first in Canada in which the issue of being a battered child had been used as part of a successful defence. A similar defence of “battered wife’s syndrome” had been used in courtrooms across the country, but the effects on children are usually lost, he said. “I hope there will now be a recognition that children should be treated too, and not just beaten-up wives,” said Brodsky. “This shows that children of abusers can grow up to become abusers themselves. A little child who sees the abuse doesn’t have the coping mechanisms and that becomes the world he sees, the world he knows.”
    Keyser said this was the only logical conclusion, especially since the Crown called no evidence casting doubt on three defence experts who examined Wiebe. “The evidence is overwhelming and uncontradicted that Earl Joey Wiebe was at the time suffering a mental disorder,” Keyser said. A mental health review board would now convene within three months to decide where the teenager should be sent for long-term treatment and monitoring.
    The family of murder victim Candis Moizer wasn’t buying it. They believed her teenage stepson had gotten away with murder by fooling medical authorities and a judge into believing he is mentally ill.
    â€œIt’s the biggest crock I’ve seen in my life. He put on a really good show, and we flat out don’t believe he belongs in a mental hospital. We believe he belongs in a penitentiary,” Lorne Hodge, Moizer’s brother, said outside court. Along with his elderly parents, Hodge took issue with the three doctors who testified the teen could not distinguish between right and wrong. Two of the doctors admitted they had read the findings of their colleagues. “How can these doctors spend a few hours with Joey and then come to a fair conclusion when they all get to read each other’s reports? It was very frustrating to sit through and listen,” said Hodge.
    The family had known the teen since Candis Moizer began a relationship with his father, Earl Sr., nearly 16 years ago. At the time, he was estranged from Wiebe’s mother. Many of Wiebe’s mental problems stemmed from years of violent abuse of his mother he witnessed at a young age, court was told. Moizer was aware of the resentment Wiebe felt towards his father but always tried to reach out to the troubled teen, Hodge said. She often stood up for him against his father and mother, and saw to it that he got a car on his 16th birthday. “Candis would have gone to the end of the earth for him, and that makes this even more tragic,” he said. The family now feared that mental health officials would put too much stock in Wiebe’s traumatic background and release him too quickly back into society.
    MONDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2003
    Manitoba’s only long-term mental health facility wanted nothing to do with Joey Wiebe. And yet, due to a court ruling, they had no choice but to accept him into their care—despite taking the position they didn’t think he was truly mentally ill. Dr. Jim Willows, a psychiatrist with the Selkirk Mental Health Facility, said Wiebe posed an imminent danger to patients and staff, along with residents of the community. He said staff could no longer treat Wiebe, who he believed tricked the courts into believing he was not criminally responsible. Willows believed the now 20-year-old