The Ashley Smith inquest was a coroner's inquest in Ontario related to the institutional death of Ashley Smith, a teenager who committed suicide on October 19, 2007, while she was under suicide watch at the Grand Valley Institution for Women. Despite guards watching her on video monitors the prisoner Smith was able to strangle herself with a strip of cloth, and it was several hours before guards or supervisors realized she was dead. The warden and deputy warden were fired after the incident, and though the guards and supervisors were initially charged for negligence, those charges were dropped a year later. Smith's family brought a lawsuit against the Correctional Service of Canada for negligence; this lawsuit was settled out of court in May 2011.
The CBC documentary news program the fifth estate produced two separate episodes on the life and death of Ashley Smith.[1][2] The documentaries not only describe the circumstances of the death, but also depict some disagreement inside the Correctional Service. the fifth estate claims "Corrections Canada filed an unprecedented publication ban on all exhibits presented at the coroner's inquest into her death."[2]
The inquest was frequently interrupted by multiple legal challenges and a change of coroner, before finally being terminated as a mistrial on 30 September 2011; a new inquest into Smith's death is planned but a date has yet to be determined.[3]
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Ashley Smith (born January 29, 1988, New Brunswick, Canada) was adopted when she was 5 days old, and according to her adoptive parents, Coralee Smith and Herbert Gober, had a normal childhood in Moncton, New Brunswick. At age 13 or 14, her parents noted distinct behavioural changes in the child; by age 15 she had been before juvenile court 14 times for various minor offences such as trespassing and causing a disturbance. In March 2002, Smith was assessed by a psychologist who found no evidence of mental illness. However, her behavioural problems continued and she was suspended from school multiple times in the fall of 2002. In March 2003, after multiple court appearances, Smith was admitted to the Pierre Caissie Centre for assessment. She was diagnosed with ADHD, learning disorder, borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality traits. She was discharged several days early from the Centre for unruly and disruptive behaviour and returned to the New Brunswick Youth Centre (NBYC). Smith was remanded to the NBYC multiple times over the next 3 years; during this time she was involved in more than 800 reported incidents and at least 150 attempts to physically harm herself.
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. Smith hired a lawyer to fight the transfer, but was unsuccessful. On October 5, Smith was transferred to the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre (SJRCC). Due to her behaviour at SJRCC, Smith spent most of her time there in segregation; she was tasered twice and pepper-sprayed once. On October 31, Smith was transferred to the Nova Institution for Women in Nova Scotia (a federal institution). Through 2007, Smith was transferred a total of 17 times between the following 8 institutions during 11 months in federal custody:[4]
While at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario, on 16 October 2007, Smith requested transfer to a psychiatric facility; she was placed on a formal suicide watch on 18 October. In the early hours of 19 October, Smith was discovered in her cell with a ligature around her neck; guards did not immediately enter the cell and several hours passed before she was examined and pronounced dead.[5]
On 25 October 2007, 3 guards and a supervisor at the Grand Valley Institution for Women were charged with criminal negligence causing death in relation to Smith's suicide; the warden and deputy warden were fired. The criminal charges were later dropped. On October 8, 2009, Smith's family launched an C$11 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Correctional Service of Canada, which was eventually settled in May 2011 for an undisclosed amount.[6]
On January 8, 2009, CBC News Network's the fifth estate broadcast a documentary about the case titled "Out of Control". 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 crab apples at the mailman.[1] Smith was placed in solitary confinement after disruptive behavior on her first day.[1] Her initial one month sentence would last almost four years, entirely in isolation, a restless teenager with nothing to do, until her suicide in 2007.[1] Often violent and unpredictable, her behaviours and the force required to intervene were always filmed and recorded, then listed on daily logs.[1] Behaviour which Smith exhibited included many attempts at choking herself into unconsciousness; guards responding were often attacked by Smith, sometimes with weapons she'd manufactured and concealed.[1]
The frequent "use of force" reports required to document responses became a source of concern for facility officials. 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".[1] CSC officials kept transferring her to other facilities, preventing a Canadian law requiring mandatory review of prisoners kept in isolation for more than sixty days from being respected.[1]
After Smith's death, and the firing of both wardens and four directly-involved officers, the four officers were charged with negligent homicide. The spokesman for the union for the four guards alleges the guards were "scapegoated" by senior management: "There was daily direction given right from the highest levels of management all the way to the front line staff, and we're not talking once or twice, we're talking everyday, repeatedly, 'you are not to go in the cell; this is your orders'".[1] The union's spokesman relayed his organization's stance that the guards' prosecution was part of a cover up by those in CSC management.[1]
At the conclusion of the documentary, Smith's mother raises the question of responsibility: "Who gave that order, Hana?... Who gave the order to keep that child, we're talking about a child in the youth center, segregated that length of time? Who gave the order 'don't intervene' if she's still breathing?"[1] Guards saw the charges against them dropped. They were all reinstated, but declined to talk to the fifth estate. Correction Canada sees the case as closed, and while the current minister did talk to Hana Gartner, the Correctional Service of Canada refused any interviews with the reporter, while a lawsuit was pending.[1]
A second documentary titled "Behind the Wall" was first broadcast on November 12, 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 Regional Psychiatric Centre, Prairies, Saskatoon. The program also depicts the two-year conflict between the fifth estate and CSC to broadcast more footage of the last days of Ashley Smith.[2]
A coroner's inquest into Smith's suicide began in May 2011.[7] The inquest, initially led by deputy chief coroner Dr. Bonita Porter, has been controversial; it was originally scheduled to begin in November 2010, but was delayed by a legal challenge by the Smith family.[8] As a result of this challenge, the scope of the inquest was broadened to cover the entire 11-month period of Smith's incarceration under the federal Correctional Service.[9] Further, a panel of judges with the Ontario Divisional Court ruled, in May 2011, that Dr. Porter should not have excluded video evidence of Smith's forced medication at Joliette Institution in Quebec.[10] On June 21, 2011, the proceedings of the inquest were suspended until September 12; the reason for the delay was apparently to allow the proceedings to be webcast.[11] In late June 2011, Dr. Porter was replaced as the presiding coroner, apparently due to her impending retirement in November 2011; the current presiding coroner is John R. Carlisle.[12] The sudden and unexpected replacement led Smith's family to formally accuse the chief coroner of interfering in the inquest with no legal basis; Dr. Porter had apparently indicated that she would deliver three outstanding rulings in July, days before the announcement of her replacement.[13]
The inquest resumed briefly on 12 September, only to be suspended once again until 19 September, when the Smith family lawyer challenged the right of the new coroner to continue the inquest, and called for a mistrial.[14] On 30 September 2011, the Ontario Coroner's Office formally terminated the inquest and dismissed the jury. A new inquest will be started from scratch at a date to be determined.[3]