Ashley smith what was her crime

Can be found in. Categories Mental Health Law Psychology. Useful Links. Contact Us. Embed size x x x You don't have any playlists yet. Create one now! The video has been removed from added to the list. The index offence for which Smith began her time as an inmate was throwing apples at a postal worker. Before she died, Smith had been repeatedly tasered, pepper-sprayed, restrained, subjected to forced medical treatment, including forced injections, and assaulted.

She died alone, while guards watched, after having been relegated to solitary confinement for periods of time greatly in excess of those permitted by law. In the four years she spent in prison between the ages of 15 and 19, first as a youth, then transferred to an adult custody, she was almost always in a medical gown in a solitary cell. This was the first time an inquest in Canada had ever ruled a death in custody to be a homicide without attributing fault for the death to another offender.

The strong implication of the verdict was that it was neither an accidental death nor a suicide — it was a killing for which the system and actors within it were at fault. The incendiary effect of this verdict was muted, however, by a disappointing CSC response to the inquest verdict.

In the fall of , Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assigned to the Department of Justice the mandate of addressing issues brought to light by the Smith case. Advocates for abolition of segregation in prisons have suggested that this mandate should properly be with Public Safety. However, I think the prime minister has it, at least partially, right. My research about the Smith case found that the clearest and most direct path to preventing prison homicides like that inflicted on Smith is justice system reform and, specifically, reforms to the bail, sentencing and youth criminal justice systems.

The vast majority of the hundreds of criminal offences for which Smith received guilty verdicts were administration of justice offences. Neighbours had told Ashley the mailman was withholding their welfare cheques, Coralee says. Ashley decided to take matters into her own hands.

She left her yard that rainy fall day without permission to collect the miniature apples that had fallen from a tree growing next door. The carrier pressed charges. Ashley spent the majority of her three years at the Miramichi youth jail segregated from the other or so adolescents in an often-filthy, six-by-nine-foot room.

The two dug a hole in the floor between their cells so they could read and sing to each other at night. Harry Potter, we loved those. We read them all. Jessica recalls that the two often egged each other on their rambunctiousness. She was a baby at heart.

She was never a violent person. She never did drugs. A vast amount of communication between Ashley and her keepers happened by pen and paper. Sometimes she advocated on behalf of other inmates, requesting fruit and vegetables as snacks instead of muffins request denied , new communal headphones to replace broken ones request granted and newspapers for the female units on the weekend request to be considered.

Two days later, the unit manager wrote back. Should be able to work with you on this issue. Face-to-face interactions were not always so civil. At least 24 times, staff called Miramichi police to the facility to lay criminal charges against Ashley. The offences ranged from assaulting youth workers, which included spitting or throwing toilet water, and pulling the fire alarm. She would later be sentenced in adult court. Ashley reached out to the Times and Transcript, a newspaper in Moncton.

When the judge sentenced me, the community went way to go!