First-degree charge gets underway Monday

A first-degree murder trial will get underway in Medicine Hat on Monday, marking the first such local case in more than 14 years and the first major trial conducted here under pandemic health protocols.

Jury selection is scheduled to take place Monday and Tuesday in the homicide trial of Robert Hoefman. He is accused of deliberately killing Medicine Hat man James

Satre, who police allege was picked at random to further an unrelated extortion plot.

More than 350 prospective jurors are set to report in staggered sessions over two days at a local hotel.

This summer Alberta Court announced it would hold offsite proceedings at larger venues to comply with physical distancing requirements during the coronavirus pandemic.

The six-week trial itself will take place Medicine Hat Court of Queen’s Bench complex, with 12 jurors spaced out in the public gallery of one courtroom along with the judge, lawyers, the accused and witnesses.

A limited public gallery with closed circuit television feed will be set up in another court room. Accredited media members are encouraged to view the proceedings on a videoconferencing system put in place last spring for Queens Bench matters.

More than 40 witnesses are scheduled to be called by the prosecution, led by Crown prosecutor Ramona Robbins.

Defence lawyers are Ian McKay and Heather Ferg, of the Calgary-based firm McKay-Ferg. Justice Dallas Miller will preside.

Hoefman, 58, was arrested on Nov. 9, 2017 on charges of extortion, and then with firstdegree murder in January 2018.

Police found the body of Satre, 64, near the laneway of his Mill Street home in the South Flats on the morning of Oct. 11, 2017.

That was a day after authorities opened an investigation in to a complaint of extortion against a local person, whose identity remains under a publication ban.

In mid-October Medicine Hat police announced they believed the two crimes were connected.