Tawdry and Squalid

Those are not descriptives normally associated with someone who has achieved the position of a judge dispensing Canadian jurisprudence.  But in the case of Manitoba Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas, whose private background activities are now being discussed in an enquiry, a five-member committee for a Canadian Judicial Council hearing, it seems appropriate enough. 

"...the impression I got was that him and his wife are into this crazy sex stuff but he want to go further ... all these pictures, she's posing for them, with all these labels, labels like 'waiting for black c--k' ...  He didn't tell me she knew the pictures were on the Internet, but they had a splash page on the website, they were married 25 years or whatever..."

Perhaps not the most savoury of witnesses, not representing the cream of society's crop, but by all accounts, neither do lawyer Jack King and his wife Judge Lori Douglas represent the fine stuff of which society's soberly self-respecting professionals are held to reflect.  The story itself, of a mature black man, Alex Chapman, seeking to blackmail the pair does not come out of nowhere.

While he himself certainly does not represent the picture of a morally upright character, neither do the two whom he claims made his life a misery.  There were, for example, dozens of photographs of Lori Douglas, pre-judgeship, that were provocative and sexually suggestive material meant for the purpose of advertising her physical attributes and telegraphing her availability.

She posed for these raunchy photographs, they were not invasions of her personal privacy.  The Internet is a very public place where intimately racy photographs are of interest to a bevy of kinky-minded sex connoisseurs.  Both Judge Douglas and her husband claim that she had no knowledge of her husband having posted those incriminating photographs, though of course she knew of their existence.

Alex Chapman, a divorce-proceeding client of Jack King through his then-law firm, was specifically directed to the Dark Cavern website, catering to white couples looking for black male sex partners.  Jack King importuned Mr. Chapman on a number of occasions to consider having sex with Mr. King's wife.  And Mr. Chapman describes Mr. King as malevolently controlling.

He had no wish to have relations with Lori Douglas, found her unattractive, and resented and feared being controlled by a lawyer upon whose professionalism he depended for the desired outcome of his personal court case.  He is certainly no paragon of virtue.  But then he is simply a man trying to get on with his life, someone whose life opportunities are not to be compared to those of Mr. King and Ms. Douglas.

This hearing has a purpose; for the decision to be made whether or not Judge Lori Douglas represents someone who should sit upon the bench.  Given that, when she was initially offered a judgeship and she was asked a primary question, whether there was anything in her background that could prove to be a problem and she responded in the negative, she was given her position on a false premise.

She and her husband, as people in positions of relative power and privilege have an obligation not to use those positions to influence vulnerable people, to confuse and intimidate them for their personal advantage.  Neither of the couple qualifies as sterling candidates for the positions of trust they occupy as professionals meting out justice.