The Crime Hump Chronicles: Series Finale

I’ll be honest, it probably would have been easier to write this blog if my criminal trial outcome was different. I prepared for the worst. This child protection agency was burying me, and I figured at some point they would succeed. They kept bringing different types of court proceedings forward. When they lost entirely in family court, they kicked up the pressure in civil court. When I started winning motions there, they reported me to my regulating body, all the while stalling and dragging out the criminal trial over four years. I do not think a single week has gone by over the last four years, where I was not served a document or spent lengthy amounts of time in email and telephone discussions with various opposing counsels. It is usually a junior associate that engages me in these talks, but it will be the senior partner that does the talking at any kind of hearing. I have been learning how these big Bay Street law firms work and it is surprisingly a lot like the movies. In fact, I find out one of my favorite law shows was filmed in the same building as one of the law firms I am battling.

I am the most emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially exhausted I have ever been in my life. I have so far managed to keep my head above the swirling seas of procedural waters they expected me to drown in. I learned that it was easier to learn the concepts behind the law than it was to decipher the law itself. At least understanding the concepts made understanding the legislation a lot easier. Side effects of long nights reading law and drafting submissions may include an inability to carry on casual conversations without thinking critically about the elements of the subject matter being spoken to and increased tolerance to improper sentence structure. I used to be an annoying word girl. Now I am just an annoying law and fact girl. My husband tells me the latter is far more annoying.

I was not entirely alone, legally that is. I was able to find a lawyer to represent me in the criminal trial. He came out of nowhere and just in time. I was about to give up. We spent that first weekend hammering out an affidavit over phone and email and I found someone to commission it on a Sunday afternoon. Court the next day saw this ninja-warrior lawyer make the first real win in the case. This was the first time I saw a glimpse of the justice I was working so hard towards.

And in the end, the criminal trial lasted only two days. It was almost ten months before the decision was released. My lawyer called me with the news. I have been acquitted on all counts. I have so much more to say, and no longer have release conditions preventing me from saying it. I’m just too tired to do it right now.  

Kelley Denham