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Marijuana activist seeks seized cash for legal fees Casey Lessard Northern News Services Published Monday, January 23, 2012
Lawyer Alison Crowe has been representing the marijuana campaigner for 2.5 years, she told the court, and has not been paid since deVries was arrested. deVries filed an affidavit saying he does not have access to legal aid until those funds - $41,945.65 taken in three seizures - are exhausted. "These funds come from the public either way: from the seizure or from legal aid," Crown prosecutor Max Kruger said. "It's preferable to use the private funds instead of public money. We should expend the seized funds." Acknowledging the Canadian Parliament's 1997 decision to permit the release of funds for reasonable legal fees and living expenses, Kruger took issue with Crowe's request to be paid $200 per hour. While that is lower than her usual fee and she has provided a great deal of free legal advice to deVries, it is almost double legal aid society Maliiganik Tukisiiniakvik's highest rate of $117.30. "The Crown has taken a firm view that it should be in lockstep with what legal aid provides," he said, noting "the defendant should not be able to benefit from the funds seized any more than someone who would not have access to these funds under legal aid." DeVries, who is being held in jail, faces three drug trials and one for sex charges. Kruger said the maximum allowed for each is 20 hours of prep time, and he estimated each case will require about 30 hours in court. As Crowe is based in Ontario, the funds must cover travel time, flights, a per diem of $131 and hotels at about $220 per day. Kruger noted that deVries' planned medical marijuana constitutional challenge will require much more than 20 hours of prep time. "If Ms. Crowe runs out of funds midway through," he said, "she may have to withdraw and this would be a burden on the public purse." In response, Crowe said that was not her plan. "I have been his lawyer for 2.5 years and did so for a year with no compensation at all," she said. "I have no plan to withdraw, certainly not for lack of compensation." She argued for the higher rate, saying "the legal aid rates are inadequate," and cited similarly funded cases where lawyers with her experience were paid as much as $250 per hour, and junior lawyers were paid $125 per hour, still above the highest legal aid rate. She also dismissed the Crown's argument about time required, saying the sex charges and others may be resolved without trial. Arguing that deVries used various methods to provide Nunavummiut with access to marijuana as an act of civil disobedience, Crowe said her client is not a criminal. "If it were a criminal undertaking, he would not have registered (the society with the Government of Nunavut), kept such meticulous records, or posted prices," she said The cash was taken during three seizures: $537.55 in August 2009, when deVries was reverend of the Church of the Universe and argued that marijuana users should be able to claim sanctuary in his home church; $7,943.10 in January 2010, including staff wages for more than 10 employees when he was operating the Qikiqtaaluk Compassion Society, a medicinal marijuana society; and $33,465 of cash in Sept. 2011, when he was arrested on drug charges as well as other charges. The large cash sums were held at deVries' home after banks banned deVries from maintaining bank accounts after Jan 2010, according to an affidavit. In December, Crowe also filed an application to have charges from the first two arrests stayed. Arguing that the Crown has caused an "unreasonable delay," she submitted an application Dec. 1 to stay proceedings in the 2009 and 2010 cases, which have been before the courts for 30 and 24 months, respectively. In her application, Crowe stated this delay was "exclusively the result of a failure of Crown disclosure, caused by delays in the RCMP analysis" of deVries' computer hard drives.
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