Senior members of the Alberta legal community have raised questions about the appointment of Eric Tolppanen as a judge on the provincial court amid an ongoing investigation into how the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service he headed up handled some autopsy reports.
Senior members of the Alberta legal community have raised questions about the appointment of Eric Tolppanen as a judge on the provincial court amid an ongoing investigation of his previous department.
Tolppanen, who was appointed in mid-April, had been the head of the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, which has been the subject of a probe into how prosecutors handled a series of autopsy reports.
“I was dumbfounded when I heard [of the appointment],” said Tom Engel, a veteran Edmonton criminal defence lawyer. “I just thought it was a shocking and brazen disregard for the integrity of the administration of criminal justice, including the judicial appointment process.”
An external counsel will likely look at Tolppanen’s role specifically in the handling of the autopsy reports, said lawyer James Lockyer, who has won multiple wrongful conviction cases.
“When someone’s conduct is the subject of an investigation, it doesn’t seem a particularly appropriate time to appoint them to a judgeship,” Lockyer said.
The Alberta Crown Prosecution Service came under scrutiny earlier this year after a Fifth Estate series found three people facing second-degree murder charges in western Canada said they didn’t know of key evidence they could have used in their defence.
The accused, and several lawyers, said they were not given copies of new autopsy opinions that better reflected what they said happened. Instead, they took plea deals to lesser charges to avoid longer prison sentences.
Probe ‘tainted,’ lawyer says
Following the CBC reports, Alberta Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer ordered an investigation by external counsel to better understand what happened.
Schweitzer also supported Tolppanen’s appointment to the bench, which was formalized in mid-April.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do because now the investigation, I think, has been tainted,” said Engel. “It harms the integrity of that investigation that [Schweitzer] ordered.”
People who want to be judges in Alberta must go through a lengthy process. The judicial council in Alberta first reviews the applications to narrow down a list. Then the provincial court nominating committee interviews candidates to further fine-tune the list.
From there, “the Minister of Justice selects a candidate to fill a vacancy on the Court,” according to the judicial appointment website.
