Legal arguments dominate day at Durant trial

The running legal battle between the Crown and the defence on evidence’s admissibility in the Michael Durant murder trial continued Tuesday.

At issue, Tuesday is testimony and statements by a witness who has died. Durant’s attorney, Joe Wilkinson, wants them as part of the trial record.

Kevin Fancy was with rooming with John Mcneil, the victim’s boyfriend, around the time of the murder. Both Fancy and Mcneil are dead, as is another critical witness, Raymond “Hoss” Gallen.

“Certain aspects of Mr. Fancy’s transcripts that may have double hearsay or other evidentiary issues,” Wilkinson told the Superior Court Justice Gerald Taylor at the start of a long day of legal arguments. “There are admissibility issues with some of the evidence.”

Wilkinson is using an alternative suspect defence to defend Durant by essentially putting the victim’s boyfriend, John Mcneil, on trial for the murder.

Durant, 47, is accused of killing a 32-year-old Niagara Falls woman in August 2003. The victim’s body was discovered in a ditch near Darby Road and Grassybrook Road on the outskirts of Niagara Falls.

The Court of Appeal overturned Durant’s conviction in 2019.

Durant, who has been in custody since Niagara Regional Police arrested him in January 2006, was convicted of the murder in 2012 and sentenced to life with no possibility of parole for at least 25 years.

The court has a publication ban in place on the victim’s name.

Crown Attorney Andrew Sabbadini objected to the evidence on the grounds of “trial fairness” because he can’t crossexamine Fancy.

Wilkinson told Taylor that Fancy’s evidence should be admissible because the law recognizes that cross-examination is not the exclusive means to establish reliability.

There was, however, a twist to Tuesday’s arguments. Fancy was a witness for the Crown at the first trial.

There are provisions in the criminal code for evidence from previous proceedings if the witnesses are dead or unavailable.