Mr Sauvé described how he viewed the nature of the discretionary power to place a prisoner in SHU; coming from the deputy commissioner of corrections this statement can properly be seen as expressing the official view of the correctional authorities in relation to SHU and to segregation generally.

I do not consider my decisions in the case as being excessive, absurd or arbitrary [as Morin had alleged] but in taking care of security in our institutions I have to take into account my... experience, instinct, 'gut feeling' with a person and a situation; last, I might add that exercise of discretion in the type of administrative decision is not easy in this case and others, and in case of doubt it is my duty to favor the best interest of the service and quite frankly I prefer being told that I am wrong about a person than not having put him in a SHUand learn afterwards that he has been involved in an incident.22

How would section 3 of the segregation code change the nature of this process? It would not preclude consideration of the statement of the deceased victim or that of Cousineau. As will be seen in the next section of the proposed hearing process, it would give Morin an early opportunity, with the assistance of counsel, to challenge his segregation; to point to the dangers of relying upon evidence that cannot be tested by cross-examination (the deceased's statement); to argue that limited weight should be given to a statement that has been denied by its alleged maker to be his when that denial has been accepted as credible by a superior court judge (the Cousineau statement); to question the reliability of a statement and testimony implicating him in a deadly assault when that statement and testimony have evidently been rejected as not credible by a jury which has acquitted him of the murder charge (the Blanchette statement and testimony). But over and above this, Rejean Morin would be able to argue that, contrary to Mr Sauvé's view of existing practices, to justify segregation under section 3 of the code the evidence must implicate the accused prisoner in the violent death of another prisoner beyond a reasonable doubt and that, again contrary to Mr Sauvé's view, when the correctional authorities seek to subject him to the most onerous form of imprisonment he, and not the correctional service, should get the benefit of any doubt.

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