Alberta judge who jailed lawyer in dispute should be suspended, says judicial board

A gavel sits on a desk in Ottawa, Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Alberta’s Judicial Inquiry Board is recommending a provincial court judge be suspended for 30 days without pay for briefly jailing a defence lawyer after a combative courtroom dispute.

Justice Gordon Yake and defence lawyer George Lebessis had argued over whose responsibility it was to produce a police witness for testimony in an ongoing sexual assault trial in Red Deer.

A report from the board’s panel of three judges was released Monday. It details a short, but heated, exchange between Yake and Lebessis on Nov. 8, 2024, and calls Yake’s conduct an “act of judicial misconduct.”

“Placing someone in custody is one of the most serious remedies available to members of the judiciary. It is not to be used as a form of judicially imposed time out in lieu of granting a brief adjournment,” the report says.

“It is an abuse of the judicial role to do so in anger or out of frustration.”

The recommendation for sanction is now passed on to the Alberta Judicial Council to decide whether to impose or not.

The board’s investigation was driven by a complaint from three associations representing defence lawyers.

Neither Lebessis nor counsel for Yake were immediately available for comment.

The report details the dispute at length.

Lebessis had asked the court matter be stood down to mediate confusion with the Crown prosecutor over who was supposed to subpoena a police officer as a defence witness to testify.

Lebessis wanted to clarify with a previous prosecutor on the case, who was in the courthouse, about whether he had agreed to subpoena the officer.

The report says Yake “repeatedly pressed (Lebessis), in an increasingly confrontational tone” to answer whether he was told by the Crown to bring the officer. The two interrupted each other as the discussion escalated, with Yake threatening to find Lebessis in contempt of court.

“Do not interrupt me or you will go into that room in custody,” Yake said.

“OK. Then bring me into custody,” Lebessis responded.

The lawyer was taken into custody shortly after, though he was not handcuffed, patted down or asked to remove his shoes by the court sheriff “as a matter of professional courtesy,” the report says.

Lebessis remained in a cellblock for about 15 to 17 minutes.

The prosecutor later told court he was meant to subpoena the officer, not Lebessis.

After returning to the courtroom, Lebessis applied for a mistrial, which was dismissed. He then asked to be removed from the case.

Another defence lawyer applied again for a mistrial when court reconvened two weeks later, citing an apprehension of bias, and it was granted.

Yake said he would be disqualified from hearing the case, as should all judges with the Alberta Court of Justice in the central region, given the attention it received.

In its report, the panel says Yake had received “some deeply unsettling news about his health” before the dispute and failed to manage is emotions. However, it says his actions undermined the integrity and harmed the public perception of the judiciary.

Yake apologized in a letter that the panel found was genuinely remorseful. Yake wrote that he lost his temper and made a “grave” but isolated error.

“I sincerely regret my actions,” he wrote.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 17, 2026.

Dayne Patterson, The Canadian Press