Judge postpones Millard murder trial
Accused in Babcock death had wanted a longer delay
Dellen Millard and Mark Smich’s trial for the first-degree murder of Laura Babcock will be postponed from February 2017 to September 2017, a judge ruled Friday.
Millard had hoped to postpone the trial until January 2018, when Stephen Bernstein, a defence lawyer he wanted to hire, would be available. Superior Court Justice John McMahon said that Millard had had more than a year to retain a lawyer and, against the repeated urging of the court to hire a lawyer, had maintained he would represent himself.
The right of an accused to counsel of choice is not absolute, and must be balanced with a co-accused’s right to a trial in a reasonable time and the right of the Crown to have a trial in a reasonable amount of time in the interest of the community, McMahon said.
“Mr. Millard has not acted diligently,” said McMahon, finding that delaying the trial until January 2018 would be unreasonable to Smich and the Crown. The trial will proceed in September whether or not Millard has retained a lawyer, he said.
Both Crown prosecutor Jill Cameron and Thomas Dungey, the lawyer representing Smich, objected to the adjournment request, arguing this was a ploy by Millard to manipulate the courts.
Ahead of the Tim Bosma trial, Millard sought adjournment after adjournment, Dungey said.
“That is the pattern we are seeing again . . . what we have is Mr. Millard controlling the courts,” he said.
Both Millard and Smich are serving life sentences for the first-degree murder of Tim Bosma. They are appealing their convictions.
Millard faces a third trial for the first-degree murder of his father Wayne Millard. That trial may now be set for the spring of 2018. He has not yet retained a lawyer for that trial, court heard, though he is working on hiring Ravin Pillay, who represented him during the Bosma murder trial.
Millard addressed the court to explain the delay in hiring lawyers. He said he has been denied legal aid, and that ongoing civil court matters have made it difficult to obtain funding. McMahon said the court would assist in expediting any civil court matters so that the criminal trials can proceed.
Millard also said for the record that he had specifically chosen Bernstein to represent him.
“I’ve gone through a process of selecting which counsel to represent me. These aren’t light charges,” he said. “This is pretty serious stuff.”
Babcock, a 23-year-old woman from Toronto who may have been in a relationship with Millard, went missing in July 2012. Police did not confirm her death until 2014, when Millard and Smich were charged with her murder. At the same time, Millard was charged with the murder of his father who died in November 2012 in what was deemed at the time to be a suicide.
Millard will appear in court next Friday.