WAS GERALD STANLEY REALLY GUILTY OF MURDER?

Every spectator that attends a murder trial has an opinion after the verdict is reached as to whether or not the accused was really guilty or not. However, many times when the evidence is so damning and undisputable, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the accused was guilty.  But when the issue before the court deals with the accused’s reason for committing the murder, then the spectators opinions vary. In cases where the accused is of one race and the victim is another, then the opinion of the spectators vary very deeply.

This is a case where race of the man accused of murder was white and the victim was an Indigenous person. That issue is no different than striking a match in the vicinity of gasoline. There is definitely going to be a flare-up.                                 

Stanley is a 56-year-old farmer in the Province of Saskatchewan in Canada. He was charged with second-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Colten Boushie of the Red Pheasant reserve. It is an area where many Indigenous people live.

Colten Boushie was shot and killed after the vehicle he was in drove onto a farm in the rural municipality of Glenside, west of the City of Saskatoon. Now he wasn’t shot simply because he Qa in the car that was driven onto Stanley’s property. That would be first degree murder if he did that.

 Previously, Boushie and three other friends who were also in the car  (a grey Ford Escape SUV) were heading home to the Red Pheasant First Nation after an afternoon swimming at a river.

Their car had a tire blow out. The SUV driver testified that the group had been drinking during the day and tried to break into a truck on a neighboring farm but when they were unsuccessful, they drove to the Stanley property in search of help with their flat tire. Now the only legitimate reason they would go to Stanley’s farm would be if they didn’t have a car jack and tire arm in their own car. 

In any case, they ended up at Stanley’s farm. They didn’t go to his farm to get the use of a car jack and tire arm or even make a phone call. They went there for the specific purpose of stealing one of Stanley’s vehicles on his property. At that precise moment when they drove onto his property, the four of them were attempting to  a criminal act. Trespassing is not a criminal act but stealing a vehicle is. Keep in mind that they tried to steal a truck from Stanley’s neighbor earlier. There is no doubt in my mind that they had a similar intention to steal a vehicle when they entered Stanley’s property.  

During the trial, Stanley, testified that he retrieved an old Eastern bloc handgun fired warning shots to scare the group off. He said the fatal shot occurred when he reached into the SUV to grab the keys out of the ignition and that was when his gun "just went off."

That was a very stupid act on his part.  First of all, when someone is on your property illegally, you don’t reach in that person’s car to grab the ignition key. You get his plate number so that you can inform the police what car was involved. Not long ago, an employee in a gas station tried to grab the ignition key when the driver was driving off without paying for the gas. The employee was dragged to his death.

And you don’t do this stupid act when you have a loaded handgun in your hand.  It can go off and that is what actually happened.  

Stanley later told court the he and his son heard one of their all-terrain vehicles start and thought it was being stolen. Actually, the trespassers really were attempting to steal the vehicle. He and his son then ran toward the SUV, kicked the tail light and hit the windshield with a hammer. He said he grabbed his handgun, normally used to scare off wildlife, when the SUV didn't leave the yard, and fired two or three shots into the air. I don’t know if he grabbed it from his home or from his pocket when he referred to what he had done when he fired the gun in the air. He said in court, “I thought I'm going to make some noise and hopefully they're going to run out of the yard. I just raised the gun in the air and fired straight up.”

He obviously was licensed to own such a gun otherwise he would have been charged with being in possession of an unlicensed gun which he was not.

Stanley said that he popped out the cartridge "to make sure it was disarmed. As far as I was concerned, it was empty and I had fired my last shot."

Since another bullet was in the gun barrel at that moment, I have to presume that the hand gun was a semi- automatic.

He testified that he went up to the SUV because he thought it had run over his wife and that is why he tried to reach for the keys in the ignition of the fleeing vehicle.

If it had run over his wife and the car was dragging her along the ground, I can understand why he would try to grab the keys. But that wasn’t what actually happened.

He said, "I was reaching in and across the steering wheel to turn the key off and boom.  This thing (the gun) just went off. "

If he was reaching for the keys with his left hand, the gun would be in his right hand. If he was reaching for the keys with his right hand, then the gun would be in his left hand. In either hand, when the gun fired, the bullet could still hit the victim’s head if the gun was directly or inadvertently aimed at Boushie’s head just behind his left ear. I don’t know if Boushie was driving the SUV or sitting in the front seat next to the driver or sitting in the back seat.

As I said earlier, reaching for the keys of a vehicle while a gun is in your other hand is a very stupid thing to do.

"Was your finger on the trigger?" his lawyer, Scott Spencer, asked. "No," Stanley answered.

I have fired revolvers and semi-automatic hand guns and I can tell you that in my opinion, a bullet in the barrel without the trigger being pulled, will not fire for one simple reason. Something (such as a trigger) has to slam into the back end of a shell. If that doesn’t happen, banging the gun on something hard or jiggling the gun about will not fire the gun. , I repeat, it will not fire the bullet out of the barrel.  In my opinion, that bullet in the barrel was fired either inadvertently or purposely by a pull of the trigger by Stanley.

The defence lawyer blamed the shooting of the third bullet that went through Boushie’s head, on something called “hang fire.” That is a delay from when the shot is fired to when the bullet actually leaves the gun barrel. Plausible, perhaps, except experts had testified that such a delay is not only rare, it’s also very short — less than one second.

Now, think of what he earlier had said. He said he fired two or three shots into the air as he was running towards the vehicle that was being driven away. If the bullet in the barrel was a hang-fire, bullet, it would have happened in less than a second. It certainly wouldn’t fire while his gun hand was inside the car when he was trying to grab the ignition key.  So that defence is invalid.

If he deliberately pulled the trigger at that precise moment, it would be second degree murder. That kind of murder is committed by the shooter in the heat of the moment without any concern for the life of the victim. That is why Stanley wasn’t charged with first degree murder.  That kind of murder has to be planned first.

I don’t know if he accidentally placed his finger in the trigger guard of the gun or if he did it deliberately to shoot the victim.  If he deliberately did it to shoot the driver while the driver was driving away with his wife under the car, then in my opinion, his shooting the driver would be justified. But was Boushie the driver or just a passenger.

However, Stanley’s wife was not in any danger at that moment but he could argue that he thought she was.

That suggestion is academic because he also said in court in response to his lawyer asking this question, “Did you intend to hurt anyone?”  He replied, “No.”  I just wanted them to leave.  I couldn't believe what just happened and everything seemed to just go silent. I just backed away."

Colten Boushie was sitting in the SUV when he was shot in the back of the head.

Oh Oh! Shot in the back of the head? That means that when Stanley fired his gun, Boushie was facing away from him. Why was the young man facing away from Stanley? Was he trying to pull away from Stanley? If so, then this means that Stanley might have had a grip on Boushie. hat would mean that he might have been the driver of the SUV.

If Stanley was attempting to grab the key from the ignition with one hand and at the same time, he held the gun in his other hand, how then could he hold the gun and at the same time, grab Boushie with the same hand?  It isn’t possible. Why would he even try to grab Boushie when his gun was still in his hand?

Why did the Crown choose to charge Stanley with second degree murder?

In Canada, culpable homicide is second degree murder where the person who causes the death of a human being, means to cause him bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause his death, and is reckless as to whether death ensues or not.

In my opinion, the jury in this particular case was correct in their verdict. I will explain why I believe this. I don’t believe that Stanley deliberately fired the gun while he was struggling with Boushie. The shooting of Boushie was the result of a very stupid clumsy mistake. Stanley should not have being struggling with Boushie while he had a loaded gun in his hand.

The jury made their decision. That's their duty and they took it seriously when they made their decision.

Stanley should have been charged with manslaughter. A reasonable jury would have appreciated in all the circumstances that what Stanley did that night was an unlawful act since fighting with a person while he had a loaded handgun in his hand was inherently dangerous and the harm to Boushie which was neither trivial nor transitory was a foreseeable consequence—the resultant death would then amount to manslaughter. The minimum sentence for manslaughter is four years in prison The maximum sentence is life in prison. I believe if he was convicted of manslaughter, he would have been given the four-year sentence.

If Stanley was charged with manslaughter and convicted of that crime and sentenced to four years in prison, the Indigenous people in the Reserve would probably have accepted that verdict but unfortunately, the police chose to charge him with second degree murder and the Crown went along with that charge notwithstanding that the Crown could have changed it to a lesser crime. As I said earlier, Stanley really was innocent of second degree murder. During the Stanley trial, his shooting of Boushie was shown to be justified by the barest of all plausible reasons—it was simply a stupid, careless accident on Stanley’s part.

Now I will deal with the problem that existed then and still exists today between the whites and the Indigenous people in Saskatchewan and elsewhere.    

I speak as an authority with respect to this problem since in the 1950s when I was in my twenties; I was a senior supervisor in three Indian Residential l Schools in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

The children in these schools were given an education up to grade twelve but then they had to leave the security of the residential schools and either return to their Reservations or fend for themselves in the white man’s world.

I was sadden when I later met students whom I supervised wandering around the downtown areas aimlessly, begging for money because no one would give them a job. They were literally homeless and forced to sleep on the streets. They committed crimes and were imprisoned and when they came out of prison, their fate was no better than when they were in the communities before they went to prison. The white society had failed them.

From the beginning in August 2016, Colten Boushie's death and the second-degree murder charge against Gerald Stanley exposed an ugly side in rural Saskatchewan. Landowners blamed Indigenous people for high rates of property crime and the citizens in First Nations had to bear the brunt of that racism and hate that emanated from the whites. Those tensions were on full display as Stanley walked free after the verdict was given by his all-white jurors.

Boushie's uncle, Alvin Baptiste said there was no justice for his dead nephew. In a way, he is right. That is because Stanley was charged with an improper crime so it follows that he would walk free from the crime he was charged and tried for.

I am not suggesting that the Crown deliberately went out of its way to put Stanley on trial with a crime he would surely be found innocent of. That decision was simply a stupid one. 

I don’t believe that the Indigenous people are protesting the result of the jury because of their hatred of whites. There is a much more valid reason for objecting as to what went on prior to the beginning of the trial.

When there is a jury trial, the prospective jurors are asked questions in front of the trial judge to determine their fitness to make a judgment as to guilt or innocence of the accused at the end of the trial. The Crown and defence lawyer both have the right to refuse any prospective juror if they feel that there is a good reason to do so. For example, if a juror can’t speak the language that will be prominent at the trial, than can be a valid reason to excuse him or her.  If the juror is suffering from mental problems, that is also a good reason and if a prospective juror is related in any way with either the accused or the victim—that too is a good reason for excusing the prospective juror from hearing and deciding  the verdict.

However, in the Stanley case, the Indigenous people weren’t even asked any questions. They were simply excused out of hand because they were not white.  That is outrageous.  As I see it, the protesters were rightly upset since they had been denied justice.

The white jurors spent 13 hours discussing the case before they arrived at their verdict. Now had Stanley been charged and tried with manslaughter and the jury found him innocent; that would be a valid reason to protest the jury’s findings.

Boushie's cousin, Jade Tootoosis said the family will push for an appeal. He said, "We will fight for an appeal and answers to all the racism that my family has experienced from the day that Colten was shot, until the jury delivered the verdict of not guilty. We will not stop our pursuit for justice.”

Suppose a white man entered a native Indian man's farm in a native reserve with the intent to steal something from the farm and the white man was shot carelessly by the native Indian farmer. How would the native Indians in his community feel if the Indian farmer was charged with manslaughter and convicted of that crime? Would they still protest the conviction? 

In Canada, a jury’s verdict cannot be appealed unless it is shown that a juror or jurors did something that was considered wrong such as, drinking alcohol while deliberating, or it is later determined that a juror was either a friend or was related to either the accused, the victim or the prosecutor or defence lawyer etc. 

Assuming that none of that is applicable in the Stanley case, the decision of the jury cannot be appealed.

A good example of that rule is the one in which the famous abortionist Dr. Morgentaler was tried and found innocent and the Crown charged him again and again and each time, the juries found him innocent. Finally, in 1976, the Court of Appeal denied the Crown’s appeal of Dr. Morgentaler’s June 1975 acquittal and the Supreme Court of Canada let that denial stand. The federal government then amended the Criminal Code to prevent any future appeal court ordering new trials after a jury acquittal.  

Now back to the protesters in Saskatchewan. There is one really valid justification for complaint and that is that Indigenous prospective jurors were denied the opportunity to sit as members of the jury at Stanley’s trial. I have to assume that either the Crown or the defence lawyer used their peremptory challenges” to reject any potential juror without giving any reason and every single Indigenous prospective juror who showed up was rejected.

It should be kept in mind that normally, the Crown or the defence lawyer doesn’t have to give his or her reason why the prospective juror is excused from sitting on the jury. 

Alas, that complaint of the protesters would not justify having the matter appealed because the decision of the Stanley jury was the correct one.

I see a possible problem if Indigenous people were actually sitting on the Stanley jury. Imagine if you will the enormous pressure they would be suffering from their families and friends to convict Stanley even though he was actually innocent as charged.

Now unlike what goes on in the United States, what goes on in a Canadian jury room; remains in the jury room. It is a serious offence in Canada for a juror to privately or publicly discuss how his or her jury members arrived at its findings.  The Indigenous juror might even actually suffer consequences brought about by those in his Reservation if they didn’t like the decision of the jury.

If eleven members of the jury found Stanley not guilty and the Indigenous member concluded that Stanly was guilty, then the jury would be a hung jury and another trial would be set down for the future. This could go on indefinitely at the expense of the taxpayers and the accused.

The way I see it, if the accused is a white person, he or she should be tried by a jury of his or her peers which are white. If the criminal charged is an Indigenous person , then he or she should be tried by a jury of his or her peers who are Indigenous.  How much more reasonable  can that be? 

Former Supreme Court justice,, Frank Iacobucci reviewed Ontario’s jury roll system for a year following legal challenges from First Nations families and organizations, and released his report in 2013. At a Thunder Bay press conference then, he said there was widespread systemic racism in the courts, justice and police systems in the north. He warned that if nothing was done, any true hope of reconciliation between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people would disappear.

He is correct. There can be no reconciliation without rights given to the Indigenous people. This demand for Indigenous civil and political rights is met with the same askance and skepticism from non-Indigenous Canadians as U.S. civil rights Black activists received from white Americans in the 1950s and ’60s.

Indigenous leaders were upset with an initial report from police that the young people had been taken into custody as part of a theft investigation. Boushie's relatives said RCMP police officers who came to the family home after the shooting were insensitive and treated them like suspects. The RCMP should not have treated the non-criminal family members as suspects but they had the right to treat those family members who had been in Boushie’s car that fatal night as criminals because during that night, they really were criminals trying to steal vehicles from two farms. It  came out at trial that those young persons in the SUV had lied to the police and prosecutors about how much they’d had to drink (at least one of them was four times over the legal limit), about whether they’d committed other crimes that day and whether they had a gun. That last entry must mean that one of them had a gun in his possession.

Currently, many rural residents feel vulnerable, compelled to defend themselves and families. Rural crime has nearly doubled since 1995, rural RCMP staffing and budgets are down, response times can be appalling and when criminals are caught, the justice system slaps their wrists, especially Indigenous offenders who are required, by law, to receive leniency in sentencing.

I hope you have not found this article to be bias on my part in any manner whatsoever. I have tried to look at these issues with an eye to common sense and logic.