Gerald Stanley found not guilty in death of Colten Boushie
- Thread starter Charlemagne
- Start date
I just answered re the peremptories. And you can't join counts of lesser offences with a murder indictment, IIRC.
Thanks, Had no idea the lawyers would reject so many people. Would be annoying if you felt someone was reasonable and the other side rejected them.
Had the prosecution gone after lesser charges would they have had a better chance of a conviction?
Don't claim to be expert in the Criminal Code of Canada, but yes as a statement of the Common Law, Oagre is entirely correct, Manslaughter is indeed a Lesser Included Offense to Murder.
I see that Smooth60 has already answered this and mentioned that in this instance the prosecutors actually charged the Lesser Included Offense (for those that don't know this is primarily to make sure that it is kept before the Jury's mind).
Actually the law did work in that a jury of citizens and not a faceless legal system aquitted him.
In other words people like you did decide he was in the right.
Well as Smooth60 pointed out they did charge Manslaughter. But you have to be careful with pushing a lesser included offense lest the Jury decide well that's a good compromise -- even though all the elements of the more serious charge have in fact been met. In fact at least in the U.S. prosecutors will sometimes even have the judge take a Lesser Included Charge such as Manslaughter off the table
Another thing you need to keep in mind is what is termed the merger doctrine (in Canada typically referred to as the Kienapple principle). Where the Lesser Included Charge merges into the more serious charge e.g. you can't be convicted of both Murder and Manslaughter for the same act or both robbery and larceny (if larceny is an element of robbery).
Yes he has been arrested on those firearms charges, 2 of them I think I read, and will be going to court for them next month I believe.
Careless storage I think and another one.
If anything he should walk on any firearms charges. I don't know if this falls under "fruit of the poisonous tree" but it comes down to this - if these kids hadn't come onto his property and tried to steal, he would never have taken out his gun and thus any offences would not have come to light. So I think he should walk on that.
Again, my issue with him being found not guilty is it sets the precedent that lethal force is allowed and all one has to do is claim accidental. I don't think he deserves a ton of time in jail but he brought a gun into a situation where it wasn't needed (again, he says he didn't know about the other gun) and someone ended up dead.
Lethal force is allowed if you think you or those around you you want to protect, are in mortal danger. I would automatically assume so if people trespass with an obvious intent to cause damage, because I'm not going to wait there for them to start shooting at me for me to decide that it's deadly force. The CCC allows you to prevent your property being taken away. Any physical resistance they put up against you is automatically an assault on you, a Criminal Code offense.
Even if a person has no visible weapon, but walks towards me in a challenging and agressive manner, I'm not going to stand there and wait to get beaten to death before I decide to arm myself. I have a reasonable expectation that a person younger, stronger than me may cause my death, even with his bare hands. The fact that an aggressor shows a knife doesn't mean that I'm limited to using a knife to defend myself because I have an expectation that a knife will kill me. So I'm justified in stopping an agressor with a gun. However, as soon as he turns around, then I have to stand down.
Defense and accidents are unrelated to each other. If you shoot someone in the back and claim it was an accident, you will go to jail if you can't prove that it was an accident.
IMO, he's not going to walk on the firearms storage charge. What was a handgun doing in his shed? Your restricted firearm must be securely stored in a locked safe or cabinet with a trigger lock at the address on your Authorisation to Transport (now part of your license), and that's normally your house, not your shed. You are not allowed to go plinking with a handgun on your property, even on a Saskatchewan farm, unless you happen to have a proper gun range that's been approved by the Chief Firearms Officer of your Province.
But there are potentially 100's of people in a jury call and the trial only needs 12.
"Fruit of the poisonous tree" applies to Crown and police misconduct involved with finding the contraband - i.e. a search without a warrant, or obtaining a warrant under false pretences. Where there is no police or Crown misconduct, the doctrine does not apply. Here the police behaved quite properly.
If Boushie was the only intruder, you have a point about Stanley not needing the pistol. But there were 3 or 4 (?) aggressors. He could not hope to defend himself without a weapon of some sort.
Thanks, Found a link to Stanley's next court date.
Found not guilty in Colten Boushie death, Gerald Stanley still faces firearm charges next month
http://leaderpost.com/news/local-ne...onth/wcm/1b04bb25-266a-495b-a1e9-1e2c3ad386d4
Stanley still faces two charges of unsafe storage of a firearm that are scheduled to be dealt with in North Battleford on March 19.
Stanley told the jury he normally used the Tokarev to fire warning shots from his deck to scare coyotes.
According to witness testimony presented during Stanley’s trial, at least one occupant of the SUV attempted to start a quad on Stanley’s property and the SUV then collided with a vehicle parked on Stanley’s property. Boushie was sitting in the driver’s seat of the SUV when he was killed by a single gunshot to the head.
Ah this is what i was wondering!
I didnt realize thrre would be multiple trials. I assumed all charges are handled in one trial.
So he could get off on murder/manslaughter but still has to answer to pulling out, loading and pointing a restricted firrarm.
Me too.
And if was a corollary situation, where a bunch of white hoodlums pulled the same shit on an indigenous farmer and his family, and the indigenous farmer shot and killed one of the white hoodlums, I would have voted to acquit the indigenous farmer.
End of story.
How much of thst info was from a "prospective juror" and how reliable is this person? Thats like getting a fan on the sidelines to comment on what goes on in a huddle.
Anyways i still maintain that a system that excludes natives by not having them on the jury roll to begin with could use at least one fix. Seems pretty easy to solve. If they dont show up fine but they should st least be given the chance.
Think he is just charged with unsafe storage. The handgun should have been locked away, separate from the ammunition.
But from the article, those that remained after initial exclusion by the judge were assigned numbers and then randomly drawn. It has to be random. You can't 'fix' a jury like it was an employment hiring process of affirmative action like what is going on at Dalhousie.
It is fair to both Crown and Defendant this way. Remember the Crown dismissed NP as well. The Crown certainly doesn't want their successful prosecution of an accuse to overturned because there was a bad juror. Neither should it be the case for the Defendant.
Peremptory and Challenge for Cause work. To hell with optics and perceptions.
PET when the FLQ crisis was going on made the comment that there were a lot of bleeding hearts out there who were concerned about the army on the streets with guns. He said 'well go on and bleed'. This pandering to feelings over all else has got to stop.
If there are facts to support the contention that the jury was racist, that the Crown was racist and deliberately incompetent then bring them to light. Otherwise STFU (not you personally) and let the system work.
All very reasoned, but after nine pages here and a whole lot of argy-bargy across the country it's clear that whatever justice was done, a very large part of the population couldn't see that it was done, and can' t put their trust in the result or the system.
I doubt anyone has the answer, but it is clear that a jury like that one, selected as that one was, cannot deliver a verdict that most people believe in. That's just one problem we need to fix.
