Alberta's new crime-fighting measures could put serious cases at risk, Crown prosecutors caution

New measures intended to crack down on violent crime could have the opposite effect in Alberta's court system, cautions the head of Alberta's prosecutors' association. 

Dallas Sopko, president of the Alberta Crown Attorneys' Association, said abandoning a triage protocol for criminal prosecutions could increase existing trial backlogs and result in serious cases being thrown out.

The triage protocol was implemented in 2017 in an attempt to prevent cases from being dismissed due to excessive delays. Prosecutors were asked to take resources into consideration when deciding whether cases were viable or not for trial.

On Monday, during a "zero tolerance on crime" news conference, Justice Minister Mickey Amery announced the province is terminating the triage system.

"Our concern is if there's an increase in demand, with more trials being set, that we don't have the resources to deal with it," Sopko, an Edmonton Crown prosecutor, said in an interview Wednesday. 

"Without more judges and more sheriffs, without more clerks and without more Crowns, it's not going to be feasible to take on additional workload. 

"We appreciate the intentions here but without additional resources, we're not going to be able to get the results that the public wants or that the government is hoping for." 

Amery said Monday the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service is now equipped to handle the increased workload. The province has hired 50 more prosecutors since 2017.

Amery announced the creation of special teams of Crown prosecutors who will work with law enforcement to focus on violent crime and criminals in Edmonton and Calgary.

Prosecutors will also be given new direction to argue before judges that violent repeat offenders should either be held in custody or be subject to bail rules that will ensure public safety, Amery said.

Sopko said the Crown prosecutors' association was not consulted on the suite of new policies announced Monday and members are anxious that they could have a domino effect on at-risk cases.

Hundreds of criminal cases in Alberta have already exceeded what's known as the Jordan period — the rule that sets out reasonable time limits to get to trial.

In provincial court alone, around 1,600 cases involving serious and violent crime are at risk of being dismissed due to excessive delays, Sopko said.

The Jordan decision is a 2016 Supreme Court ruling that established a time limit for when a trial must be heard. Provincial court cases have 18 months, while superior court cases, which in Alberta are heard in the Court of King's Bench, have to reach trial within 30 months.

If a case takes longer, the accused can apply to have the case thrown out, in what is called a Jordan application. 

Sopko said the Jordan ruling has added a sense of increased urgency to each case and put increased strain on limited court resources, prompting the introduction of the triage protocol.

"It's not that all of those cases will necessarily be stayed, but they are at risk," Sopko said. "Prosecutors currently are handling a very significant caseload … our concern is, are there going to be additional resources coming into the system to handle the additional caseload?"

Recent statistics from the Court of King's Bench show 22 per cent of active criminal cases in Alberta have exceeded the Jordan period.

At the end of 2021, more than 3,000 cases in provincial court were eligible for Jordan applications, according to the Crown prosecutors' association.

Some 423 Jordan applications have been filed in Alberta courts between Oct. 25, 2016 and March 31, 2023.

According to the province, 40 of those applications were granted, 61 were abandoned by the defence, three are pending review and 74 were proactively stayed by the Crown on the basis they would not survive the Jordan application.

During Monday's news conference, Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis said the changes come with other previously announced supports, including money for 50 new police officers in both Edmonton and Calgary, as well as $5 million for each city to make transit rides safer.

The new teams of Crown prosecutors will be drawn from the existing pool of 300 prosecutors. The teams will specialize in issues plaguing downtown communities, such as drug houses, the province said.

Sopko said he remains skeptical about the new teams and how they will help the courts handle the inevitable increase in cases.

"It's simply, essentially the shuffling of deck chairs, moving prosecutors from one place to another," he said.

"That's, again, not going to address the additional cases that will presumably come before the court when we're no longer triaging files and when the government is directing police services to crack down on crime."