Decision reserved in Hants County double-murder conviction
A former Hants County man is now awaiting a decision from the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal on his second appeal of murder convictions in the deaths of two people more than 21 years ago.
Leslie Douglas Greenwood’s lawyer, Michelle Psutka, appeared before the court last week in an all-day hearing.
Greenwood was first convicted in 2012 in connection with the deaths of Barry Mersereau and Nancy Christensen, who were shot to death in their Burlington, Hants County, home in September 2000. He was arrested in 2010.
But those convictions were overturned on appeal in 2014 and a new trial was ordered. That didn’t happen until January 2018, when he was convicted again. A few months later he appealed, and then later amended the appeal.
It lists seven specific grounds of appeal. They include an allegation that the trial judge erred in his charge to the jury on the issue of party liability for first-degree murder; that he erred in dismissing a defence motion claiming abuse of process in relation to Greenwood’s statement to an undercover officer; that Greenwood’s statement to police should not have been admitted because it was improperly derived from abusive police conduct; and that the judge erred in failing to review evidence that would counter suggestions Greenwood was part of a conspiracy.
The appeal also alleges that the judge erred by cautioning the jury about the evidence favourable to Greenwood provided by a witness, and that he erred in allowing the Crown to use the transcript of the former chief medical examiner evidence from the first trial at the second and dismissed a defence application to introduce the doctor’s preliminary inquiry evidence in response.
The chief medical officer was suffering from dementia by the time the second trial got underway and couldn’t testify.
The appeal also says that the judge erred in dismissing a defence request to adjourn an application to argue that the trial was not held within a reasonable time.
If successful, Greenwood wants a new trial, or, if not, an order for a new trial confined to the issue of whether the trial occurred within a reasonable time or, failing those, that the convictions for first-degree murder be quashed and that a conviction for second-degree murder be substituted and the matter be sent for sentencing.
First-degree murder convictions result in an automatic minimum of 25 years in jail before someone can apply for parole, while a conviction for second-degree murder requires that a judge sets the minimum at between 10 and 25 years after hearing submissions by the Crown and defence.
Crown attorneys Mark Scott and Erica Koresawa argued at the appeal that the judge didn’t err in any of the ways cited by Greenwood.
“The main thrust of our argument for the statement and for the unreasonable delay argument was that Mr. Greenwood didn’t suffer any prejudice and that his statements were properly admissible,” Scott said. “For the jury charge complaints, our primary argument was all of them were to be measured on a standard of prejudice or fairness, and there were no objections from trial counsel, which should be very telling.”
The Crown attorneys also said that if the evidence of a co-accused was accepted, “as it must have been to get to the verdict, then the case is overwhelming, and a result none of this should have any bearing on the outcome.”
The jury deliberated for only three hours before coming back with the guilty verdicts at the retrial.
The appeal court panel of Justices David Farrar, Elizabeth Van den Eynden and Carole Beaton reserved decision and will file a written decision at a future date.