Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (Signal High) —– A Canadian judge has been reprimanded and ordered to apologize after he gave the wrong manslaughter sentence. In 2002, after the third trial was held against him, Peter Khil was found guilty of manslaughter in the 2016 shooting death of Jonathan Styres. The judge accidentally imposed a prison sentence two years longer than intended, and didn’t come forward for over a year.
Andrew Goodman, a judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, was brought before the Canadian Judicial Council and condemned, the three-person committee calling his inaction “a serious ethical lapse and a failure.” The committee also found that Goodman “still fails to fully appreciate how the delay in correcting his error affects public confidence in the judiciary.”
“Justice” Andrew Goodman has presided over several high-profile cases in Hamilton, including the Tim Bosma murder trial in 2016. According to Goodman, he didn’t correct himself sooner, “perhaps due to a variety of factors, including having just read out a lengthy 53-page ruling before a crowded and divergent audience, with substantial media presence, for this high-profile case.”
Regardless, Goodman will keep his position in the courts, and nothing will change for Khil. So all of this was really a waste of time and ratepayer funds — simply for show.
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