British Columbia’s highest court is hearing an appeal from two of the men convicted in the so-called “Surrey Six” massacre.
Cody Haevischer and Matthew Johnston were both convicted of six counts of first-degree murder in 2014 for the 2007 killings, and were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
At trial, Crown outlined how the killings at Surrey’s Balmoral Tower were meant as revenge for an unpaid debt between rival gangs.
But among the dead were two innocent victims, fireplace repairman Ed Schellenberg and Chris Mohan, a neighbour of one of the intended targets.
Wednesday’s proceedings were live-streamed publicly — an extreme rarity in the Canadian court system — because of COVID-19 physical distancing precautions.
Haevischer and Johnston’s defence told the court that the B.C. Supreme Court trial judge had erred in his handling of the case.
Those errors allegedly included excluding the defendants from portions of the trial, and defence questioned why one hearing about an informant went from a scheduled five days to almost 40.
Defence argued the judge had also erred in assessing the reliability of two witnesses.
Eileen Mohan, the mother of victim Chris Mohan, said overturning the men’s convictions would cast public doubt on the legal system.
“I’m now a little fearful, Christopher does need justice,” she said. “If everything for him is uprooted like this, I don’t know how many people will have confidence in our court system.”
The public segment of the hearing is scheduled to last three days this week and three days next week. Crown has yet to make its submission.
In September, gang leader Jamie Bacon was sentenced for his role in the killings after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in July.
Given credit for time served, Bacon’s 18-year sentence amounted to five years and seven months.