The legal troubles of Gerald Stanley, the Saskatchewan farmer recently acquitted in the shooting death of Colten Boushie, are scheduled to spill over into provincial court Monday afternoon.
The North Battleford courtroom is slated to hear charges that Stanley, 56, improperly stored seven guns on his Biggar, Sask.-area property where Boushie, 22, was fatally shot in August 2016.
Not included among those seven guns is the Russian-made Tokarev pistol that figured prominently in Stanley's murder trial in the Battleford Court of Queen's Bench earlier this year.
Stanley testified he was holding the pistol and that it accidentally fired, fatally wounding Boushie of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation. A jury found Stanley not guilty of either murder or manslaughter.
The list of 7
The Tokarev was found by police inside a black case stored in a closet on the ground floor of the Stanley farmhouse. Stanley testified he traditionally used the "super loud" Tokarev to scare off coyotes preying on his farm's calves during the spring.
Also recovered at the farm, lying by Boushie's body near the SUV where Boushie was shot inside, was a .22-calibre rifle with its stock missing. Cassidy Cross-Whitstone, another passenger in the SUV, testified that the rifle belonged to him.
The seven guns alleged to be stored improperly by Stanley, as listed in the court file, are:
- A J Stevens Arms Company 520 rifle.
- A .22-calibre semi-automatic rifle.
- A .22-calibre bolt-action rifle.
- A Winchester 1200 shotgun.
- A Lakefield Mark 2 .22-calibre rifle.
- A Winchester 1894 rifle.
2 guns in bedroom
During Stanley's murder trial, the RCMP officer in charge of the crime scene, Cpl. Terry Heroux, testified the RCMP found 12 guns, including the Tokarev and at least one pellet gun, on the Stanley property. (That list does not include the rifle found by Boushie's body.)
The RCMP took photos of the guns mentioned by Heroux. The photos were submitted as court exhibits for the trial.
One rifle was found in the same shop where Stanley testified he retrieved his Tokarev before moving toward the SUV where Boushie was shot.
A rifle and a shotgun were found lying beside a bed in a groundfloor bedroom in the farmhouse.
The RCMP found and photographed these two guns in a bedroom at Stanley's farmhouse, following the shooting of Colten Boushie. (RCMP)
Seven other guns, including long guns hanging on wall-mounted racks, were found in a basement office that also housed a desk, computer, family photos, books and DVDs.
It's not known which of the 12 guns documented by Heroux are covered by the improper storage charges.
RCMP also found seven other guns, including these two, in a downstairs office. (RCMP)
"Non-restricted firearms have to be stored according to the regulations," said Solomon Friedman, an Ottawa-based defence lawyer focusing on firearms law.
"The regulations require that they either be stored in a container or a room that's not easy to break into. Or they could be secured by a secure locking device [that] makes it impossible to fire the bullets."
Exceptions are allowed if the guns are being moved, cleaned or about to be used for shooting practice, Friedman added.
"Then they don't have to be locked up in any of those ways," he said.
Plea possible
Stanley, when asked during the trial why he kept guns in his shop, testified that he and his son Sheldon liked to shoot at targets during evenings.
Stanley testified they were going to do just that after putting up the fence they were installing on Aug. 9, 2016 — before the SUV containing Boushie and four others arrived at the property.
"In my experience," said Friedman, "somebody living in a rural property, who's otherwise licensed but they haven't complied with the letter of the law when it comes to storage, they tend to be looking at non-jail sentences, anywhere from a discharge to a suspended sentence, maybe a fine.
"I wouldn't be surprised if this was resolved by a plea agreement with the Crown."
Representatives of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations attended Stanley's murder trial.
Asked recently if they would be in North Battleford on Monday, 1st vice president Kim Jonathan said, "There will be a lot of people going."
from CBC | Top Stories News http://ift.tt/2HMqxLH
http://ift.tt/2tZBpDV Source Link
No comments:
Post a Comment