A first-degree murder trial involving four accused may be derailed after a conflict involving one of the defence lawyers came to light on Day 2 of the six-week trial.<\/p>\n
Greg Schuster, Jared Burke, Gurpreet Gill and Shyana Popplestone\u2019s trial got underway Monday. The four are accused of beating and murdering Tara Miller and dumping her body in a ditch near Okotoks in 2023.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, court heard that Schuster\u2019s lawyer Shaun Leochko had a conflict with several of the witnesses for the prosecution.<\/p>\n
The development means that Leochko withdrew as counsel, leaving Schuster without a lawyer and the fate of the trial up in the air.<\/p>\n
Judge ‘profoundly disappointed’<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the parties were back in court to determine next steps.<\/p>\n
Court of King\u2019s Bench Justice Colin Feasby called the development \u201cshocking\u201d and said he was \u201cprofoundly disappointed\u201d at the turn of events.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the other three co-accused also expressed frustration.<\/p>\n
Popplestone\u2019s lawyer, Andrea Urquhard, said the development \u201cchanges the landscape\u201d of the trial and is potentially a procedural disadvantage to her client and the other co-accused.<\/p>\n
Schuster looking for new lawyer<\/p>\n
Schuster asked that the trial be adjourned so he can get a new lawyer and so that counsel can get up to speed on the evidence.<\/p>\n
The judge agreed the accused killer should not be forced to represent himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not going to make Mr. Schuster face a murder charge in a legally complex matter, I don\u2019t think that would bring credit to the administration of justice,\u201d said Feasby.<\/p>\n
Next, the parties debated whether the trial would be adjourned for all four or whether prosecutors Katherine Love and Britta Kristensen would proceed with the trial against the remaining three while trying Schuster separately down the road.<\/p>\n
‘I know how the game is played’<\/p>\n
The three defence lawyers told the judge they want to keep the four accused together but do not want to accept responsibility for the potential months-long delay.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court of Canada put timelines on what\u2019s considered reasonable delay, which is 30 months for matters in the Court of King\u2019s Bench.<\/p>\n
If the delay is not attributed to the defence, the accused could file a Jordan application and argue the clients\u2019 rights to a fair trial were violated, which could result in all charges being stayed against the accused killers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not naive, I know how the game is played,\u201d said Justice Feasby.\u00a0\u201cA delay issue might result in a windfall for the accused.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘Get this trial done’<\/p>\n
The case reaches its 30-month timeline by July.<\/p>\n
\u201cI view it as my responsibility to get this trial done before it gets timed out,\u201d Feasby said.<\/p>\n
Although the 30-month ceiling is considered a deadline set by the Supreme Court, there are a number of situations within the Jordan framework that can place delay into the category of exceptional circumstances.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Katherine Love, who described the Crown\u2019s position as being \u201cbetween a rock and a hard place,\u201d will make a severance application next week, asking the judge to try the three remaining accused ahead of Schuster.<\/p>\n
The matter will be back in court next Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A first-degree murder trial involving four accused may be derailed after a conflict involving one of the defence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51,8528,8105,8527],"class_list":["post-16240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-calgary","tag-defence-lawyers","tag-greg-schuster","tag-murder-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}