Opposition 1: The cost for the first trial of 6 murders was 102 million dollars and Robert Pickton had 11 lawyers and 1.8 million was the cost of security that was for the courthouse alone. The amount of money for a new trial would cost a significant amount more because they are trying for the 20 other murders that were committed. And the continuation of the police investigation is bringing the cost up even more. A lot of tax payers’ money are being used for this trial which is not needed seeing as Pickton is already serving a life sentence. We must as well look at the fact that there is a lack of evidence for this second trial; a lot of the evidence was either missing or destroyed. And to bring up the cost factor once again, we would have to spend quite a bit of money to have a thorough investigation to find any new evidence for this case. At the time before Robert Pickton had been investigated; geographic profiler Kim Rossmo had claimed to the police his thoughts of a serial killer being responsible for the missing prostitutes in Vancouver but the police had ignored the concerns. This could have resulted in the mishandling of evidence of the police. Charges were dropped on PIckton in 1997 for attempted murder because of the lack of supporting evidence; if they cannot get evidence to charge him with that attempted murder, there will be little evidence to find for a second trial. There have been victims that have already moved on from this experience and all they want to do live their life without having to think about Robert Pickton again, Ellington who had survived Pickton chose against testifying because she did not want to relive that experience through the court day in March 29, 1999 and if they did not get the support from Ellington then, her testimony would not be given for a second trial and there are unreliable sources for this case for the reason of confessing to doing drugs. The Crown quotes “The Crown had to be carefully assesses whether it was in the public interest to proceed on the remaining 20 counts, and the (Criminal Justice) Branch concluded it was not,” Neil Mackenzie, a spokesman for the Crown, said outside court Wednesday after the charges were formally stayed. “It was a difficult decision for the branch and we certainly understand that it was a
