UPDATE: Additional info. The events below are out of sequence. After attempting to steal vehicles form the Fouhy Farm near Spinney Hill, they then went past the Ranger Lake Bible camp. At this point they could have driven a little South and then West and been back at the Red Peasant Reserve in about 15 minutes. Instead they drove far to the South, nearly 50 miles towards the Stanley farm near Biggar. It took them half an hour after leaving the Fouhy farm to get there. It sounds like they went directly there as fast as their damaged vehicle would take them.
On 9 Aug, 2016, Five people, Colton Boushie, 22, His girl friend Kiora Wuttunee, Belinda Jackson. 24, Cassidy Cross-Whitstone, 18, and Eric Meechance, 23, spend the afternoon drinking from a 60 pound Crown Royal as well as Vodka at Boushie’s Grandmother’s house on the Red Pheasant Cree Nation reserve. They also shoot a .22, even though Meechance has a weapons charge and is forbidden to posses or use firearms. Cross-Whitstone testifies that they were all drinking and that he was absolutely hammered. He testifies that he had about 30 shots that day.
They then take their booze and the .22 and go for a drive in a Grey SUV. Cross is driving, even though he was under a driving ban. They shoot the .22 from the moving vehicle (later, the police were to find an empty cartridge box, 17 live rounds, and 11 spent casings in the SUV). They go swimming, drinking continuously. After their swim Cross is driving so recklessly, according to testimony by Belinda Jackson, that the front tire comes off the rim. Jackson tries to convince Cross to let Meechance drive. She leaves the vehicle, but is picked up shortly after. Meechance also leaves the vehicle at some point after an argument, but is also later picked up. The muffler is damaged so they try to pull it off. They then decide to ‘Check out cars.,’ a euphemism for car theft.
Kim Worthington, Executive director of Youth for Christ, was at the nearby Ranger Lake bible camp that day. He saw and heard the Grey SUV. He said the tire was in really (bad) Shape. This confirms Belinda Jackson’s testimony further contradicts Cross’s testimony that they had a slow leak and needed help fixing it.
They enter another, unknown farm. They claim that they do not get out of the vehicle and leave after a short time. This may be true, or it may be another lie.
The then head to the Fouhy family farm. Mr Fouhy and his son are out in the pasture putting in a water trough. Mrs. Fouhy sees the Grey SUV pull up and one young man going into her garage. She tries calling her husband and then calls 911. She says there was roughly 4K in damage to the truck. This all happened just after 5pm, she says. Cross and Meechance admit in court they were trying to steal a truck there. While Meechance tries to get in through a door, Cross tries to break a window with the .22 rifle, breaking the stock off. The broken stock is left at the scene. Cross testifies they then decide to go to the Stanley farm to ‘Get Help’ for the tire. It was probably at this point that Colten Boushie began driving as his body was in the driver’s seat when he was shot.
Shortly after that they arrive (about 5:30 PM) at the Stanley farm. Gerald Stanley heard the vehicle due to the broken muffler, but at first thought is was going to pass. When the came up the drive he at first thought it was a customer coming to pick up a vehicle (he was apart-time mechanic). After arriving no one seeks help for the tire, instead Cross enters a truck and begins to rifle through it. Meechance gets on a quad and attempts to start it. The Stanley family rushes out to prevent this. There is an altercation between the Stanley family and a couple of very drunk people The windshield of the SUV is broken causing it to crash and become disabled. Mr. Stanley, who had gone and picked up a handgun, fires warning shots to frighten the trespassers off. Cross and Meechance flee the Scene. Stanley then runs over and tries to shut off the vehicle, (which is revving up as if to attempt to leave) by reaching in through the window. An apparent hang-fire (possibly confirmed by the bulging condition of the empty casing found on the dashboard) results in the weapon going off a third time and killing the driver, Colten Boushie. A loaded .22 is between his legs. His DNA is later found on it. Colton Boushie’s blood alcohol content was 0.3 per cent when he died, according to a summary of toxicology tests presented by Burge. 7.5 times the SK legal limit of .04. Wuttunnee and Jackson exit the vehicle and open the driver’s door. The body of Boushie tumbles out, the .22 between his legs. The two then assault Mrs. Stanley while she is calling 911,knocking her to the ground. Belinda Jackson admits in court to punching Mrs. Stanley. Mr. Stanley orders them away. They get back in the vehicle. When the Police arrive he turns the weapon over to them and then is arrested on suspicion of 2nd degree murder.
The Stanley Family’s testimony never changes, either in their initial statements to police or in their court testimony. Contrast this to the constantly changing testimony of the people in the SUV. Honest people don’t need to lie.
Jury Selection
http://torontosun.com/news/…
“Almost half of the prospective jurors in the Colton Boushie case were Aboriginal persons, according to one member of the jury pool.
However, the reason there were no Aboriginal Canadians on the jury in this controversial case is because so many deliberately opted out of the process. Other First Nations prospective jurors, meanwhile, were openly and outwardly biased during the selection process, according to one prospective juror who spoke to the Sun.
The witness, who the Sun is choosing not to identify, was present for jury selection in the Boushie case. The person described the scene as a “large gymnasium turned into a courtroom’ in Battleford, Saskatchewan.
“I sat at the back and got a better idea of who was all there,” said the prospective Juror. “On one side of the room, it was primarily Caucasian people, with a few Filipinos, a couple of black people, and peppered in was a handful of First Nations people,’ the person recalls.
“on the other side of the room, it was maybe three-quarters First Nations people,” the person said, estimating that approximately 85-100 of the initial 200 prospective jurors were Aboriginal.
The person explained the process that day, as a judge asked if anyone in the room wanted to be excused or disqualified from sitting on a jury in this case. Individuals with a conflict – a relationship with either family or a scheduling conflict – could request to be recused from being selected for the trial.
According to the prospective juror, who did not go on to serve on the jury, a significant number of Aboriginal people in the room asked to be disqualified, either because they had a relationship with Colton Boushie’s family or because of other circumstances that made them unavailable.
The person estimates that more than half of the Aboriginal people were granted permission by the judge to be exempt from the trial and free to go home.
As the prospective jury describes, some of the remaining 45 or so were vocal in expressing their bias and signalling to everyone in the room they were unfit to serve on the jury.
“You could audibly hear some of them talking amongst themselves, discussing how they were going to hang Stanley, or they were going to make sure he gets hung, or that if they don’t get the results they want, that they were going to handle it themselves,” the person said of the Aboriginal people who remained. This account comes from one individual who spoke with the Sun, and has not yet been corroborated by other witnesses.
The thing that was most shocking to me was the fact that they were so audible from where I was sitting (across the room) and there were police scattered throughout the room. No one stopped them.”
The Jury’s acquittal elicited a variety of strong reaction from Canadian online. Over the week, lawyers and other experts criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould for issuing social media posts that appeared to criticize the jury’s decision.
On Monday, Wilson-Raybould said changes to jury selection were coming soon. “we are looking at peremptory challenges,” she said, also noting that those changes would aim to “substantially improve the criminal system and the jury selection process.”
But according to the prospective juror, the selection process was random and seem fair. Of the remaining potential jurors, “everyone was assigned a number and the literally pulled numbers from a bucket. It was totally random,” the person said, whose own number was no selected.
Some media outlets have reported that every prospective juror who appeared to be Aboriginal was challenged and essentially vetoed by the defence council.
The prospective juror also dismissed that idea, suggesting the fence council challenged individuals who had made openly biased comments. Besides, the person added, “they were challenging white people too.”
The Trial
Belinda Jackson, 24. Belinda Jackson perjured herself during the trial. She originally told the Police that she was asleep in the SUV and did not witness the shooting. Later she says that she saw Stanley shoot Boushie twice in the head (he was shot once). She said he walked up to the front passenger side and shot Boushie. Boushie, however, was shot on the left side of his head, not the right. Blood splatter indicates Boshie was sitting in the driver’s seat when shot. She also says at one point that it was Mrs. Stanley, or their son, who fired the fatal shot, possibly with a shotgun.. She admits to punching Mrs Stanley.
http://thestarphoenix.com/n…
Kiora Wuttunee. Wuttunee was one of the two female passengers in the grey Ford Escape vehicle on the day Colten Boushie was shot and killed. She had originally been on the Crown’s list of witnesses.
In an embargoed scrum with reporters last Monday, Crown prosecutor Bill Burge confirmed Wuttunee had been subpoenaed to appear as a witness at the trial. But on Thursday morning, Feb. 1, she did not show up at the Battleford court house to testify.
“She did not obey her subpoena and come to court,” Burge said. The Crown had to get a warrant for her arrest after Belinda Jackson had testified.
But after Jackson confirmed that Kiora was asleep when the shooting took place, the Crown decided Wuttunee’s testimony wouldn’t be needed. “Belinda advised everyone that Kiora was asleep at the time,” said Burge. “She had to tell Kiora what happened after Kiora woke up. This is similar to what Kiora said at the preliminary hearing. There didn’t seem to be any purpose in now calling her as a witness, simply to say that she was asleep and didn’t know what happened.”
Burge also confirmed that Wuttunee did show up to court later on that day. The warrant for her arrest was ultimately cancelled. Considering Belinda Jackson’s Perjury under oath the decision by the prosecutor not to call her after all is odd, unless he thought she would make a bad case worse.
Eric Meechance, 23. He testifies at first that he was not drinking, but later admits that he was drinking a lot of Vodka. On the stand he is Hostile, Evasive, and un-cooperative. He has an extensive criminal record. He was under a 5-year gun ban.
http://www.newsoptimist.ca/…
https://www.ctvnews.ca/cana…
Cassidy Cross-Whitstone, 18. The admitted driver for most of the day, Cross was very drunk and under a driving ban. His reckless driving severely damages the SUV and he freely admits to attempting to steal vehicles from the Fouhy farm. He is caught changing his story more than once and admits to committing perjury on the stand. He has an extensive criminal record which the defence goes over in court.
http://thestarphoenix.com/n…
The Judges Instructions to the jury. Chief justice of Saskatchewan’s Court of Queens Bench, Justice Martel Popescul
http://nationalpost.com/new…
Government’s bizarre reactions.
Government comments were incompetent and irresponsible.
They fly in the face of Canada’s historic independence of our judicial system, free from political interference. The Government simply does not interfere in court cases with unpopular verdicts. When Prime Minister Harper attempted to introduce tougher sentencing guidelines he was simply ignored by Judges. They saw this as unwarranted Government interference in Judicial Independence.
They misrepresented the facts in this case, as jury selection was completely above board and open, There is no indication that racism on the part of jurists played any part in the acquittal. The Prosecution was unable to convince a Jury that Gerald Stanley intended to Kill Boushie, so they did not convict him of Second degree murder. They were also unable to convince the Jury that Stanley’s actions amounted to grossly negligent behaviour unwarranted by the situation, and so they would not convict him of Manslaughter. They were convinced by the facts of the case, which were that a felonious, drunken gang of armed car thieves arrived on the Stanley property intent on robbing them. There was a riotous, confusing, and terrifying altercation that resulted in one of the thieves dead. Bousie didn’t need, or deserve to die that day, but neither did the Stanleys deserve to have their farm invaded by a gang of belligerent drunks, most with lengthy criminal records that included assault, uttering threats, and grand theft auto.
They show a shocking lack of understanding of the need for the jury challenge. The state has an enormous amount of power in any trial. They have coroners, forensic experts, firearms experts, Investigators and police. They can order tests, subpoena witnesses, offer deals in exchange for testimony, coerce or threaten witnesses, and often withhold evidence or hide errors and mistakes. Against this the defence has, if it can be afforded, a private investigator. The best tool of the defence is, however, using jury challenges to ensure a jury is not stacked against their client. They, and the Prosecution, may issue challenges to jurists based on their views, or on comments they have made indicating that they are not impartial. Jury Challenges were used by both the Defence and the Prosecution to remove potential jurists, both White and Native, leaving a jury pool that was then chosen randomly.
Comments by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the NDP that they are going to change this, should shock and anger all Canadians. For the Leaders of two major Canadian political parties to make such ill-advised and ignorant statements is astounding. They have slandered a large number of Canadians with a blind and ignorant brush of racism. It cannot be allowed to stand and they must be made to see why.
A discussion among students at Oberlin High School in Oberlin, La., about a mathematical symbol led to a police investigation and a search of one of the student’s homes, according to the Allen Parish Sheriff’s Office.
A Facebook account that allegedly belongs to Nouraldin Rabee — a man currently wanted on a charge of first-degree murder — has been posting status updates about being on the run from Windsor police.
Five Feet of Fury
Sassy Wire 