John L. Hill is a retired criminal and prison law lawyer. He taught correctional law at the Queen's and University of Windsor Law Schools. But in private practice, he dealt with some of Canada's most notorious criminals as well as with some of Canada's best prosecutors and defence lawyers. In retirement, he has become a nonfiction writer. He is a columnist for Law 360 Canada (formerly The Lawyer's Daily), an online newspaper for the legal community. He has also had two books published: Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement and The Rest of the [True Crime] Story. He has also published a story dealing with slavery in southeastern Ontario in a Florida-based magazine. He is currently working on his third book, The Evil That Men Do.
1: Who is your favourite Canadian author?
I first read Stephen Leacock's works in high school. His Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town struck a chord with me because I grew up in a village with fewer than 2000 inhabitants. I could certainly relate to the characters and the light-hearted way he dealt with them. I guess Leacock had even more of an effect on me than I realized as a high school student. I read that he was a political scientist. That revelation led me to take an Honours B.A. in political science at Queen’s University and to stay on to earn an M.A., writing my thesis on Municipal government before I entered law school.
2: What is your favourite movie?
My all-time favourite movie is Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman as the title character, a nonconformist prisoner in a minimum-security southern prison. I saw the movie while I was an undergraduate. I suspect it stayed with me and fed my intrigue on how prisoners think and behave when I ended up practicing prison law and returning to Queen’s to teach it. Of course, my writing is based on true stories of prisoners and their involvement with the law.
3: If they were making a movie from one of your books, who would play the protagonist?
They are not making a movie about my books, but I have been contacted by a producer and screenwriter wanting to turn my first book, Pine Box Parole, into a TV series. In my book, I describe how the prison system turned Terry Fitzsimmons from a rebellious youth into a cold-blooded killer because of the torture he endured, spending six years in solitary confinement. It will not be up to me to cast the series if it is picked up, but I have nonetheless mulled casting over in my mind. I would like to see Vancouver actor Shane Meier play the role of Fitzsimmons. I cannot even imagine who would be the character of Fitzsimmons’ lawyer (me!)
4: What inspires you to write?
As a lawyer, I had to write numerous letters and legal documents, including case briefs and court factums. Once I retired, I recalled making a promise to Terry Fitzsimmons, who urged me to tell his story. Once I sat down in my retirement from my law practice, I set out to write the Fitzsimmons tale. I found that I enjoyed writing and that, by engaging readers with the deficiencies I spotted in our legal system, I could also contribute to positive change. Not only have I now written 3 books, but I also write columns for Law360 Canada, an online newspaper for the legal community, commenting on recent cases.
5: What part of the writing process do you enjoy the most? (i.e., first draft, outlining, editing)
I am in great awe of fiction writers who have to dream up believable tales. My stories are non-fiction. The plot has already been played out. My job is to record it in words from a particular perspective. When I write, I think about the best way to approach a story and then bang out a first draft. The real fun is editing that draft to make it a persuasive narrative. I have only one published work of fiction. It is a story I made up about a man wrongly accused of murdering a local landlord. I enjoyed writing it, but I concluded that writing fiction is much more complicated than writing nonfiction.
6: Has a real person ever inspired a character in your stories?
All my characters are real. I have never disclosed any information that would be subject to solicitor-client privilege. All the facts I set out have been reported in the newspapers or contained in court judgments, which are public records. I am always amazed that even the pettiest of petty criminals have interesting stories to tell. If you look at Norman Mailer’s 1100-page book about Gary Gilmore, The Executioner’s Song, you will find that a substantial amount of his narrative deals with description and anecdotes of characters we have never heard of. Yet it is that interplay that led to Gilmore becoming the murderer that we are all familiar with. The characters must be real, but so must those the main characters interact with.
7: Do you have any unfinished manuscripts in your drawer/computer?
I have an 80,000-word manuscript on my hard drive now. It's just too early to turn my attention to seeking a publisher. I’m still in the process of promoting my last book, Acts of Darkness.
8: Are you part of a writing critique group?
I am part of a small group that meets monthly for 1 hour to chat about writing and encourage each other to keep going. We will sometimes exchange work and seek criticism. The first chapter of my latest book, Acts of Darkness, deals with two men who I believe have been wrongly convicted of massive drug importation, supposedly furthering the work of a Sinaloa cartel and are now serving life imprisonment sentences. Before making final edits, I passed my manuscript to our writing group and asked them the simple question: “After reading this, are you convinced of their innocence?” The feedback was impressive. I was able to revise my work so that both men have hired lawyers seeking exoneration and have been paroled.
9: What is your goal as a writer?
I am hopeful that my work will lead average Canadians to not fall for the rhetoric that we must get tough on crime and that we are all less safe because those granted bail are likely to reoffend. I try to stress that our courts are very good at assessing “what” was done that constituted a crime, but only lately have we started asking the question of “why” these people committed the offences. When we take a hard look at the problem, we see that we have not looked as closely as we should have when children are emotionally or sexually abused. We blame everything on psychiatric problems or drug addiction. Many of those problems could have been corrected early on by providing treatment rather than relying on later punishment. We do live in an unsafe world, but we really do nothing or little when the problem is developing to correct it.
10: Other than writing, what is your passion?
I enjoy a very easy-going home life with my wife and our new Portuguese Water Dog, Caboose (The name is to remind us that we are getting old, and Caboose will be our last dog). We take long walks with the pup daily, but have to get up early because she is so well house-trained. The only other hobby I have is participating from time to time as a background performer (extra) on TV and movie tapings. I have a friend in the Toronto movie industry who has encouraged me to try it out from time to time. I saw myself on the big screen for a millisecond in IT Chapter 2. I was also a performer in Cate Blanchett’s Mrs. America, an FBI agent in The Comey Rule, and, this year, in episodes of Ginny & Georgia. I have no illusion that I will make money. I have a lot of fun doing it.