BOUSHIE FAMILY WILL ‘KEEP FIGHTING’
No basis to overturn case, Crown insists
Upon hearing the news Wednesday that the Crown would not appeal the verdict of the Saskatchewan farmer acquitted of killing her son, Colten Boushie’s mother said, “This isn’t the end of the fight.”
Indeed, the Boushie family “is not taking the news well,” according to their lawyer, Chris Murphy, who quoted Debbie Boushie’s reaction.
“I feel terrible for Indigenous people in this province who are part of this justice system,” Murphy said. “The justice system in the province is broken and needs to be fixed. The family is going to keep fighting.”
Prosecutors had 30 days following the Feb. 9 verdict to file an appeal in the case against Gerald Stanley. On Wednesday in Regina, assistant deputy Attorney General Anthony Gerein announced that he saw “no basis” for doing so.
“The Crown cannot appeal because some people have questions about how the investigation was done or what the lawyers did,” he told reporters.
“I know there is much sadness over the decision not to appeal,” he continued. “That is unfortunate, but there can be no appeal because the law does not allow it.”
The case, which saw Stanley face a second-degree murder charge after shooting the 22-year-old Cree man who had driven onto his Biggar-area farm in 2016, polarized the province. Critics saw a jury with no visibly Indigenous members, and concluded that First Nations victims cannot get justice in Canada.
But Gerein said an appeal would not be the proper venue to address those concerns. He said the Crown can only appeal based on an error in law, and only if the mistake was sufficiently grave to affect the outcome of the trial. In a jury case, that’s almost exclusively a matter of the judge’s instructions to the jury.
“There is no basis for concluding the judge said or did anything that would justify an appeal,” he said.
The case attracted massive public interest, with the verdict prompting protests from across the country and a tweet from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Gerein said none of those events had any impact on the Crown’s decision. The public prosecutions branch, he stressed, is fully independent and does not respond to political pressure.
“The public interest, the fact that something is of great concern or seen as an example of something larger, never factors into it,” he said.
Heather Bear, vice-chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, said the decision left her “disheartened.”
“I’m disappointed but I’m not alarmed,” she said. “We’ve been here before when it comes to matters of justice for Indigenous people, especially our youth.
“I was hoping for something different,” she said, noting that she felt the prosecution bungled the case.
Bear also said prosecutors should have consulted with the Boushie family prior to making their decision. In his press conference, Gerein acknowledged that the Crown had not done so.
But Gerein said prosecutor Bill Burge’s handling of the case has his full confidence.
“I believe everything was done appropriately,” he said.
Nicholas Stooshinoff of the Saskatchewan Trial Lawyers Association agreed with that assessment. He said Burge was “vigorous and very forceful” in pursuing a conviction.
He, too, thought that there was no justification for an appeal.
Murphy said he sent a letter to Justice Minister Don Morgan earlier this week outlining what he believed to be an error of law: the fact that the jury was allowed to hear evidence from two defence witnesses who claimed they had experienced hang fires that lasted several seconds.
But with the deadline for launching an appeal set to pass, Stooshinoff said the case will soon be closed.
“There’s no going back on this one,” he said.
Eleanor Sunchild, a Battlefords-area lawyer who has been helping Boushie’s family, said the family may pursue civil action for wrongful death now that criminal proceedings are over.
She said she is constantly in awe of Boushie’s mother, who keeps sharing her story and fighting for justice reform in spite of everything that has happened.
“She’s not fighting just for Colten, but she’s fighting for every other Indigenous person in Canada because she doesn’t want this situation to happen to another Indigenous family,” Sunchild said.