Convicted killer may appeal after sentencing
The lawyer for Marie Magoon, who was convicted June 4 of second- degree murder in the beating death of stepdaughter Meika Jordan nearly four years ago, says he will wait until after a sentencing hearing on Sept. 18 to decide whether to file an appeal.
Her common- law husband and father of the six- year- old girl, Spencer Jordan, filed his notice of the same second- degree murder conviction last week, and the Crown previously filed its appeals to the acquittals of first- degree murder of both parents in late June.
“I think Mr. Jordan’s lawyer Mitch Stephensen filed his appeal because the Crown had already filed theirs,” Michael Bates, Magoon’s counsel, said on Thursday.
“From my perspective I always want to wait, not because I can, but because we want to assess if there is a basis for the sentence appeal. If we decide to proceed, we’ll file both conviction and sentence appeal together.”
If we decide to proceed, we’ll file both conviction and sentence appeal together.
The next speak- to list at the Alberta Court of Appeal is Sept. 15, but even if Jordan and Magoon make it on to the list, it is not expected anything will be determined at that time.
Both Jordan and Magoon face automatic life sentences without a chance of parole for 10 to 25 years for the severe beatings over three days that caused Meika to be taken to Alberta Children’s Hospital unconscious on Nov. 13, 2011. She died of her injuries the following day.
Crown prosecutor Susan Pepper has said she and co- prosecutor Hyatt Mograbee will be seeking the higher end of the parole ineligibility — close to 25 years — for both killers, because of the “heinous nature of the acts.”
In their notices of appeal, the prosecutors says Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Rosemary Nation erred in law in concluding the facts as found did not constitute firstdegree murder.
In his notice of appeal, Jordan’s lawyer lists four specific grounds of appeal.
Nation said in her verdict that although the couple clearly overstepped any authority they had to discipline Meika, she did not find that Meika was confined, thus it was not statutorily elevated to first- degree murder.
However, she said both killers were angry and frustrated about their financial situation and that Meika was not complying with their commands to run stairs and other inappropriate forms of punishment and they both inflicted injuries that led to her death.
She said the couple had the necessary intention and directly participated in the assaults that led to Meika’s death, and that is sufficient to find causation.