Who suffers most from delays in forensic assessments? We know from Canadian experiences, such as that we noted earlier in Manitoba, that delays in fitness to stand trial assessments can lengthen dramatically without much fanfare or notice by the general public (See: Psychiatric Assessment Backlog in Manitoba). Where there is a strong appearance that the accused was suffering from a profound mental illness that properly means the event was a medical crisis, the delay seems inconsequential. And yet even here victims, those who cared for them, and the community can reasonably feel that their need for justice has been disregarded.
Those also suffer whose questions are left hanging, who are left wondering what is happening, and who see the system apparently vapour locked at the very outset of the proceeding. Maryrose Fealey was committed to help young people struggling with addictions and had reached over 25,000 people with her appeal to clean living. She was stabbed to death On January 30, 2024 apparently by a former classmate who reportedly prepared a manifesto and detailed plan for her murder. Her alleged assailant was arrested when he was found cleaning up blood with bleach found in his car and home.
Fealey was a business graduate who left a “high paying federal job to work in addiction charities.” Fealey’s mother shared that Fealey stepped away from her career to support her brother through his struggle with addiction and even gave “her car to a woman escaping an abusive relationship.” Her friends launched “100 Voices for Maryrose,” a group aimed at keeping the case alive in the public’s awareness, while pressing the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office to bring it to trial.
Adding to the agony of not even knowing if her alleged assailant will be determined able to stand trial, her mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer and fears that she may not live to see justice. She worries that further postponements could result in a lighter sentence for the accused. As she told the New York Post, “My daughter got a death sentence, and I now have to live the rest of my life not seeing my daughter.”
The issue of competence does not appear straightforward since defence and prosecution experts have reached different conclusions. The issue is hoped to be settled in April 2025 and a trial will or will not be scheduled accordingly.
We know from other experiences that fitness assessments can be done on a timely basis. We know that systemic delays are particularly common when there are initial delays exacerbated by the commonly sequential nature of justice process: here no trial date will be set until the outcome of the competency assessment is known, even though setting a date might help put everyone on notice to get the fitness assessment done. The common consequence of initial delays is that the case falls off the tracks and is rarely, if ever, given a fresh urgency when it comes back into the mainstream process.
Like many institutional delays there is no personal animus, or ill will here. These are the result of system design and resource allocation that is invisible to most and is a captive of historical norms and practices that simply are part of the way things are done. In our age of social media perhaps the greater transparency will provoke a constructive change.
We are reminded by this case and the anger it has provoked that many changes to justice systems have only come when an outrageous case casts our work in a dark light. But tragically one death can be, and often is, the singular catalyst for changes that improve the quality and timeliness of justice.
