Courtroom heckling could be grounds for appeal, lawyer suggests
Comments uttered by members of the courtroom gallery within earshot of jurors who convicted double-murder suspect Edward Downey could be grounds for appeal, his lawyer suggested Friday.
Defence counsel Gavin Wolch was granted a court order preserving audiotapes of recordings during the final few days of his client’s Calgary trial.
Lawyer Janna Watts, who works in the same law firm as Wolch, appeared before Court of Queen’s Justice Karen Horner to get an order that recordings from Dec. 12, 13 and 17 not be deleted.
Court recordings are automatically deleted after 30 days, meaning any potential evidence would be destroyed during the next few days.
When contacted about the order, Wolch said it was sought just as a precaution.
He noted audible comments from the gallery could be heard during the trial, to the point Justice Beth Hughes, who presided over the hearing, warned jurors about them in her final instructions.
“The jury was charged to ignore the gallery because there was some heckling and things like that,” Wolch said.
He said he doesn’t intend to review the material, but wanted it preserved in case appellate counsel wished to listen to it in the future.
“I don’t know if it’s ever going to be an issue, but I didn’t want it lost in case someone wants to make it an issue down the road,” Wolch said.
The three days of proceedings he’s asked to be preserved involve two days of testimony by Downey and closing arguments by Crown and defence lawyers.
“I heard someone call out ‘liar’ when I was making my closing arguments,” said Wolch, providing an example.
During Downey’s testimony, Hughes had to admonish the audience to keep quiet after Colin Marsman, the father of the little girl who was murdered, stormed from the courtroom during a profane tirade.
When Downey said he didn’t know who killed little Taliyah Marsman, her father stood up and said: “(Expletive) you, you piece of (expletive). You (expletive) coward.”
Jurors deliberated less than three hours, which included a lunch break, before finding Downey, 48, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of five-year-old Taliyah and her mother, Sara Baillie.
They rejected his claim he left Baillie’s home the morning of July 11, 2016, with both victims alive and the mom arguing with a drug dealer he knew only as Terrance.
I heard someone call out ‘liar’ when I was making my closing arguments.
Crown prosecutor Carla MacPhail successfully argued Downey murdered Baillie because he was angry at her for interfering with his relationship with his girlfriend and that he stuffed her duct tape-bound body into a laundry hamper in her daughter’s bedroom.
He then kidnapped Taliyah and murdered her as well to silence her as a witness, MacPhail said.
Downey will receive an automatic life sentence, but a date has not been set yet for a hearing to determine his parole ineligibility.