Supreme Court
Decision Information
Decision information:
Abstract: Transcript of the Reasons for Judgment
Decision Content
R. v. Bessette, 2013 NWTSC 72 S-1-CR-2012-000089 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES IN THE MATTER OF: HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN - v - KYLE MATTHEW BESSETTE Transcript of the Reasons for Judgement delivered by The Honourable Justice V. A. Schuler, in Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories, on the 16th day of July, 2013. APPEARANCES: Mr. R. Carrier: Counsel on behalf of the Crown Ms. C. Wawzonek: Counsel on behalf of the Accused ------------------------------------- Charge under s. 5(1) CDSA 1 THE COURT: On April 17 of this year, Kyle 2 Bessette entered a plea of not guilty to a charge 3 that he trafficked in cocaine on or about 4 November 20, 2010, here at Yellowknife, contrary 5 to section 5(1) of the Controlled Drugs and 6 Substances Act. He admits, however, in the 7 Agreed Statement of Facts, filed as Exhibit 1, 8 that on that date just outside the Raven Pub here 9 in Yellowknife, he sold two packages, two grams 10 of cocaine to an undercover police officer for 11 $200. 12 The sole issue before me is whether Mr. 13 Bessette was entrapped by the police. If what 14 happened falls within the legal definition of 15 "entrapment", then, despite Mr. Bessette's 16 admission that he sold cocaine to the undercover 17 officer, the charge should be stayed by the Court 18 and a conviction would not be entered. 19 The evidence heard from the undercover 20 officers is that they were told by their cover 21 officer to go to the Raven Pub on the night of 22 November 19, 2010, and to try to purchase cocaine 23 or drugs there. The Raven was described to them 24 as a location where drugs were sold. They went 25 into the Raven and raised the topic of drugs with 26 various people there, without any results. As 27 Mr. Bessette was walking by their table, one of Official Court Reporters 1 1 the undercover officers, Constable McAdam, asked 2 him "Do you have any party favours?"; "party 3 favours" being a term he had been told by his 4 cover officer was used for drugs in Yellowknife. 5 According to the other undercover officer, 6 Corporal Van Steelandt, the question asked was 7 whether Mr. Bessette could "help out" with party 8 favours. Nothing turns on the difference in what 9 was reported as said. There was further 10 conversation about what kind of party favours the 11 undercover officer wanted, and the deal was made 12 and completed. 13 I have reviewed all of the cases that 14 counsel submitted but will refer only to some of 15 them. 16 The Supreme Court of Canada has set out the 17 legal parameters of the doctrine of entrapment in 18 two cases: R. v. Mack, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 903, and 19 R. v. Barnes, [1991] 1 S.C.R. 449. There is also 20 a very clear summary of the doctrine in R. v. 21 Imoro, 2010 ONCA 122. When entrapment is found, 22 it reflects judicial disapproval of unacceptable 23 police or prosecutorial conduct in investigating 24 crimes. It recognizes two competing objectives: 25 One is that the police must have considerable 26 leeway in the techniques they use to investigate 27 criminal activity, especially in so-called Official Court Reporters 2 1 consensual crimes where there is no unwilling 2 victim as there is in most crimes so the crime is 3 not likely to be reported. Drug trafficking is 4 such a crime. The purchaser and the seller are 5 both willing and want the crime to take place. 6 The objective that competes with allowing 7 the police to use the techniques they think are 8 best is that the power of police to investigate 9 cannot be untrammelled. The police should not be 10 permitted to randomly test the virtue of citizens 11 to take steps just to see if they are willing to 12 commit crimes. The police should not be 13 permitted to offer citizens the opportunity to 14 commit a crime without a reasonable suspicion 15 that they are already engaging in criminal 16 activity, or to use tactics that are designed to 17 induce citizens to commit crimes. As a society, 18 we want the police to investigate crime that is 19 already happening, not to create crime by giving 20 people the chance to commit offences where the 21 police do not already have a reasonable suspicion 22 that they are being committed. 23 To strike a balance between these competing 24 objectives, the Supreme Court of Canada has said 25 that the police may only present the opportunity 26 to commit a particular crime to an individual who 27 arouses a reasonable suspicion that he or she is Official Court Reporters 3 1 already engaged in the particular criminal 2 activity. An exception to that is when the 3 police undertake a bona fide inquiry or 4 investigation directed at an area where it is 5 reasonably suspected that criminal activity is 6 occurring. When such a location is defined with 7 sufficient precision, the police may present any 8 person associated with the area with the 9 opportunity to commit the particular offence. 10 They need not have any suspicion that the person 11 is already engaged in criminal activity. 12 In the Barnes case, then Chief Justice Lamer 13 said that the notion of being associated with a 14 particular area does not require anything more 15 than a person being present in the area. 16 To establish entrapment the defence must 17 establish on a balance of probabilities that the 18 criteria that allow the police to offer someone 19 an opportunity to commit an offence are not 20 satisfied. 21 In this case Mr. Bessette does not argue 22 that the police induced him to sell the cocaine. 23 His argument is that the police did not have a 24 reasonable suspicion that he was engaged in 25 criminal activity and that they were not engaged 26 in a bona fide investigation. It is clear on the 27 evidence that the undercover officer did not have Official Court Reporters 4 1 a reasonable suspicion that Mr. Bessette was 2 already engaged in criminal activity. The Crown 3 conceded that. The undercover officer did not 4 know who Mr. Bessette was and did not have any 5 information about Mr. Bessette. 6 The issues in this case are therefore 7 whether the undercover officer was carrying out a 8 bona fide investigation and had a reasonable 9 suspicion that there was drug trafficking going 10 on at the Raven when he raised the subject of 11 drugs with Mr. Bessette. 12 I have already referred to the interaction 13 between the undercover officers and Mr. Bessette 14 in the Raven. The evidence as to why the 15 undercover officers were in the Raven in the 16 first place comes from Constables Lang and 17 Mounsey. 18 The evidence before me is that the RCMP drug 19 unit in Yellowknife developed an investigation 20 they called "Project Grapple" starting in 21 September 2010. Constable Lang, a member of the 22 drug unit of the RCMP in Yellowknife, was the 23 lead investigator. He testified that the purpose 24 of Project Grapple was to target street level 25 drug trafficking in Yellowknife. This was to be 26 done by bringing in undercover officers from 27 outside the Northwest Territories who would pose Official Court Reporters 5 1 as individuals looking to purchase drugs. 2 Dial-a-dope operations had become the main form 3 of street level drug trafficking in Yellowknife. 4 Constable Lang prepared the operational plan 5 for the project so as to obtain from his 6 superiors resources for the project, for example, 7 undercover officers. The main goal of the plan 8 was to dismantle and disrupt dial-a-dope 9 operations by investigating individuals and 10 making contact with them to purchase drugs. The 11 plan itself was developed by reviewing and 12 selecting information and debriefing reports from 13 the previous eight or nine months from RCMP 14 databases that contained intelligence 15 information. These, Constable Lang said, would 16 generally be debriefing reports from police 17 officers, for example regarding information 18 received from a confidential informant. From all 19 these sources, individual targets and locations 20 in Yellowknife were identified. The locations 21 were those where there was a prevalence of drug 22 activity. 23 Constable Lang was cross-examined 24 extensively on the plan. In the threat 25 assessment part of the plan, he wrote that the 26 investigation would target numerous street level 27 individuals involved in drug trafficking in Official Court Reporters 6 1 Yellowknife and that the undercover officers 2 would be tasked with making drug purchases from 3 identified individual targets and acting on 4 opportunity buys should they arise. He also 5 wrote that the undercover officers would partake 6 and socialize in the local bar and party scene 7 and portray themselves as fairly affluent 8 individuals who buy illicit drugs for recreation 9 or party purposes. 10 Constable Lang testified that there were 20 11 to 25 identified individual targets, in other 12 words specific people who were targets of the 13 investigation, some of whom were added along the 14 way. Mr. Bessette was not one of those targets. 15 Two locations were targeted although they 16 were not actually set out in the operational plan 17 and instead were added as the operation was 18 evolving. These were the Raven Pub and another 19 Yellowknife bar, Harley's. Constable Lang 20 testified that he chose those locations based on 21 his experience as a police officer in 22 Yellowknife, having been three years on patrol 23 and two years in the drug unit at that time. 24 Through that experience, his personal 25 observations and work with informants and through 26 reviewing intelligence reports, he had come to 27 know where drug activity takes place in the city. Official Court Reporters 7 1 Based on this, he was of the view that drug 2 activity in the form of cocaine, ecstasy, and 3 marihuana was prevalent at the Raven. He also 4 testified that many of the targeted individuals 5 were known to frequent the targeted locations. 6 Constable Mounsey was also involved in 7 Project Grapple. He was one of the cover agents 8 who directed the undercover officers and he 9 specifically directed them to go to the Raven on 10 the night in question. He testified that before 11 Project Grapple was put into operation, there 12 were what he called "open discussions" about 13 suitable locations to target, however he would 14 make the final decision and did so on the night 15 in question. He relied on his background 16 knowledge and experience in deciding to send the 17 undercover officers to the Raven. He described 18 the objectives of Project Grapple as being for 19 undercover officers to purchase drugs in 20 Yellowknife. Individual targets were selected in 21 consultation with the drug section. 22 Establishments were selected based on reasonable 23 submission that drug activity would take place 24 there. In the open discussions, two locations 25 were identified that he believed fell into that 26 category, the Raven Pub and Harley's. 27 I will note here that although Constable Official Court Reporters 8 1 Mounsey frequently made reference to having a 2 reasonable suspicion, it is obviously for the 3 Court to determine whether in fact he or any 4 other officer had a reasonable suspicion. The 5 witness' statement that he had is not 6 determinative. 7 I will note here that it was not clear on 8 the evidence when exactly prior to the night of 9 November 19th, 2010, discussions about the Raven 10 and Harley's took place, the "open discussions" 11 as Constable Mounsey described them. 12 Notwithstanding that, I am satisfied that there 13 was at least some discussion and that both police 14 officers Lang and Mounsey had the Raven in mind 15 for purposes of Project Grapple. 16 Constable Mounsey testified that at the time 17 in question he had lived in Yellowknife for 28 18 years, including living across from the Raven Pub 19 for a time. His 15 years in law enforcement 20 included investigations into drugs and drug 21 activity in and around the Raven Pub. This 22 involved trafficking of drugs inside and around 23 the Raven Pub, and he himself had arrested 24 individuals for drug activity and seized drugs in 25 and around the Raven. 26 Constable Mounsey was involved in at least 27 one other undercover operation involving the Official Court Reporters 9 1 Raven Pub. He testified that he had conducted 2 well over 100 hours of surveillance mainly for 3 the purpose of drugs, some of it on street patrol 4 on the street where the Raven is located and at 5 times that surveillance focused on drug activity 6 at the Raven. This was mostly in the time period 7 2006 to 2010. 8 He also reviewed police documentation about 9 drug activity in and around the Raven, much of 10 which was information from informants. 11 After Mr. Bessette's arrest, Constable 12 Mounsey did a count of the police intelligence 13 documentation relating to drug activity in and 14 around the Raven. In other words, as I 15 understand it, after the arrest he counted what 16 he had reviewed before the arrest. He found that 17 there were 107 reports from 1998 to October of 18 2010. He counted approximately 40 drug 19 investigations in and around the Raven found on 20 the RCMP investigation database from 2006 to 21 October 2010, the month prior to Mr. Bessette's 22 arrest. Constable Mounsey himself had drafted 23 seven of the intelligence reports, one in 1998, 24 and the others in the time period 2006 to 2010. 25 The majority of the seven he drafted identified 26 individuals trafficking drugs out of the Raven, 27 and he also said the majority were informant Official Court Reporters 10 1 driven. 2 The implementation of Project Grapple began 3 on November 17, 2010, and continued to the 4 evening of November 20. Constable Lang was on 5 surveillance. There were two undercover officers 6 and two covers whose job it was to direct the 7 undercover officers. The undercover officers 8 were to try to make contact with the targeted 9 individuals by phone to try to purchase drugs. 10 On November 19 at about 10 p.m. after the 11 undercover officers had been at Harley's, 12 Constable Mounsey called Constable Lang and said 13 he wanted to send them to the Raven Pub. 14 Constable Lang agreed. In his testimony, he 15 admitted that he had no specific information that 16 drug activity was taking place at the Raven at 17 that moment. However, as I have indicated, that 18 particular bar was known to him for that type of 19 activity and so he agreed with Constable 20 Mounsey's suggestion that the undercover officers 21 go there. One of the reasons he wanted them to 22 go there was to try to locate some of the 23 targeted individuals. 24 Corporal Van Steelandt, one of the 25 undercover officers, testified that they had 26 unsuccessfully looked for one targeted individual 27 in the Raven Pub. Official Court Reporters 11 1 Both Lang and Mounsey also testified that an 2 officer in uniform was sent into the Raven before 3 the undercover officers to see if any of the 4 identified targets of Project Grapple were in 5 there at that time. Neither, however, could 6 recall the result of the uniformed officer's 7 walkthrough. 8 Constable Mounsey also testified that in 9 sending the officers there he had in mind what he 10 knew of the Raven as a place of drug activity. 11 Mr. Bessette does not argue that the police 12 acted in bad faith. He argues that their 13 investigation methodology was faulty. He says 14 that they went outside the parameters of the 15 Project Grapple plan using resources, in other 16 words the undercover agents, that were obtained 17 for Project Grapple for purposes not contemplated 18 by Project Grapple. He says that in order for 19 the Raven Pub to fall within the Barnes criteria, 20 the officers had to have a reasonable suspicion 21 that at least one of the individual targets of 22 Project Grapple was in the Raven at the time the 23 undercover officers were sent there. 24 Going back to what was said in Barnes, the 25 first question is was there a bona fide 26 investigation. In my view there was. The 27 evidence is that the police were targeting, Official Court Reporters 12 1 investigating street level drug trafficking in 2 Yellowknife. The main focus of the investigation 3 was the use of dial-a-dope operations because 4 that had become the common method of trafficking. 5 The police wanted to dismantle and disrupt those 6 operations. I find that it is clear that their 7 motivation for sending the undercover officers to 8 the Raven Pub was to further the objective of 9 investigating and disrupting street level drug 10 trafficking by looking for individuals involved 11 in the drug trade in a place known to them for 12 drug activity. Although I do not understand 13 Barnes to require that there be a written 14 operational plan, in this case the operational 15 plan contemplated that the undercover officers 16 would socialize in the local bar scene to get 17 information about drug trafficking. They would 18 also buy drugs if the opportunity arose. Mr. 19 Bessette was approached in furtherance of these 20 objectives, not for some unrelated or 21 questionable motive. 22 Barnes requires that the investigation be 23 directed at an area or location defined with 24 sufficient precision where it is reasonably 25 suspected that drug activity is occurring. The 26 Raven Pub is defined with sufficient precision. 27 This is not like the cases where police were Official Court Reporters 13 1 targeting neighbourhoods or all the bars in the 2 city. 3 Did the police reasonably suspect that 4 criminal activity was occurring at the Raven? 5 Constables Lang and Mounsey used their background 6 knowledge and experience as the basis upon which 7 they formed the suspicion, and I find that it was 8 a reasonable one, that drug activity was 9 occurring or generally occurred at the Raven. 10 Both were closely cross-examined on this and were 11 not shaken. It was clear from their evidence 12 that they together held this view of only two 13 bars in the city, the Raven and Harley's, with a 14 third said by Constable Mounsey to possibly 15 qualify in his view. 16 The Barnes case is helpful on this issue. 17 In Barnes, the police were conducting a buy and 18 bust operation where they would attempt to buy 19 drugs from people. The operation was undertaken 20 in a six block section of Granville Street in 21 Vancouver known as the Granville Mall. There was 22 statistical evidence before the court from the 23 year preceding the date of Barnes' arrest. The 24 statistics showed the percentage of persons 25 charged with drug offences from incidents in the 26 mall area, the number of drug-related charges 27 resulting from arrests on the mall, the number of Official Court Reporters 14 1 charges resulting from arrests in buy and bust 2 operations. There was also evidence that 3 narcotic sales took place up and down the mall. 4 The majority of the court was satisfied based on 5 the evidence that the mall was a place where it 6 was reasonably suspected that drug activity was 7 occurring. 8 In R. v. Faqi, 2011 ABCA 284, the Alberta 9 Court of Appeal noted that although the evidence 10 in Barnes included statistics, the Supreme Court 11 of Canada did not mandate statistical evidence as 12 a prerequisite for finding that a location is one 13 where it is reasonably suspected that certain 14 criminal activity is occurring. 15 In R. v. Sterling, 2004 CanLii 6675, Justice 16 Laforme, when he was a trial judge, heard 17 evidence from police officers that their 18 reasonable suspicion that drug trafficking was 19 occurring on a certain stretch of a major street 20 in Toronto was based on information received from 21 confidential informants, the personal experience 22 of police officers investigating and performing 23 law enforcement duties in the area, written and 24 verbal complaints of drug activity from area 25 residents, and Crime Stoppers tips. There were 26 no formal records of the complaints or crime 27 activity or attempted drug buys. The court Official Court Reporters 15 1 accepted the evidence as establishing that the 2 police had a reasonable suspicion that drug 3 trafficking was occurring in the area in 4 question. 5 In Faqi, the case that I just mentioned from 6 the Alberta Court of Appeal, the trial judge had 7 made a finding that the police had reason to 8 believe that drug trafficking may be occurring in 9 the bar on the day they entered it. 10 In R. v. Eckert, [1991] Saskatchewan 11 Judgments number 481, a trial decision of the 12 Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench, there was 13 evidence that known traffickers were observed by 14 the police in the bar on the night in question. 15 However, Barnes does not say that the police must 16 have a reasonable suspicion that drug trafficking 17 is occurring at the very moment or within a 18 certain time frame prior to the police presenting 19 an opportunity to commit a crime to someone at 20 the location. In Barnes, the statistical 21 evidence was from the year prior to the offence 22 yet was still found to ground a reasonable 23 suspicion. How recent the information is and how 24 frequent the drug activity revealed by it will 25 have a bearing on the reasonableness of the 26 suspicion held by the police. However, what I 27 take from the cases is that the information Official Court Reporters 16 1 should not be dissected too finely. The court's 2 task is not to find whether the information is 3 correct or whether it would give the police 4 reasonable and probable grounds, just whether it 5 gives them reasonable suspicion, which is 6 something more than mere suspicion but less than 7 a belief based on reasonable and probable 8 grounds. 9 In this case the Raven was selected, as I 10 have said, based on the information gathered by 11 the police regarding drug investigations and 12 their own experiences in investigating drug 13 activity in and around the Raven. They did not 14 randomly select that bar out of all the bars in 15 Yellowknife. 16 Defence counsel pointed out that Constable 17 Mounsey was involved in only one undercover 18 operation prior to this and she argued that the 19 intelligence documents spanned too great a number 20 of years. However, Constable Mounsey also 21 testified about other personal experience, 22 surveillance and patrols that he did in the area 23 of the Raven. The fact that the intelligence 24 documents spanned ten years can indicate 25 consistency over time. It does not detract from 26 the reasonableness of the suspicion formed by the 27 police, nor does Constable Mounsey's evidence Official Court Reporters 17 1 that the drug scene in Yellowknife is fluid, 2 detract from the information he relied on. He 3 acknowledged that different crowds favour 4 different bars and that may affect where the drug 5 scene is focused, however he was clear that in 6 his view there was good reason to believe it was 7 focused, at least in part, at the Raven at the 8 time in question. 9 Defence counsel also argued that the police 10 used problematic methodology similar to what was 11 found to have occurred in R. v. Swan, 2009 BCCA 12 142. The factual context in Swan is somewhat 13 different because in that case the police were 14 calling numbers on a list that had been provided 15 to them for purposes of a dial-a-dope 16 investigation. On the list were cell phone 17 numbers provided from various sources and 18 suspected to be associated with people involved 19 in dial-a-dope trafficking. The officers would 20 not know who was answering the phone when they 21 called. According to the case report, it was 22 common ground that the mere fact that the officer 23 called a number from the list did not give him 24 anything more than mere suspicion that the person 25 he was talking to was engaged in drug related 26 activity. The police would simply keep calling 27 numbers on the list, engage in conversation about Official Court Reporters 18 1 drugs, and hope that the person they were talking 2 to would provide them with "something more" to 3 raise the level of suspicion to a reasonable one 4 and give them the legal basis to extend the 5 invitation to traffic in drugs. Swan argued that 6 because the police did not limit the target or 7 scope of their investigation to something less 8 than everywhere within the cell phones' reach or 9 every number on the police list, the police were 10 not acting in the course of a bona fide 11 investigation. 12 The British Columbia Court of Appeal held 13 that the police overstepped the bounds of a bona 14 fide investigation because they proceeded on a 15 bare minimum of information regarding the 16 telephone numbers compiled and with, as the court 17 said, a complete disinterest in distinguishing 18 between anonymous tips written on a match box or 19 napkin, and more reliable tips providing further 20 information about a particular suspect or 21 telephone number. There was no effort made to 22 verify the sources of the numbers. The court 23 held that more information was or could have been 24 available to the police but they chose to 25 disregard it for reasons of expediency. This 26 methodology casts doubt on the bona fides of the 27 investigation. Official Court Reporters 19 1 Defence counsel argues in this case that the 2 police wanted to make use of the undercover 3 officers who had been brought in from outside the 4 Northwest Territories and chose to do so by 5 sending them to investigate activity at the Raven 6 thus going outside the parameters of the 7 dial-a-dope investigation that was the subject of 8 Project Grapple. Therefore, counsel argues their 9 methodology was faulty and the investigation 10 cannot be said to be bona fide. 11 I do not agree that the evidence is that 12 dial-a-dope operations were the sole focus of 13 Project Grapple. They were its main focus or 14 primary objective, however the purpose of the 15 project was to investigate and disrupt street 16 level drug trafficking. The Raven was known to 17 police as a location at which drug trafficking 18 takes place and where their individual targets 19 might be located. Therefore investigating what 20 was going on at the Raven was not unrelated to 21 dial-a-dope operations and was not outside the 22 scope of Project Grapple. If I am wrong about 23 that and if it was outside the parameters set for 24 Project Grapple, then I would hold that it was 25 sufficiently related to Project Grapple because 26 the ultimate goal was to investigate and disrupt 27 street level trafficking, whether that Official Court Reporters 20 1 trafficking is accomplished through a dial-a-dope 2 operation or otherwise. The undercover police 3 were not used for a purpose unrelated to that 4 goal; they were used to get closer to that goal. 5 They were not sent to the Raven simply because 6 they were in town. I am satisfied that they were 7 sent there because the Raven was known to police 8 as a place where drug trafficking takes place and 9 where their targets might be located or 10 operating. 11 In Swan, the concern was the methodology 12 used by the police and how they approached, by 13 telephone, individuals they had nothing more than 14 mere suspicion about and hoped to raise that 15 suspicion to reasonable suspicion rather than 16 doing the homework that would tell them before 17 they made the call whether there were grounds for 18 reasonable suspicion. In my view that is quite a 19 different situation from Mr. Bessette's case. 20 Both Constables Lang and Mounsey had a reasonable 21 suspicion that drug trafficking was going on at 22 the Raven based on their own experience and 23 police reports and documentation. That 24 reasonable suspicion was communicated to the 25 undercover officers. They were in the course of 26 an investigation aimed at disrupting the drug 27 trade in Yellowknife. In my view, there is no Official Court Reporters 21 1 issue of methodology that would cast doubt on the 2 bona fides of the investigation that they were in 3 the course of at the Raven. 4 In Barnes, Chief Justice Lamer did not use 5 the term "investigation". He used the term 6 "inquiry," which I take to mean that a project 7 with a name and a plan is not necessarily 8 required in any event for the Barnes criteria to 9 be satisfied. 10 Because the police had a reasonable 11 suspicion that drug activity was going on at the 12 Raven and were conducting a bona fide 13 investigation, it was permissible for them to 14 present Mr. Bessette, who was present there, with 15 the opportunity to commit an offence 16 notwithstanding that they did not have a 17 reasonable suspicion that he was trafficking in 18 drugs. 19 Mr. Bessette has not discharged the burden 20 of establishing that the criteria that allowed 21 the police to do what they did are not satisfied. 22 I find that this is not a case of entrapment by 23 the police and therefore I convict Mr. Bessette. 24 .............................. 25 26 27 Official Court Reporters 22 1 2 3 Certified to be a true and accurate transcript pursuant 4 to Rule 723 and 724 of the Supreme Court Rules of Court. 5 6 ______________________________ 7 Annette Wright, RPR, CSR(A) Court Reporter 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Official Court Reporters 23
You are being directed to the most recent version of the statute which may not be the version considered at the time of the judgment.