Not jury’s role to ‘send a message’

Defence attorneys say Crown hasn’t proven case in double homicide

Two half-brothers on trial for a double murder were among a group of nine young men on Spadina Ave. when gunfire erupted outside a restaurant early Jan. 31, 2016, leaving two men dead and three injured, a Toronto jury has heard.

But the Crown has not proven Kyle Sparks MacKinnon and Jahmal Richardson fatally shot two strangers, David Eminess and Quinn Taylor, and wounded three others, defence lawyers for the accused men have argued in final submissions.

James Lockyer, who repre- sents Richardson, told jurors the nine men — whose movements were partially captured on storefront surveillance cameras — did not cover themselves in glory by fleeing the crime scene and failing to provide assistance to two dying men. “Whichever of the two amongst the nine were the actual gunman that morning, the other seven should be ashamed of themselves as well,” Lockyer said during closing arguments.

“Whether or not the other seven knew that two among their company had firearms in their possession, before they had been fired, they still fled the scene, made no attempt to summon help and made no attempt to assist.”

He outlined a scenario for jurors implicating another man in the group, Devlin Glasgow, as the shooter, suggesting security footage showed him bending to conceal a gun in his trousers that he later discarded in a backyard of a nearby house. Glasgow did not testify during the trial, nor did either defendant. Defence lawyer Sid Freeman urged jurors Wednesday not to convict Sparks MacKinnon “because of the circumstances of this case.”

“Your role is not to send a message to the community about gun violence,” or to supply the victims’ and their families with the verdicts you think they want, she said.

Richardson, 33, and Sparks MacKinnon, 28, have pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, attempted murder with a firearm and two aggravated assaults. The victims and their friend, Stewart Douglas, were searching for an after-hours party in Kensington Market when, Douglas testified, he asked for directions from a group of men standing outside the New Ho King restaurant on the west side of Spadina, several blocks south of College St.

The trial was interrupted over Christmas and resumed this week. At least one other man opened fire in the street, sending people running for cover. At least 16 shots were fired from at least two guns.

The defence lawyers cautioned jurors about notoriously unreliable eyewitness evidence and raised the spectre that blind acceptance could result in the kind of wrongful convic- tions that “haunt” the justice system.

Freeman urged the jury not to accept Taylor’s last words because so many things could have affected his reliability as he lay mortally wounded after being pumped with at least five bullets.

Taylor also said the shooter was six foot two, which “does not match Mr. Sparks MacKinnon’s height, it’s nowhere close.” He is five foot seven.

It might be tempting to accept a dying man’s last words as “poetic justice,” but “this isn’t the poetic justice system,” she said.

Superior Court Justice Ian MacDonnell is expected to finish his legal instructions to the jury Friday, when deliberations are scheduled to begin.