Mark Smich wants outstanding murder charge dropped
Convicted killer Mark Smich is asking for an outstanding first-degree murder charge to be tossed.
On Thursday, Smich’s defence lawyer Thomas Dungey advised the court in Toronto that he will file an application to have his client’s charge in the Laura Babcock case thrown out due to delays.
It’s been close to three years since Smich, 29, and his friend Dellen Millard, 31, were charged with murdering Laura Babcock, a 23-year-old Toronto woman who was romantically linked to Millard when she disappeared in the summer of 2012.
Until the application is filed, Dungey declined to comment on the details of their argument.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that anyone charged with a crime has a right to be tried in a reasonable time.
Millard has been criticized before for dragging his feet in retaining a lawyer for the Babcock case.
Initially, Millard said he would be representing himself. When he changed his mind, he blamed the delay on financial difficulties after being denied legal aid.
Dungey and assistant Crown attorney Jill Cameron accused him of trying to play the courts.
The trial was initially scheduled to be underway by now but was pushed back until September.
By then, it will have been roughly 41 months since the charges were laid.
Millard is also additionally charged with first-degree murder in the death of his father, Wayne, whose November 2012 death was originally ruled a suicide.
Smich and Millard are serving life sentences after being convicted last June for the first-degree murder of Ancaster’s Tim Bosma, who was killed in May 2013 after taking the two men for a test drive of his pickup truck. Both are appealing their convictions.
The application in the Babcock case is being filed by Smich alone, and Dungey says he has received no indication that Millard’s counsel will file a similar motion.
They will be back in court March 2 to set a date for the filing.