Home for the holidays, or yule in jail? Bail courts work overtime as Christmas countdown looms

Everybody wants to be home for the holidays.

Nowhere is that maxim more apparent than in bail court three days before Christmas. 

Waves of lawyers streamed in and out of one Winnipeg bail court Friday in a bid to win last-minute pre-holiday release for their clients. 

Lawyers say some arrestees, hoping to trade on a little timely goodwill, purposely schedule their bail applications for the yuletide season.

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On Friday, one lawyer related a story of a bail court judge who, several years ago, told lawyers before the start of court that he was going to release everybody. 

"He said, 'It's Christmas, I'm letting everybody out,'" the lawyer said. The judge, who has long since retired, went on to release all but one violent offender, according to the lawyer.

By 2 p.m. Friday, after four hours without a break, Judge Sidney Lerner had heard five contested bail applications and approved release for two applicants. The Crown consented to the release of another six applicants.

With at least three dozen more applications to come, Lerner and court staff were expected to keep working well into the early evening.

Judge cautions against holiday over-indulging

If Lerner was feeling the Christmas spirit, he kept it to himself, treating each bail application with the same measured dispassion as the next.

Four out of five contested bail applications heard by CBC Friday involved alcohol-related crimes.

One 24-year-old man — arrested after he was found drunk in a Winnipeg hotel, in violation of his probation and brandishing a pellet gun — was sentenced to time served and granted release.

"This is a time of year when you will be subject to temptation, it being the festive season," Lerner said. "You are going to open yourself up to a world of trouble … if you over-indulge when you are released and I urge you to keep that in mind."

Lerner granted release to a 65-year-old Dominion City man accused of threatening and intimidating conduct at his local grocery store, but then reversed his decision when the man became increasingly irate and belligerent. 

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"I'm afraid your client has just persuaded me of the Crown's position," Lerner told the man's lawyer. "He can't take 'yes' for an answer, is one way to put it."

Lerner sentenced a 33-year-old man arrested Thursday after reports he was yelling at motorists and causing a disturbance at the intersection of Portage Avenue and Arlington Street. Police charged the man, who court heard has mental issues, with not having a copy of his probation order on his person.

"The circumstances of this incident is that [my client] has embarked on a career as an entertainer and was serenading the street with his rap music," the man's lawyer told court.

Lerner sentenced the man to four days custody, not the five days recommended by the Crown and defence, allowing him to be released before Christmas.

"Happy holidays and happy Hanukkah," the man said after learning his sentence.