A legal scholar says errors made in the Gerald Stanley trial likely had an impact on the final outcome.
Twenty-two-year-old Colten Boushie of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation was shot and killed by the Saskatchewan farmer in 2016.
Stanley was acquitted of all charges, including manslaughter, in a trial last year.
Kent Roach, who teaches at the University of Toronto, says in reviewing transcripts of the trial he was alarmed to find a more thorough screening of potential jurors was not done.
“I was very surprised to find that before they were empanelled, the jurors were not asked questions about whether either their views on race or their exposure to pre-trial publicity would have prevented them from deciding in the case, impartially, just on the basis of the evidence heard in court.”
Roach, who was previously the dean of law at the University of Saskatchewan, is the author of a new book on the trial called Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice: The Gerald Stanley and Colten Boushie Case.
He also says the jury was not properly instructed in key areas of Canadian law that pertained to the case.
“The jury was never told that self-defence, or defence of property in Canadian law, has to not only be that the accused, Mr. Stanley, felt that he, his property, or he and his family were threatened, but also there has to be a reasonable basis for that belief.”
Roach says another problem with the trial is the jury was not properly instructed on “hangfire.”
Hangfire is said to occur when there is a delay between when the trigger of a gun is pulled and the bullet actually fired.
Stanley’s defence argued he killed Boushie accidentally because of hangfire.
However, the U of T professor says the jury was not given enough guidance to be able to separate actual fact on hangfire from unproven theories.
(PHOTO: Colten Boushie. File photo.)