End peremptory jury challenges, lawyer says

Increased representation of Indigenous people on juries could be achieved by getting rid of peremptory challenges, says an Edmonton criminal defence lawyer.

The federal government has said it will review the jury selection process after a public outcry in the wake of a Saskatchewan jury’s recent acquittal of farmer Gerald Stanley in the shooting death of 22-year-old Colten Boushie.

Indigenous people are being excluded from juries for a “variety of reasons,” including through peremptory challenges, defence lawyer Richard Mirasty said in an interview Tuesday.

The recommendation that Canada get of rid of peremptory challenges as a way to fight prejudice against Indigenous people has been around for about 30 years, he said. This would require changes to the Criminal Code, but Mirasty is hopeful this is the direction legislators will move so that more Indigenous people could be part of the pool and potentially selected as jurors.

“I’m an Indigenous person who practises criminal law. I see what this has caused — hateful invective from both sides. Would it change anything? I think it would ,” Mir as ty said.

Boushie, of the Red Pheasant First Nation, was killed on Aug. 9, 2016, after he and four friends drove onto Stanley’s farm, about an hour west of Saskatoon.

Several Indigenous people were rejected by the defence during jury selection with what are called peremptory challenges. Lawyers do not have to say why they chose to exclude a potential juror through such a challenge.

Along with the federal government’s promised review, the verdict has raised questions about how individual provinces and territories select juror pools.

In Alberta, the province’s motor vehicle registry database is used to randomly select individuals to go into a jury pool. That database

I see what this has caused — hateful invective from both sides. Would it change anything? I think it would.

includes people with a driver’s licence, a provincial ID card or a disabled parking placard and covers 95 to 98 per cent of the province’s adult population, according to the Ministry of Justice.

Every year, each court jurisdiction generates a new pool of potential jurors from a designated area around the courthouse. In Edmonton, the annual pool is made up of 100,000 people selected from postal codes within 20 km of the downtown courthouse.

In 2010, an Indigenous woman attempted a constitutional challenge because no one from the Enoch Cree Nation was eligible to serve on her jury because the reserve’s post office was more than 20 km from downtown Edmonton. Her application was rejected, although the charges were later stayed. The province says the postal code for Enoch Cree Nation is now included in the Edmonton pool.