Calgary judge Hughes to take on new job at Alberta Court of Appeal
She’s currently presiding over a double-murder trial.
But soon Justice Beth Hughes will be wearing a new hat.
The longtime Court of Queen’s Bench judge was appointed to the Alberta Court of Appeal Monday, replacing Justice Marina Paperny, who elected to become a supernumerary, or part-time, judge in June 2017.
But until she takes on her new role, Hughes will continue to preside over the upcoming jury trial of double murder suspect Edward Downey, a case currently in pretrial motions before her.
Downey is scheduled to face a jury trial beginning Nov. 26, on two counts of first-degree murder in the July 2016, slayings of Calgary mother Sarah Baillie and her daughter, Taliyah Marsman.
Baillie, 34, was found dead in her Calgary home after failing to show up for work. Her daughter was missing and an Amber Alert was issued. The girl’s body was found a week later ina rural area.
Hughes, a former chief Crown prosecutor in Calgary, was appointed to the bench in 2001. In her time as a Court of Queen’s Bench judge she has presided over many high-profile cases, including the trials of Trevor Kloschinsky and Robert Deer and Mohamed Karim.
In December 2014, Hughes ruled Kloschinsky was not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder in the death of former Mountie Rod Lazenby, who had gone to the killer’s rural home to respond to an animal complaint while working as a peace officer for Foothills M.D.
In 2012, Hughes found Karim guilty of second-degree murder and Deer of manslaughter during a re-trial in connection with the killing of Calgary financier Jack Beauchamp. She ruled Deer had hired Karim to go to Beauchamp’s downtown office to intimidate him and Karim shot and killed him instead. Both men had been charged with first-degree-murder.
Calgary will also get a second new Court of Appeal justice as Barb Veldhuis will move from her Edmonton offices to down south and be replaced there by Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Dawn Pentelechuk.