The defence has opened its case in earnest in the murder trial of Gerald Stanley, as they try to make the case the incident was a freak accident in a panic situation.
In the afternoon, Stanley himself would testify, but other witnesses dominated the morning at Queen’s Bench Court.
The Stanley defence team called five witnesses: one from the Ranger Lake Bible Camp, two witnesses who testified they had experienced hang fire incidents, and two witnesses from the Fouhy farm that was vandalized earlier on the Aug. 9, 2016 day Colten Boushie was shot and killed.
The indication from the morning session is that the defence witnesses were moving faster than expected. Defence testimony had been expected to go on for a couple of days.
The defence had already called its first witness, firearms expert Sandy Ervin, on Friday afternoon. defence lawyer Scott Spencer had deferred his opening statement to Monday for scheduling reasons to accommodate Friday’s expert witness.
Defence makes opening statement
Spencer started his remarks by thanking the jury for their attention to this matter, and called Colten Boushie’s death a “tragedy.”
He began his opening statement by saying this wasn’t a defence of property case, nor was it a self-defence case. In fact, “this is really not a murder case at all.”
“This is a case about what can go terribly wrong when you create a situation which is in the nature of a home invasion,” Spencer said.
For farm people, your yard is your castle, he said.
“Gerry didn’t go looking for trouble,” said Spencer.
He and his family were working on his ranch. But what happened is “they faced, essentially, intruders,” he said.
“You have to look at it from Gerry’s perspective, what he thought when he was faced with this sudden invasion. The fear, the unknown.”
This case comes down to what’s reasonable in that circumstance, he said. Spencer noted they didn’t have the luxury to wait for police assistance.
He noted the young people in the vehicle aren’t on trial, but “they created this panic situation” – a high intensity, fear-based situation.
Spencer said it is “reasonable” to fire warning shots at intruders who were trying to steal and crashing into their vehicle to “get them to just leave. That’s what it comes down to in many ways.”
He added this case is not about self-defence but there is a self-defence circumstance. This is not about property, but about injury. In this case, Spencer made the point that there was fear that Mrs. Stanley was going to be run over.
This case comes down to a “freak accident” in an “unbelievably scary situation,” said Spencer. “Nobody thought it would go this way.”
He also said “hang fires happen.” Referring to the proper procedures for waiting for possible hang fires, Spencer said Stanley “didn’t have the luxury” to wait 60 seconds in case of a hang fire.
He saw the lawnmower in front of the visitor vehicle, and believes his wife was under the vehicle, so “he’s got to do something. He can’t just stand around.”
“The vehicle is the weapon at this point in time,” Spencer said. “The tragedy is the gun just went off.”
Spencer indicated he would call witnesses over a couple of days, and made it clear Gerald Stanley would be one of the witnesses he would call.
“So, no games. Gerry’s going to testify. He has to explain it to you,” said Spencer.
Spencer wrapped his opening statement by pledging to fill the jury in on the facts over the “next couple of days.”
Bible Camp director sees Ford Escape
With that, Spencer called his first witness, but it wasn’t Stanley.
Instead, Kim Worthington, executive director with the Youth for Christ organization who lives on an acreage near Waldheim, took the stand.
Worthington was at Ranger Lake Bible Camp on that Aug. 9 day. Worthington said he remembered this day, saying it was “a strange week.” Sunday was rainy, Monday was rainy, and then Tuesday a really nice day.
Seeing the vehicle was memorable. He and a group of students at the camp were at a paintball range in the community pasture.
There, he testified, he remembers seeing a Ford Escape “cruising by pretty fast.”
He noted the car, and the tire and muffler, was in really rough shape.
“It just left an impression,” Worthington said.
A lot of students were kind of chuckling about the state of the vehicle, he added. Worthing thought the vehicle was going between 80 and 90 km an hour.
There were no questions of the witness from the Crown.
Experienced hang fires
Next up was Wayne Popowich. Popowich said on Saturday morning he was reading the news at the kitchen table and saw the news about the trial, where an expert witness had testified that a delayed fire couldn’t cause a bulge in a cartridge.
Popowich said he called up Spencer to say he didn’t agree with the expert.
He then described a hang fire incident that happened to him several years earlier. He described an incident south of Wynyard with his family when out shooting gophers. He aimed at a gopher using a .22 rifle, took a single shot, nothing happened, put the gun down, aimed again, tried again, nothing happened. Soon after, he grabbed another bullet, picked up the gun, pulled the lever over, and it suddenly went off.
“My eyes were burning, my ears were ringing,” said Popowich, who then noticed a bulge in the cartridge and that the casing had split wide open.
Spencer’s exam was brief; Burge’s questions focused on details of the incident. Popowich did say the incident “scared the crap” out of him.
The next witness called was Nathan Voinorosky, who also testified about his own hang fire incident.
“Do you know about hang fires?” he was asked by defence lawyer Dustin Gillanders. He did, he responded. Voinorosky then started reading from a manual, at which point the Crown stood up to express concerns. Gillanders says this wasn’t going to be “controversial.”
Voinorosky said he was a non-expert, then he started reading from a hunters’ safety manual about procedures in dealing with hang fires from a wildlife safety course, suggesting waiting for 60 seconds in such situations.
He then said he experienced a hang fire incident; he had lowered the muzzle of the gun into the ground and it went off. He estimated it was seven seconds from pulling the trigger to the firing of the gun. The gun he used, he said, was a Soviet-made semi-automatic.
Neighbours speak
Next up was Murray Fouhy, who lives on the Fouhy farm southwest of Maymont, who testified about the vandalism he had seen on his family’s property Aug. 9 by the group in the grey Ford Escape.
Fouhy described seeing tracks and damage to two trucks and an SUV. He said in one truck, which was standard transmission, he found his car keys in the ignition of that vehicle and considerable damage. The console was also open on his mother’s SUV. The overall damage was estimated around $4,000.
Fouhy was also asked to point out locations of a map of the area, including where the Ranger Lake Bible Camp was located in relation to his farm. There were no questions from the Crown and Fouhy was free to go.
Glennis Fouhy, his mother, who also lived on the farm, was next. She testified on what she saw that Aug. 9 day: a very loud vehicle that came across her lawn.
Originally she said she thought there had “been an accident” and something was wrong, and was going to call for help.
But then she saw them come across the lawn in the vehicle, and saw a young man get out of the passenger side and scoot into the garage where her car was parked.
Glennis did not recognize the vehicle that had entered their property, and described the person getting out as “a young native man, well-dressed and clean cut, but I did not see his face.”
The vehicle then drove back across the lawn to the other yard, and she heard a lot of banging of metal going on. The car then went down the driveway and headed west.
Mrs. Fouhy subsequently figured out what the banging was.
“I had seen there was damage to the truck,” said Fouhy, referring to their red Dodge.
There was also a Suzuki, where a door was open, but there was no damage there. The damage to the red truck was $4,000, she said.
It was around 5:05 p.m. that the vehicle. After it had left, she ran out and checked the vehicles, then tried to phone her husband and then called the police around 5 p.m.
She said she tried phoning the North Battleford detachment and finally called Biggar RCMP and got through. Mrs. Fouhy also described her reaction to the incident.
“I was terrified. I was afraid they’d come to the house, and then what?”
Accused speaks
Stanley was the last of the witnesses called by the defence that day. While he reiterated the defence’s now-familiar theory that the gun went off unexpectedly, the Crown spent a lot of their time in cross-examination poking holes in that argument and trying to show contradictions.
Once Stanley was sworn in to testify, defence lawyer Spencer began with questions focusing on Stanley’s background.
Stanley described his occupation as rancher, truck driver and part-time mechanic. Asked if he ever helped people off the road, Stanley responded, “Oh, yeah.”
The shells found on the deck of the house, he explained, were in relation to his cow-calf operation. His Tokarev pistol was used to scare away other animals during calving season.
Stanley described getting his ammunition either from a store or ordering it over the phone. The ammunition he bought for the Tokarev was purchased from Lloydminster by mail.
The rounds used on Aug. 9, 2016, were grabbed out of his tool box in the shop. He said he had found one dud per box.
Then Stanley described the day of the shooting. They were working on the fence that day, which was hot and humid, he said.
He said he and his wife Leesa, commonly known as Dee, were putting up the rails on the fence. His son Sheldon arrived around 4 or 4:30 p.m., at which point Mrs. Stanley began mowing grass and the two others continued working on the fence.
Stanley then described the moment the grey Ford Escape arrived. He said he could hear a car coming down the road fast, with popping noises. He and Sheldon were “kind of looking at each other,” and initially thought it had gone right by on the road.
Then he heard a car in the yard and saw it “slide beside” a gold truck belonging to a customer. He initially thought it was somebody connected to the gold truck. He saw someone get into the gold truck, and Stanley said it looked like the individual was looking around on the seat for something. At that point, father and son were at the place in the fence where they had been about to install a gate.
The SUV vehicle then revved up and moved toward the shed, Stanley testified, and he saw a third person walking beside the vehicle.
“We knew something was wrong,” said Stanley, noting it was “not ordinary.”
Not long after, Stanley testified, Sheldon said, “What the hell is going on here?” Sheldon then took off running up the hill. Gerald followed him.
Stanley testified he then heard the quad start. Sheldon was hollering at the person to get off the quad. According to Stanley, it looked like someone was trying to get the quad in gear and take off.
The individual then jumped off the quad while another individual ran out of the shop. Stanley believes now it was Eric Meechance who was on the quad.
The Ford Escape was then put in reverse. Stanley testified he kicked the taillight, and then the vehicle went forward. It looked like the vehicle was going towards Sheldon, who took a hammer and hit the windshield.
It looked like it was over, but then Stanley described the SUV hitting their blue Ford Escape.
At this point, Stanley headed to the shop. He said he had two handguns inside the shop door, including the Tokarev, which he grabbed. He opened a drawer, grabbed a strip and peeled off what he thought was two rounds. He said he was going to “make some noise” and scare off the intruders.
He walked into the open area and saw two people who “obviously came from the car,” he testified.
He kept going, not knowing where Sheldon was, he said, then raised the gun in the air and fired “straight up.”
He saw the “two fellows” from the vehicle and then fired again.
Stanley remembered firing “two or three times.” The first time he pulled the trigger, Stanley confirmed the gun went off. With the second shot, the two ran away.
He then took out the magazine from the handgun, and had the magazine in his left hand and the gun in his right.
When he saw the lawnmower in the vicinity of the SUV, he said, a feeling of “pure terror” came over him, thinking the SUV had run over his wife.
The vehicle revved up again, Stanley testified, and he thought it was going to run over him as well.
He ran to the driver’s window and noticed there was a bar - something metal, he said - sticking out the window towards him.
He reached in for the keys to the SUV, and as he did, he testified, “boom, the thing just went off,” referring to the gun.
Stanley was asked if his finger was on the trigger. No, he responded. He also said no to questions about whether he pointed the gun at anyone that day or threatened anyone.
Stanley said he couldn’t believe what happened, and went into the shop.
Stanley cross-examinated
During the main examination of Stanley by Spencer, the accused was asked, at length, to demonstrate his position in relation to the weapon. Stanley held the gun and showed the jury the position he was in, when he held the gun in one hand and the magazine in the other. He also demonstrated attempting to grab the keys with his left hand while holding the gun in his right.
Prosecutor Bill Burge handled the cross-examination, beginning by asking Stanley about the amount of guns in house. Stanley said only about five worked.
Stanley was asked if he ever got a hunting licence, had ever got a licence for restricted firearms or took firearm safety programs. Yes, he responded.
Burge then began grilling Stanley about safety aspects asking if he had instruction about what not to do.
“Did you learn not to point a gun at somebody,” Burge asked. Stanley said yes.
Burge challenged Stanley on several aspects of his testimony.
Regarding the gun, Stanley said he got the gun because he was “scared.” He just wanted everyone to leave.
Regarding the ammunition, Stanley insisted that he pulled what he thought was two rounds from the drawer, but Burge challenged Stanley on the number of rounds that were in the Tokarev gun. While Stanley testified he thought he thought the gun was empty after shooting in the air. In fact, there was a third round in the gun.
Burge challenged Stanley for being under the impression that to make the gun safe all he needed to do was take out the magazine. During Crown questioning, it had been stated Stanley didn’t realize this particular Tokarev did not have this particular safety mechanism. When Burge asked Stanley if he knew how a slide could be opened up on the Tokarev, Stanley responded, “I do not, that’s why we’re here.”
Burge grilled Stanley on why the expended cartridge was found on the dash of the car.
At one point Burge asked Stanley why he was concerned about his wife. “I love her,” Stanley responded.
Burge also challenged Stanley’s contention that his intent was just to scare the group, noting by this point the other two males had already run away.
Defence rests its case
After Burge concluded cross-examination, Spencer entered some agreed statements of facts into evidence, and then finally rose to say “the defence closes its case.”
Soon after Stanley’s testimony, the defence rested.
Next, counsel is to meet with Chief Justice Martel Popsecul on Tuesday with respect to legal matters regarding his charge to the jury.
There will be no proceedings Wednesday. Closing arguments and Popescul’s charge to the jury is set for Thursday at 10 a.m. The seven women and five men on the jury will not be back in court until those Thursday morning proceedings.
After the charge from Popescul, the jury will be sequestered and deliberations will begin.
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