Accused baby killer was revered by children, court told
CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal, Wednesday, September 20, 2006
EDMONTON - Three women who have known Katrina Effert for decades told the jury at her murder trial how she has been loved and revered by children all her life and how she returned that affection.
Effert, 20, is accused of strangling her baby last year with a pair of her thong underwear and dumping his body over a neighbour's fence within hours of secretly giving birth in the basement of her parents' Wetaskiwin, Alta., home.
Defence witness Cathy Doty testified she has known Effert all her life. She said children loved Effert.
"They loved her to pieces," said Doty, Effert's second cousin. "They didn't leave her alone. They surrounded her all the time."
In her opening statement to the jury immediately prior to Doty's testimony, defence lawyer Sheila Schumacher indicated she will base the defence of her client on psychiatric testimony which indicates Effert didn't know what she was doing in the early hours of April 14, 2005.
"You will hear evidence her mind was affected by the nightmare of giving birth the way she did in the context of an unbalanced mind," Schumacher told the jury of eight women and four men in Wetaskiwin Court of Queen's Bench.
Effert is charged with second-degree murder in the death of her baby and concealing the body. The Crown contends she killed the baby in April of 2005 shortly after giving birth and tossed the body over a fence into the neighbour's yard. She was 19 years old at the time.
Court has been told she gave birth about 4 a.m. on April 14, 2005. The baby was alive and well and she used scissors from the laundry room to cut the umbilical cord, her trial has been told.
Edmonton Journal - CanWest News Service 2006
"We must vigilantly stand on guard within our own borders for human rights and fundamental freedoms which are our proud heritage......we cannot take for granted the continuance and maintenance of those rights and freedoms."
John Diefenbaker
(1895-1979)
About The truth
"All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed, Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur
Schopenhauer
(1788-1860)
"In a world darkened by ethnic conflicts that tear nations apart, Canada stands as a model of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity, and mutual respect."
Bill Clinton
(William J. Clinton)
42nd President of The United States of America
Canada's
national "Child Day"
November 20th
Canada's "Child Day" is held on November 20th each year as designated by the Parliament of Canada in 1993.
It commemorates the United Nations adoption of two landmark documents concerned with the human rights of all children and youths. Read More ..
Canadian appointed U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
Louise Arbour took up her duties on July 1, 2004 as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Her term in office ended in June 2008.
Mrs. Arbour was a member of the Supreme Court of Canada immediately preceding her appointment to the UN as Commissioner for Human Rights.
Louise Arbour: a colleague we have failed
Law Times, Canada
22 September 2008
This profession - and all of us in it - have failed to protect, honour, and defend one of our most accomplished and distinguished members. We have let Louise Arbour down by our silence when she needed and deserved voices of support.
On July 1, Arbour stepped down as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, an enormously prestigious and important international position.
The gratitude and praise which greeted her at the end of her term was shamefully muted. Arbour was a courageous champion of human rights, and a bold critic of the erosion of those basic tenets in our world.
She was never timid. She was never chained to a desk, was involved, hands on, outspoken, and challenging. She breathed life into the enormous portfolio that she was asked to take on.