Judge’s assault ruling overturned due to excessive hockey knowledge
This seems like a story that could only happen in Canada.
A judge used her own hockey knowledge as part of an assault conviction of Gordon MacIsaac, a defenseman in the Ottawa Senior Men’s Hockey League. MacIsaac was originally sentenced to 18 months probation.
In one particularly egregious example, the judge rejected the entire testimony of a witness simply because she assumed that no coach would have sent three defencemen onto the ice in the closing minutes of a losing game.
In a Court of Appeal decision overturning the conviction, Justice William Hourigan noted that the accused player should have been tried “based on the evidence at trial, not on the hockey experience of the trial judge.”
He added, “hockey strategy is not a proper subject for judicial notice.”
MacIsaac was charged with aggravated assault when he allegedly jumped into the air with his arms raised and knocked out the front teeth of opponent Drew Casterton in an Ottawa Senior Men’s Hockey League game in 2012.
Casterton also suffered a concussion and says he still suffers headaches and can’t work more than six hours per-week.
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OK, Gord MacIsaac … if that’s not a Canadian name, I don’t know what is.
Anyway, beyond the three defenseman argument, there were other instances where Ontario Court Justice Diane Lahaie used her knowledge of hockey to determine the course of the trial. The verdict came down in December of 2013.
The judge also made another assumption about defencemen to reject a key claim from MacIsaac that he had accidentally smashed into Casterton while making a play for the Pirates’ net.
“It defies logic that Mr. MacIsaac, a defenceman, would have gone to the net in hopes of scoring a goal,” she wrote.
And
MacIsaac couldn’t have accidentally smashed into Casterton, she wrote, because if he was really making a play for the net “he would have had to have more control over his speed.”
She also rejected MacIsaac’s claim that Casterton had the puck at the time of the collision, based on her assertion that any player with the puck would have had the spatial awareness to avoid the collision.
Wrote Lahaie, “it would be illogical for Mr. Casterton not to see Mr. MacIsaac if he had the puck.”
So in conclusion:
MacIsaac’s testimony, Lahaie ultimately concluded, was “not consistent with the injuries sustained by (Casterton).”
MacIsaac’s lawyer Patrick McCann originally argued the contact was accidental.
“You have people playing in a recreational league and sometimes it gets a little intense and two players collide,” the lawyer said.
Using his own knowledge of hockey perhaps?
According to the story, a new trial date has not been set.
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
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