TORONTO - A three-judge panel reserved its decision Tuesday as to whether an Ontario coroner erred by excluding graphic jailhouse videos from an inquest into a teen inmate's death.
The videos depict New Brunswick teen Ashley Smith being forcibly restrained and injected with anti-psychotic drugs in a Quebec prison several months prior to her 2007 death in an Ontario institution.
Smith's family says the tapes would give the jury a true picture of her state of mind when she strangled herself in a segregation cell while staff at the Kitchener, Ont., facility looked on.
A divisional court in Toronto heard arguments all day Monday and Tuesday morning before Justice David Aston announced that they were undecided.
Michael Doi, the lawyer representing presiding coroner Bonita Porter, says she was fulfilling her role when she decided the tapes are not relevant.
Julian Falconer, the lawyer for Smith's family, argued that refusing to admit the tapes may render the coroner's inquest, scheduled to begin on May 16, futile.
"It's up to this court to make sure that this evidence does not disappear forever," Falconer said Monday. "This coroner needs guidance."
He says the tapes show Smith being strapped to a narrow gurney for 12 hours while a nurse in a gas mask threatens her with injections of anti-psychotic drugs.
"These factors could be reasonably viewed as contributing to Ashley Smith's sense of hopelessness," Falconer said. "A jury needs to know about this."
A lawyer for Correctional Services Canada argued that examining the institution's operations is not within the scope of a judicial review.
The three judges who presided over the review did not see the prison tapes, after Justice Thomas Lederer ruled last week that descriptions of the videos are enough for the court to make a decision.
