Family angry after jury acquits mother
Frances Sugar found not guilty in stabbing death of her daughter
Gasps and cries filled a Saskatoon courtroom as the verdict was read.
It was not the outcome Lindey Sugar’s wife, sister and son expected: a jury found Frances Sugar not guilty in the stabbing death of Lindey, her 34-year-old daughter.
“How can you guys do that?” Lindey’s loved ones yelled as the verdict was read out.
Screams and wails were heard in the hallway shortly after the eightwoman, four-man jury delivered its verdict Wednesday in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench.
The three options open to them were acquittal, a guilty verdict on the charge of second-degree murder, or a guilty verdict to the charge of manslaughter. The defence conceded that Frances did fatally stab her daughter. Although it was done in self-defence, Frances will have to live with it, her defence lawyer told reporters outside court.
“I think that maybe the court system is behind her, but life is ahead,” Kathy Hodgson-Smith said. “I think there is a lot the family needs to deal with and a lot that Fran has to deal with. She is going to face that head on.”
To find Frances Sugar guilty of second-degree murder, each juror would have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that she caused Lindey’s death unlawfully and not in self-defence, Justice Ron Mills noted during his instructions to the jury on Tuesday. The jury also would have had to conclude that Frances was sober enough to form the intent to stab and kill her daughter.
“I wouldn’t say we were confident. I would say we were comfortable with the jury seeing everything that it could and making the decision,” Hodgson-Smith said. “We believed they would make the right decision. From our perspective, they have.”
Hodgson-Smith maintained her client was terrified of her 34-yearold daughter when she stabbed her to death in self defence on the side of a gravel road south of Saskatoon.
The Crown maintained Frances murdered her daughter, “plain and simple.”
According to testimony heard during the trial, the 53-year-old mother and her daughter were arguing in Lindey’s car as they drove south of the city on June 23, 2014. At one point, Lindey stopped the car, pulled her mother out of the vehicle and began to rough her up, according to the testimony of Dennis Kissling, a friend of Lindey’s who was in the car.
Kissling said he then saw Frances Sugar stab her daughter in the neck.
Hodgson-Smith argued this week that Frances had no choice but to stab her daughter and that she was acting in self-defence.
Crown prosecutor Melodi Kujawa argued there was no evidence that Lindey ever threatened Sugar’s life. She only threatened to beat up Frances, and the force Frances Sugar used was not proportional to the threat posed by Lindey, Kujawa said.