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Daniel D.A. Ventresca, LL.B,
before Judge Scime, 1995
Ontario Court of Justice
(General Division) at Hamilton.
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Counsel
to the Damned
Canadian Lawyer Magazine - September 1996
By Kevin Marron, Correspondent
"When you're the lawyer for
religious group which believes marijuana is a sacrament, its members can be
difficult'
clients ..." Daniel
D.A. Ventresca, LL.B.
Note: Mr.
Ventresca was Reverend Baldasaro's Court Appointed Duty Counsel and Advisor
during this Jury Trial for Trafficking Marijuana. Reverend Tucker was
Reverend Baldasaro's Official Church Counsel and Both Reverends made their
own submissions in the proceedings. On occasion, Reverend Tucker was
ordered out of the Court-room for refusing to remove his Holy Hat and
Reverend Baldasaro was also charged with contempt of court by a Judge Crane for refusing to remove his, which
was later withdrawn after being found guilty of Trafficking Church
Sacrament.
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WHEN THE DEFENDANT appeared
in court wearing his underpants on his head, the duty counsel tried to remain
calm. Daniel Ventresca had witnessed so many bizarre courtroom antics that he
was not easily shocked. What he was really worried about, however, was what
his client might do next.
A thick skin and a tolerance for
eccentricity were the qualities that enabled Daniel Ventresca to act as legal
advisor to a series of extremely difficult clients whom no other lawyer would
represent, even with legal aid certificates. This unusual clientele had earned
Ventresca a reputation in the Hamilton,
Ontario Courts where he
practiced, as one fellow lawyer put it, as "counsel to the
damned". Now he was in bail court as counsel to the Reverend
Brother Michael J. Baldasaro, a bishop of the Church of the Universe, accused
of trafficking in the sacrament of his faith - to wit, marijuana. Brother
Michael was in custody and this was Ventresca's tenth attempt to get him a
bail hearing. The problem was that Brother Michael refused to appear in court
without covering his head, preferably with a hat made of hemp.
A parade of lawyers declined to represent
Brother Michael, until Ventresca came on the scene, and a series of justices
of the peace refused to hear the case, unless the defendant took off his hat.
Many local lawyers attended these brief hearings for their entertainment
value, ever curious about what the defendant would say and how mad the JP
would get. Judges in higher courts were prepared to overlook the matter of
correct attire, but the Hamilton JPs apparently saw this as an important
issue and a stumbling block to any further proceedings. Eventually someone
stole Brother Michael's hat, perhaps in the hope that this would expedite
matters. But Brother Michael was ready to improvise.
The 47 - year old Brother Michael cut an
imposing figure with his long hair and massive bushy beard. He was somehow
able to maintain his dignity with underwear on his head, just as he could
marshal seemingly logical arguments to support legal positions so far out in
left field as to be out of sight in the eyes of the law.
He was supported in court by other members
of the Church of the Universe, including its founder Walter Tucker, 64, the
son of a Saskatchewan Queen's Bench justice. Not content only with founding a
church, Brother Walter also established a seminary for the missionaries of
the sacred weed, the University of the Universe, with its own law faculty to
assist members in defending themselves in court.
On previous occasions, the members of the
Church of the Universe had appeared in court without any clothes on, covered
only by blankets, in order to protest what they saw as a denial of their
rights. Now, Ventresca was terrified that Brother Michael would go much
further than the justice of the peace intended, when asked to remove the
article of clothing that he was wearing on his head. To the lawyer's relief,
but also to his embarrassment, the defendant chose, instead, to complain that
he was being unfairly singled out in being denied the right to wear religious
headgear, since Ventresca, whom Brother Michael would refer to as
"Brother Daniel," was allowed to wear a yarmulke in court.
"It's funny now, but at the time it
was a nightmare," says Ventresca, "It was a low point in Canadian
justice and it didn't help that everyone was pointing at me in my
yarmulke."
A large man with a gentle manner, Ventresca
is not easily ruffled. Before he became a lawyer, he worked for 14 years in
professional theater, as a stage manager, lighting designer and bit-part
actor, once playing a gravedigger in Hamlet. This experience prepared him
well for his role in the courtroom comedies that the Church of the Universe
trials inevitably became.
It was, in fact, a piece of stage
management that broke the impasse over Brother Michael's hat. As Ventresca
puts it, "We had to get a JP in from Brantford who everyone knew couldn't give a
rat's ass about a hat".
Most lawyers have war stories about
eccentric or difficult clients, but the problems that the Church of the
Universe members pose to the courts are a different order of magnitude. These
are people who openly flout the Narcotics Control Act and delight in the
opportunity to challenge it in court. They base these challenges on their
claim that marijuana is a sacrament in their church, often using arcane and
convoluted arguments drawn from British Common Law, the Magna Carta and the
law of sanctuary.
When they represent themselves in court,
they can very quickly turn a trial into a circus. For example, Brother Walter
and his brother William Tucker once subpoenaed 23 police commissioners, as
defence witnesses at a trial in which they were accused of obstructing police
by getting in the way at the scene of a motor vehicle accident.
What should have been a straightforward two
hour trial continued for several days. The judge soon realized that he had
made a big mistake in allowing Brother William to represent Brother Walter
and vice versa. When Brother Walter took the witness stand, he insisted that
he should be allowed to cross-examine himself on behalf of his brother.
Speaking slowly and carefully, the judge told the brothers, "There is no
problem. Nobody's got mad. You don't annoy me. It is perfect."
When faced with more serious charges, such
as possession of sacrament and its distribution to their flock, some members
of the Church of the Universe felt that they needed a lawyer to protect their
interests in court. The problem was to find a lawyer who would be prepared to
handle an unbelievably time-consuming and potentially embarrassing case.
As duty counsel, Ventresca was able to bill
the legal aid plan for the time he spent on the case, rather than receive a
set fee. This was an important consideration in cases that could be derailed
or interminably delayed by something as trivial as the defendant's attire.
This role also gave the lawyer the freedom to ignore the defendant's
instructions when they seemed contrary to logic, decorum or accepted
jurisprudence. "I'd cringe at the thought of being solicitor of
record," he explains, "When a client is insisting that you make
arguments that won't work or are not valid in law, adopt tactics that are not
according to criminal procedure, the solicitor is placed in an impossible
position."
It was such a dilemma that forced another Hamilton lawyer Kim
Edward to have herself removed from the record in a trial at which she
represented Sister Jo-Anne Tucker. Brother Walter and Sister Jo-Anne had been
jointly charged with possession of narcotics for the purposes of trafficking
following a police raid on church premises in which some marijuana, magic
mushrooms and about $14,000 in cash were seized. The Tuckers complained that
the police had invaded the sanctuary of their church, desecrated their
sacrament and stolen money collected from their congregation for church
purposes.
Left to Right - Reverends Baldasaro, Tucker and Tucker
before Judge Scime, 1995, Ontario
Court. (General Division), Hamilton
When legal
questions were raised about the validity of the search warrant, the Tuckers
wanted this issue put before the jury, but the judge ruled that it should be
considered in a voir idre. The wrangle that ensued resulted in Edward
withdrawing from the case, despite the objections of Sister Jo-Anne who
claimed that her right to legal representation was being effectively
curtailed. Ventresca became involved in the case as duty counsel after
Edward's departure. Both defendants continued to protest vehemently that they
were being denied the right to present their case to the jury, even after the
judge found the search warrant invalid and acquitted them of all charges.
"This is a travesty of justice," they declared, when the judge
found them not guilty.
Annoying as they are to lawyers, judges and
court officials, the Church of the Universe members also exhibit an engaging
charm. Edward remembers her former clients with warmth and good humor, in
spite of the frustration they caused her. "They were so off-the-wall
that they were always interesting. They used to bring me gifts, wrapped in
brown paper, which I would refuse to open and get out of my office as quickly
as possible," she recalls.
But Edward felt very uncomfortable about
the sweet smell of sacrament that lingered in the air when she went to meet
her clients at Hempire Village, the Church headquarters in Guelph, Ontario.
She was also embarrassed by scenes of nakedness on a video about the church
activities that the Tuckers gave her. Having seen more of her clients than
she ever wanted to see, Edward was particularly anxious when they appeared in
a Guelph
courtroom wearing only blankets in order to dramatize their claim that they
had been stripped of their rights during the course of a trial for
trespassing. "It was one of those odd moments, when a sense of humor is
worthwhile," Edward recalls.
On one occasion Edward remembers sitting in
court, "hoping the ground opens and I'm swallowed up." This was
when Brother Walter got into a dispute with Justice of the Peace Joseph Scime
over his refusal to address him as "Brother". Justice Scime is a
reserved and dignified man with a reputation for conducting his court in a
very formal manner. Brother Walter said to him, "Let's say for the sake
of argument that your name was Joe. Out of respect, I'd still call you Your
Honour, Joe." When the judge then explained that this was not a personal
matter, but simply an issue concerning the formality of the court, Brother
Walter replied, "If we could just kick back and smoke a doob, I know we
could get beyond that."
Sister Jo-Anne would bring a thermos to
court, purportedly containing a herbal tea, but Edward was always terrified
when her client opened the thermos that the judge might recognize the smell
of marijuana that seemed to waft across the courtroom. Edward noticed that her
clients were usually calmer in court after a lunch break "because they
were much less grounded to the earth."
Ventresca made the same observation. He
explains, "Some lunch breaks were so productive that Sister Jo-Anne
would fall asleep in court. She used to wear a huge hat and wrap-around sun
shades. Her head would fall onto the table in front of her."
As soon as the trafficking charges against
the Tuckers were dismissed, they wanted to get their drugs and money back.
They asked Ventresca to help them pursue their demand that the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police return the church property that had been improperly seized.
The RCMP refused to surrender the sacrament or the scales that had allegedly
been used to measure the proper portion that each member of the congregation
received. After numerous submissions and phone calls, however, Ventresca was
invited with his clients to attend the RCMP office and retrieve the proceeds
from the church collection plate, about $14,000 in U.S. and Canadian bills, coins and
silver bars. There was some dispute about whether all the money was returned
and Ventresca was invited to represent the church in a civil suit against the
RCMP, but he gracefully declined.
"I don't even want to think about how
much time I spent on these cases over the last two years," says
Ventresca, who nevertheless maintains that his duty counsel fees were
infinitesimal compared to the time and frustration that his efforts saved the
courts. His claim is supported by federal drug prosecutor Jeffery Levy, who
says the courts continually relied on Ventresca to make sense of the
Brothers' obtuse and confusing arguments. No other lawyer would represent
them, says Levy, "and I often had to say, Thank God for
Daniel."
On one occasion, Ventresca received a desperate
plea from a court registrar who had received between 20 and 25 different
handwritten motions from Brother Michael that had been bounced from one judge
to another and no one had been able to comprehend them. "The registrar
said, ‘Please, please,
please, come and help us out."
There were applications, Habeas Corpuses, Mandamusses. You name it. I spent
two days with that pile of documents, translating them into English and
legalese."
Another concern was that the defendants'
rights and their legitimate arguments would have been overlooked, if they did
not have the services of a lawyer. Not that Ventresca was always able to stop
proceedings from getting out of hand. On one occasion, he could not prevent
Brother Michael from answering back while a judge was pronouncing sentence.
After telling the defendant to shut up several times, Judge Nick Borkovich
got so frustrated that he ordered court officers to remove Brother Michael
from the court and tape his mouth shut. According to Ventresca, the court officers
actually tried to do this, but they could not get the tape to stick to
Brother Michael's face because his beard was to bushy.
Recent cutbacks in legal aid funding will
probably mean an end to the kind of special arrangement that allowed
Ventresca to receive an hourly duty counsel fee for representing the Church
of the Universe members. It is with an air of nostalgia that Ventresca
displays some momentos from those trials: an artists' sketch of Ventresca
sitting in court beside the wizen faced bushy bearded Brother Walter and
Sister Jo-Anne with her sunshades and wide brimmed hat; a leaf from a hemp
plant that could easily be confused at first glance with the more potent
narcotic variety; a bag of leafy green substance that the police thought was
marijuana, but turned out to be catnip or "kitty
sacrament." "In two years representing those guys, I was
never bored, "Ventresca says, "I saw things that you just don't see
in court, like the cops dragging Brother Michael out of the courtroom as he
clutched his hat to his head. Or Brother Michael suddenly producing a 10
pound bag of hemp seed while cross-examining a police officer. Once I even
saw Justice Scime laugh."
Kevin Marron is a Hamilton, Ontario
writer.
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