Vader’s lawyer grilled at manslaughter appeal
Man convicted of killing elderly couple seeking stay, acquittal or new trial
Alberta Court of Appeal justices grilled lawyers representing Travis Vader in an Edmonton courtroom Friday during an appeal of his manslaughter convictions in the deaths of Lyle and Marie McCann.
Vader was sentenced to life in prison after Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Denny Thomas found him guilty of manslaughter in connection to the 2010 deaths of the McCanns.
The remains of the couple, who were in their 70s when they disappeared, have never been recovered.
Thomas initially convicted Vader of two counts of second-degree murder, finding that Vader killed the couple in the course of committing a robbery. However, the judge relied on a defunct section of the Criminal Code and had to vacate the murder convictions, instead finding Vader guilty of manslaughter in October 2016.
The period during which Vader will be ineligible to apply for parole was set at seven years.
“We’re asking for a new trial in relation to manslaughter, on the grounds that there were a number of errors made at the trial,” lawyer Brian Beresh said after the hearing Friday morning.
Documents explaining the grounds for the appeal filed in January 2017 ask for his conviction to be set aside and for him to receive either a stay of proceedings or an acquittal. If a new trial is ordered, Vader has requested it be by judge and jury.
Beresh said the initial trial “took way too long ” and that it should have been stayed. Failing that, he said there should be a new trial “simply on manslaughter.”
Beresh relied on the 2016 Jordan decision — a landmark case on reasonable trial times.
Under the Jordan principle, courts must resolve matters in 18 to 30 months or risk having the matters stayed. While the decision has led to stays in a number of high-profile cases, it allows for longer trials in particularly complex prosecutions.
Vader’s conviction predated the decision, but Beresh said it applies retroactively. The case took 54 months to go to trial.
Beresh spent the morning arguing that the complexity of the Vader case aside, it should not be considered exempt from the Jordan timelines.
He sparred with Justice Peter Martin, who said it was a handful of homicide cases in Canadian history where the victims’ bodies were never found — one that engaged and required disclosure from a total of 600 police service employees.
Crown prosecutor Jason Russell told court the trial was “very complicated,” with disclosure by police totalling a terabyte of data including 13,000 photos.
Beresh said the defence’s position is that the case is exceptional because of all the evidence presented by the prosecution.
Vader remains in custody and has been “behaving himself, to my knowledge,” Beresh said.
“As everyone knows, this is not the last station on the railway track. This case could go to the Supreme Court of Canada,” he added.
The justices reserved their decision, which will be released at a later date.