[6] On 19 December 2013, the coroner's jury returned a verdict of homicide in the case of Ashley Smith, and provided dozens of recommendations to the presiding judge.
[1] On 29 January 2006, Ashley Smith turned 18; on 29 July a motion was made under the Youth Criminal Justice Act to transfer her to an adult facility.
On 8 October 2009, Smith's family launched a wrongful death lawsuit against the Correctional Service of Canada, demanding CA$11 million in damages; the suit was eventually settled out of court in May 2011 for an undisclosed amount.
In the documentary, reporter Hana Gartner describes Smith as a fourteen-year-old placed in a youth facility for one month in 2003 after throwing crabapples at a mailman.
According to an internal document obtained and partially read aloud by Gartner, eventually Corrections Canada administrators instructed guards and supervisors not to respond to self-strangling attempts by Smith, "to ignore her, even if she was choking herself".
[2] CSC officials repeatedly transferred her to other facilities, preventing the implementation of a Canadian law requiring mandatory review of prisoners kept in isolation for more than sixty days.
The Corrections Service of Canada viewed the case as closed, and while the current minister did talk to Hana Gartner, CSC refused any interviews with the reporter, while a lawsuit was pending.
[2] A second documentary titled Behind the Wall was first broadcast on 12 November 2010, and looks at the case of another similar detainee, while probing more closely at a four-month period in Ashley Smith's detention while at the Regional Psychiatric Centre, Prairies, Saskatoon.
[12] The inquest, initially led by deputy chief coroner Bonita Porter, was controversial; it was originally scheduled to begin in November 2010, but was delayed by a legal challenge by the Smith family.
[14] Further, a panel of judges with the Ontario Divisional Court ruled in May 2011 that Porter should not have excluded video evidence of Smith's forced sedation at the Joliette Institution in Quebec.
[22] Lawyers for the Correctional Service of Canada filed a motion to seal video materials and documents related to Smith's forced restraint and sedation while incarcerated in the Quebec prison facility;[23] when the motion was denied by the presiding coroner, the government lawyers requested a temporary injunction to stay the inquest proceedings through Ontario Divisional Court.
[24] Additionally, three doctors involved in Smith's treatment during her incarceration challenged the expansion of the inquest to include events that took place outside the province of Ontario.
[28] On 2 December 2013, after more than a year of testimony and over 12,000 pages of evidence, the presiding coroner instructed the jury to begin their deliberations, and requested they come back with a verdict in Smith's death and recommendations on means to prevent a recurrence of such an event.
[6] On 19 December 2013, the coroner's jury returned a verdict of homicide in the Ashley Smith case, indicating the actions of others contributed to her death but stopping short of a finding of criminal or civil liability.
After the public release of video material depicting Smith's treatment while incarcerated, interim leader of the federal Liberal Party Bob Rae raised the matter in Parliament during Question Period, asking why the government was attempting to restrict the scope of the inquiry through the Corrections Canada legal challenge.
[30] However, Toews later appeared to contradict the official government stance and drew significant criticism from the opposition Liberal and NDP Members of Parliament when he suggested that Smith was "not the victim" in the case.
[32] Subsequent to the release of the inquest verdict on 19 December 2013, the current Minister of Public Safety, Steven Blaney, stated that he had asked his officials to carefully review the jury's recommendations.