B.C.’s attorney general is seeking expert legal advice on whether an appeal is viable in a recent court case that saw a man accused of murder acquitted after police were found to have disregarded evidence-handling rules.
The potentially precedent-setting ruling raises questions as to whether hundreds of other homicide cases could be in jeopardy, due to what B.C. Supreme Court Justice David Masuhara called “systematic, flagrant disregard for charter protected rights” by homicide investigators.
Crown’s case against Samandeep Gill, charged with second-degree and attempted murder in the 2011 road-rage incident involving newlywed Manbir Kajla and his wife, who cannot be named because of a publication ban, collapsed last month when Masuhara deemed a crucial piece of evidence inadmissible.
On Thursday, Attorney General David Eby directed the BC Prosecution Service to retain Craig Jones, a professor at Thompson Rivers University and the former supervising counsel of the Constitutional and Administrative Law Group in the Ministry of Justice, to review the feasibility of an appeal.
“Given the result of the Oral Ruling and its impact on the public’s confidence in the justice system in that real evidence was excluded in a manner that resulted in Mr. Gill not being tried for a serious and violent crime that resulted in the death of a community member, as well as the potential impact of this decision on other cases, it is my opinion that there is a strong public interest in appealing from the result in the Gill Case if a viable ground for appeal exists,” Eby told Crown prosecutors in a letter last week.
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Jones declined to comment on the appointment.
Masuhara tossed the evidence after he found the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team had repeatedly disregarded a requirement under Canadian law to seek extension orders to hold evidence beyond a 90-day period after seizure between 2007 and 2014.
In Gill’s case, the evidence in question was alleged audio of the fatal shooting itself, captured on a cellphone police seized from the accused’s home.
Eby’s directive came despite the prosecution service having already reviewed the decision and determining there were no reasonable arguments that would lead to a successful appeal.
— With files from Rumina Daya
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