Guards face trial for role in inmate’s death
TORONTO • Two guards at a London, Ont., jail will have to stand trial for their alleged role in an inmate’s death, Ontario’s top court ruled Monday, reversing an earlier decision to stay charges against the pair due to delayed proceedings.
Corrections officers Leslie Lonsbary and Stephen Jurkus were charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life after 29-year-old Adam Kargus was beaten to death by his cellmate at the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre in October 2013.
A lower court stayed the charges against the two officers in February 2017, ruling the case against them had eclipsed the 30-month time limit for trials set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Crown prosecutors appealed, arguing the judge made errors in her analysis of the time-frame rules, which allow certain types of delays to occur without counting toward the 30-month limit.
In a decision released Monday, the Ontario Court of Appeal found in favour of the Crown, saying the lower court judge had miscalculated the total delay in the case.
“There was no unreasonable delay,” Justice Michal Fairburn wrote in a decision agreed to by fellow justices Sarah Pepall and Robert Sharpe.
Lonsbary and Jurkus were on duty at Elgin Middlesex the night that inmate Anthony George beat Kargus to death in a jailhouse shower stall. The beating lasted about an hour and was so loud that an inmate on the floor below could hear “excessive banging,” Fairburn said in her decision. Kargus screamed for help, but guards did not respond until his body was found the next morning, the justice added.
George pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year in connection with Kargus’ death, and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.
The appeal court’s decision focused largely on evaluating delays in the case.
Delays caused by the defence, and delays caused by “exceptional” circumstances — which can include specific incidents or the general complexity of the case — do not count toward the 30-month ceiling, Fairburn said in her decision. Among the time not properly taken into account by the lower court judge was a “three-month delay generated by the need for an additional day to complete the preliminary inquiry,” Fairburn said.
Two “critical” events occurred that necessitated the extra day of inquiry: the Crown dropped their charge against a third guard who was then added to the prosecutors’ list of witnesses, and Lonsbary’s lawyers decided to add their own new witness to the defence list.
Once the relevant delays are properly subtracted, the case against Lonsbary lasted just below 30 months and, although the case against Jurkus lasted three weeks longer than the limit, the difference can be excused because of the complexity of the case, Fairburn said.