Calgary Herald

Court of Appeal upholds conviction

Search of Garland’s sprawling Airdrie farm was necessary, top court rules

- KEVIN MARTIN Kmartin@postmedia.com On Twitter: @Kmartincou­rts

The frantic search of an Airdrie property following the disappeara­nce of a Calgary couple and their grandson was not unlawful, Alberta’s top court ruled Friday in upholding Douglas Garland’s triple-murder conviction.

A three-member Alberta Court of Appeal panel agreed with Crown prosecutor Christine Rideout that Justice David Gates made no errors in admitting crucial evidence gleaned from the July 4, 2014, search by police of Garland’s parents’ sprawling rural farm.

Defence counsel Alias Sanders had argued an “exigent” search of the 40-acre property northeast of Calgary wasn’t warranted because police didn’t have sufficient evidence to believe the missing victims were there.

“What was lacking was a reasonable lead these people were on the farm,” Sanders told the appeal judges.

But the Court of Appeal panel disagreed.

“In matters involving protection of life the police have little choice but to err on the side of caution,” the appeal judges said in their written ruling.

“Significan­tly, it was not alleged the police had an ulterior motive for entering onto the appellant’s property and searching it, other than to find the victims, hopefully still alive. We see no basis to interfere.”

Appeal justices Peter Costigan, Peter Martin and Thomas Wakeling noted Gates found as a fact “interferen­ce with the appellant’s liberty was necessary as the police had a reasonable basis to believe that one or more the victims may be on the appellant’s property, still be alive and in need of medical assistance,”

Gates also said “there was no reasonable alternativ­e at the time but to proceed with a warrantles­s search of the property.”

“These factual findings were well supported by the evidence,” the appeal judges said.

Garland was convicted in February 2017 of three charges of first-degree murder in the June 30, 2014, deaths of Alvin Liknes, 66, his wife, Kathy Liknes, 53, and their five-year-old grandson, Nathan O’brien.

The trio went missing from the Liknes’ southwest Calgary residence while the child was there for a sleepover. Nathan’s mother, Jennifer O’brien, discovered them missing and a bloody scene that morning when she went to pick up her son.

The appeal judges also rejected Sanders’s argument Garland had a reasonable apprehensi­on of bias on Gates’s part because of comments the judge made to jurors.

On three separate occasions, the trial judge discussed the gruesome nature of some of the evidence jurors heard.

“With respect, viewed in the context of this difficult trial, we find nothing inappropri­ate about these comments,” the appeal court said.

Garland was handed the maximum period of parole ineligibil­ity on three counts of first-degree murder of 75 years.

 ?? MIKE DREW/FILES ?? Douglas Garland was convicted of triple murders.
MIKE DREW/FILES Douglas Garland was convicted of triple murders.

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