No legal basis to appeal Stanley verdict: Crown

The not-guilty verdict in the trial of Gerald Stanley will stand, after the Crown announced it will not appeal his acquittal in the shooting death of Colten Boushie.

Prosecutors had 30 days following the Feb. 9 verdict to file an appeal in the case. On Wednesday in Regina, assistant deputy attorney general Anthony Gerein announced the public prosecutions office 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,” Gerein 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 Boushie’s 2016 death on a Biggararea farm, 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 due to 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 trial judge was Court of Queen’s Bench Chief Justice Martel Popescul.

The case attracted massive public interest, with the verdict prompting protests from across the country and a tweet from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several federal ministers. 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.

The Boushie family “is not taking the news well,” according to their lawyer, Chris Murphy. He said the first words Boushie’s mother uttered when she heard there would be no appeal were, “This isn’t the end of the fight.

“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.”

Murphy said he was disappointed by the decision, but not surprised. Vice-chief Heather Bear of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) expressed similar thoughts, saying 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.”

Bear also said prosecutors should have consulted with the Boushie family prior to making their decision. In his news conference, Gerein acknowledged the Crown had not done so, noting the decision was strictly a legal one.

“I was hoping for something different,” Bear added, noting she felt the prosecution bungled the case.

“I still think the prosecution did not do their job in terms of keeping Mr. Stanley on trial and not the Indigenous kids,” said Bear.

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.

Like Gerein, he felt that there was no grounds for an appeal of the verdict.

“I would have been surprised if there had been an appeal,” Stooshinoff said. “I didn’t see any basis for it. Neither did my colleagues or anyone else.”

But Murphy said he does see a basis. He sent a letter to provincial Justice Minister Don Morgan earlier this week outlining what he believed to be an error of law: the fact 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 Battlefordsarea 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 Debbie Baptiste, 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. “She doesn’t want another Indigenous person killed unnecessarily and she wants justice for everyone else that this happens to. And that’s what keeps her going. It’s bigger than just Colten himself.”

Gerein said he understands the pain of the Boushie family, but called on everyone to retain “faith” in the justice system.

“I urge no one to be discouraged or distrust the system,” he said. “We are all in this together and must be united against crime and in the search for justice.”