Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses the third party suspect defence.
Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
Brian Malley was convicted of killing a woman whose investments he managed with a pipebomb. The Crown’s theory of the case was that he had depleted all of her investment funds and had killed her to cover up the fact that he had lost all of her money.
Mr. Malley argued at trial that there was another suspect who the police had not followed up on. Mr. Malley was unsuccessful in a third party suspect defence application which he then appealed and was again unsuccessful.
This case is very important because it puts a significant burden on individuals to persuade the court that the third party suspect defence is viable. It’s almost too significant a burden in the case of somebody facing a conviction of a very serious charge.
The Supreme Court of Canada missed the opportunity here to fix a clearly broken system that makes it far too difficult for people to persuade the court that somebody else is responsible for a murder they committed and could have opened the door for a more fair process of raising these third-party defence arguments at trial.
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