The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that one of the men convicted in the 2007 “Surrey Six” gangland murders should have the chance to provide evidence related to allegations of police misconduct and treatment in solitary confinement.
In a unanimous decision, the top court agreed with the B.C. Court of Appeal that it was a mistake to dismiss the applications to have all of that evidence heard.
Gangsters Cody Haevischer and Matthew Johnston were both found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy in 2014, seven years after the executions of six people in a highrise apartment building in Surrey, B.C.
The Supreme Court ruled Haevischer’s matter should be sent back to the Supreme Court of British Columbia where he “will have the opportunity to argue all the allegations.”
Johnston died of cancer last December.
The high court’s ruling comes after years of legal wrangling and controversies in the so-called Surrey Six murder case, including revelations of drunken sexual escapades between police officers and female witnesses.
Lawyers for both Haevischer and Johnston claimed in submissions to the Supreme Court of Canada that their treatment in prison, coupled with outrageous police tactics and conduct during the investigation, warranted a stay of their convictions.
The B.C. Court of Appeal ruled in 2021 that Haevischer and Johnston should be allowed to seek a stay of proceedings for abuse of process and ordered another hearing, but stopped short of overturning their guilty verdicts.
The Appeal Court said the hearing was “necessary to resolve factual controversies about the extent of police misconduct.”
The original trial heard that just one person was supposed to die in a gang turf war, but five people were in the apartment at the time, including Edward Schellenberg, who was servicing the fireplace. Chris Mohan, the 22-year-old living across the hall, was also killed inside the apartment.
Haevischer submitted to the Supreme Court that Crown prosecutors were trying to “trivialize serious police misconduct” to preserve the murder convictions and avoid a hearing into new evidence.
“The Court of Appeal committed no error in ordering an evidentiary hearing to uncover the full scope and impact of manifestly serious state misconduct,” his submission states.
Johnston’s submissions to the court claimed the trial judge found a new hearing unnecessary, preventing him and Haevischer from “building the evidentiary foundation required to establish the extent of the state misconduct.”
“The state misconduct in this case was remarkable,” Johnston’s submission said. “It involved the torture of the respondents (Haevischer and Johnston), state-funded sexual exploitation of vulnerable witnesses, and police officers who lied about it all.”
Johnston died of cancer last December after his lawyer made the arguments to the high court.
Brock Martland represented Johnston up until his death and said his client was determined to get a hearing into evidence of police misconduct during the investigation and his ill-treatment while in prison.
Lawyers for both Haevischer and Johnston claimed new evidence came to light in a post-trial statement of former RCMP officer Derek Brassington, who was criminally charged with obstruction of justice and breach of trust for his mishandling of witnesses during the investigation.
The statement was made as part of Brassington’s plea agreement, and lawyers for Haevischer and Johnston claim it contains revelations of additional police misconduct that wasn’t known at the time of their client’s trial.
Crown prosecutors, however, told the Supreme Court that Johnston and Haevischer were on a “fishing expedition” in seeking a new hearing on fresh evidence “in the hope that they may dig up a nugget or two through cross-examination to support their application for a stay.”