Lawyer Peter Abrametz represented Tasia Natewayes at the Supreme Court. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski
The Supreme Court has upheld the manslaughter conviction of a treaty member from the Sandy Bay area.
On Friday, Tasia Natewayes was in Ottawa where her lawyer Peter Abrametz argued against a provincial Court of Appeals decision that found her guilty of being a party to the 2012 killing of Dakota Nayneecassum. While there, the Supreme Court dismissed the case.
Nayneecassum was an 18-year-old from Patuanak who had been visiting Prince Albert at the time of his death. Natewayes had acted as driver for the five males who committed the fatal break and enter that night.
At trial in early 2015 she was found not guilty of manslaughter and guilty of break and enter with intent to commit an indictable offence, and she received a five-year sentence.
On appeal, Natewayes was found guilty of being a party to manslaughter, and her conviction on break and enter was overturned. She received an eight-year sentence.
The case was then given leave to be heard before the Supreme Court.
“What the issue was at the Supreme Court was whether she actually had to know that the people she was driving would commit a home invasion or alternatively whether she just needed to know that there was a risk or that there was a danger,” Abrametz said.
Now, he said Canada’s highest court has struck down his argument.
“It was a privilege for us to go there, and I can tell you I convinced myself that we were right and the court didn’t agree with me, so that leaves an unhappy feeling.”
He said aside from the unhappy part, the experience was gratifying, “great and very cool.
“Any court in Canada is just as important but it was, I suppose, nice that the highest judges in our land were spending some time reviewing this particular case from northern Saskatchewan.”
Natewayes had been out on interim release from the healing lodge where she had been serving her eight-year sentence.
With the Supreme Court rejecting her lawyer’s argument, she will have to surrender to law enforcement and return to custody to serve the remainder of her sentence.
Abrametz said there is a chance they will appeal his client’s sentence at the provincial Court of Appeals.