New murder trial hailed as victory
Advocacy group that intervened in Cindy Gladue murder case celebrates court overturning acquittal and ordering new trial
The ordering of a new trial for a man acquitted in the death of an indigenous women in an Edmonton hotel is being hailed as a victory for an institute that gained legal intervener status in the case.
“This is the most important case in my lifetime,” Muriel Stanley Venne, president and founder of the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women, said Monday.
In a strongly worded decision released Friday, the Court of Appeal of Alberta overturned a jury’s 2015 acquittals of Bradley Barton for first-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of Cindy Gladue.
Gladue bled to death after a night of what Barton called consensual, rough sex. During the trial, a medical examiner testified that an 11-centimetre cut in Gladue’s vagina had been caused by a sharp object.
Barton’s acquittal sparked outrage and protests across Canada.
When the Crown appealed, the institute and the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund gained intervener status in the case and argued Gladue had been dehumanized and stereotyped throughout the trial.
In its decision, the court found instructions to the jury would have left jurors with the impression that Barton paying Gladue for sex meant she consented to doing whatever he wanted, and did nothing to counter discriminatory and biased assumptions the jury may have developed through repeated descriptions of Gladue as a “native girl” and “a prostitute” during the trial.
“Add to this the likely risk that because Gladue was labelled a ‘native’ prostitute — who was significantly intoxicated — the jury would believe she was even more likely to have consented to whatever Barton did and was even less worthy of the law’s protection. This is the very type of thinking that (section) 276 was introduced to eradicate,” the court ruled.
Section 276 is a part of the Criminal Code that relates to the nonadmissibility of evidence about a complainant’s sexual activity.
Stanley Venne said the institute has since become engaged in other Alberta cases that have raised questions about troubling treatment of victims, including a case where a Calgary judge told a sexual assault complainant to keep her knees together and, more recently, the case of an Edmonton sexual assault complainant who was jailed for five nights in the same institution as her now-convicted attacker to ensure her attendance in court during the preliminary hearing.
Stanley Venne said Friday’s decision will have implications beyond just this case, and the ruling will set a precedent for challenging mistreatment of indigenous women by every level of the justice system.
“The courts have not been kind to our women. Ever,” Stanley Venne said.