Watching the Devil Dance by William Toffan

Author:William Toffan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2020-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven:

Homicide Pretrial Prep for Dummies

In the 1960s, Ontario did have a legal aid system, but it operated differently than it does today. All low-income or indigent citizens had the right to competent legal representation in a court of law, but lawyers who provided assistance did so pro bono. The Windsor Legal Aid program was comprised of local attorneys volunteering their legal expertise free of charge, and being reimbursed by the Ontario government only for incidental expenses such as administrative costs and gas mileage. Windsor criminal attorneys participating in the program worked on a rotational basis, accepting a case when their turn came around. Lamb—newly released from federal prison—could ill afford to pay for a defence lawyer and was subsequently assigned legal representation.

In 1966, Justice Saul Nosanchuk was a young and ambitious criminal lawyer born and raised in Windsor, and an active volunteer with the Legal Aid program. A newspaper photograph of Nosanchuk from this period depicts a tall and physically fit young man wearing a suit and tie, with short, neatly cropped black hair and a face dominated by black-rimmed eyeglasses. When asked if he’d be interested in defending Lamb as a legal aid client, Nosanchuk eagerly agreed, knowing this case would challenge his legal skills and courtroom performance under pressure as defence attorney, in a high-stakes murder trial that guaranteed wide media coverage. When I interviewed him, Saul Nosanchuk was seventy-nine years of age,1 and had a long and distinguished career to look back on—as a successful criminal attorney until 1976, when he was called to the bench; he then served honourably as a magistrate of the Ontario Court of Justice for twenty-seven years:

I originally wanted to be a sociologist or psychologist and received my Bachelor’s Degree in the social sciences, but soon realized this wasn’t for me, so I attended Osgoode [Hall] Law School in Toronto and was called to the bar in 1959. I returned to Windsor to set up my private practice in criminal law.

His empathy for people and commitment to fairness pervades all his conversations. Criminal offenders fortunate enough to have appeared in Justice Nosanchuk’s court always received a fair hearing with all aspects of their case duly considered before a judgment was rendered. In talking to Nosanchuk at length, it becomes apparent this man could find a redeeming feature in the most despicable human being—a good quality for a court magistrate.

Even with his advanced age, Nosanchuk clearly recalled every name and detail pertaining to the Matthew Lamb case as if it had happened only yesterday. Prior to deciding on a defence strategy or entertaining a possible plea bargain with the prosecution, he had to obtain Lamb’s written consent to represent him, a formality to which Lamb readily agreed. Nosanchuk’s first impression of Lamb concurs with most people’s first impressions of the defendant: boyish in appearance and of average height; thin but handsome; and well spoken, polite.

In their first attorney-client consultation, Lamb’s detailed recollection of the murders admitted to Dr Dolan and the Oak Ridge psychiatrists vanished once again into ambiguities and evasiveness.

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