Smuggler’s jury not true peers
Set aside for a moment the more farcical elements of his trial, and one can’t help but wonder if the Osoyoos gun smuggler formerly known as Alex Louie would have been convicted by a true jury of his peers.
Louie, the self-described North American Indian who prefers to be called Senk’lip, was convicted of nine offences in October 2017 following trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Penticton.
It took the jury, which didn’t appear to feature any members of Indigenous descent, just two hours to make its decision.
Readers will recall Senk’lip was arrested at the Osoyoos border crossing early on Feb. 1, 2017, as he tried to re-enter Canada from Washington State.
Tied to the undercarriage of his car were two handguns, while extra magazines and ammunition had been stuffed behind the vehicle’s dash.
Senk’lip, who represented himself, argued at first that the law as we know it doesn’t apply to him because his people never signed a treaty with Canada.
Once the judge blocked that avenue, Senk’lip shifted his defence to the argument that Indigenous people like him have for eons travelled freely across what is now the Canada-U.S. border and should still enjoy the right to do so without having to check in with customs. Senk’lip even called as a witness former Penticton Indian Band councillor Pierre Kruger.
“We used to go down across the line, we’d buy rifles, pistols, ammunition, and we didn’t have to declare it coming back,” Kruger testified.
“As more and people moved to B.C. and the State of Washington, things got a little more complicated and we had to start proving ourselves.”
Senk’lip also cross-examined a border guard about annual paddling trips on Osoyoos Lake during which Indigenous people from Canada take a canoe across the international boundary and meet up with friends and family on the Washington side for a celebration – all without interference from customs officers.
The jury obviously didn’t buy any of it – nor did it hear why Senk’lip felt the need to hide the guns if he truly believed he wasn’t doing anything wrong – but one can’t help but think it might have been a different story had there been Indigenous people on the panel.
Data from the 2016 census shows Indigenous people account for about eight per cent of the population in the South Okanagan-Similkameen.
Therefore, a true jury of Senk’lip’s peers should have featured at one Indigenous person. And one person is all it takes for an acquittal or mistrial.
Senk’lip’s arguments may seem ludicrous to the average white person, but perhaps they would have resonated with Indigenous people. We’ll never know.
He now appears headed for the mandatory minimum penalty of three years in prison with sentencing scheduled for March 19.
That’s serious jail time, although it doesn’t elevate the matter to the same status of the more well-known murder trials elsewhere regarding the deaths of Colten Boushie and Tina Fontaine, both of whom were Indigenous people allegedly killed by white people.
Juries in both cases recently came back with acquittals, prompting calls for reform of the justice system to better represent Indigenous people.
To date, no one has come up with a better way of doing things, but it’s clear one is needed – if for no other reason that justice must always be seen to have been done.
Joe Fries is the city editor of the Penticton Herald