Complainant’s death shelves charter rights decision: judge
Woman's case called out Manitoba bail system issues
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/09/2020 (1281 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A woman who asked a Manitoba judge to drop her criminal charges, arguing she had been denied reasonable bail, has died.
Shayna Kelly-White, 27, died July 7. She had been awaiting a sentencing decision from provincial court Judge Lindy Choy on whether Kelly-White’s charter rights were violated after she was charged with drug offences in May 2018.
Kelly-White spent more than six months in jail after she was deemed eligible for release, because she couldn’t afford to pay the $500 cash bail.
As a result of Kelly-White’s death, the judge decided not to issue the ruling.
“Her death was untimely and unexpected. It is a great tragedy. While the offences themselves were not the most serious, very significant legal and systemic issues regarding denial of reasonable bail were raised in the sentencing,” Choy said during a Sept. 16 hearing in Winnipeg.
Despite those systemic issues — which Kelly-White’s defence lawyer suggested could have a broader impact on bail procedures in Manitoba if Choy were to release her ruling — the judge said provincial court cases end when an accused dies.
“I must unfortunately conclude that I am without jurisdiction to issue a decision on sentence,” said Choy, who had reserved her decision following a June 3 hearing at which Kelly-White was present. At the time, Kelly-White said she had nothing to say to the judge.
Kelly-White pleaded guilty to simple possession of crack cocaine and breach charges more than a year ago. However, her defence lawyer, Rohit Gupta, filed a constitutional challenge asking for a judicial stay of proceedings, which would drop the case if the judge ruled in favour.
He argued Kelly-White’s right not to be arbitrarily detained, her right to liberty and her right to reasonable bail were all violated following her arrest in Norway House more than two years ago.
Gupta, who wasn’t present at the Sept. 16 hearing and instead took part via telephone, had pushed for Choy to issue the decision even after Kelly-White’s death. He told court he filed a legal brief — arguing releasing the decision would be a proper use of court resources — but Choy said she didn’t receive it.
Although she was never sentenced, Kelly-White served nearly seven times the jail sentence the Crown prosecutor was seeking. The federal Crown asked the judge to impose a 36-day sentence; Kelly-White spent a total of 251 days in custody.
She died at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre of an infection, leaving behind family in Northern Ontario.
In a February 2019 interview with the Free Press about systemic bail problems in northern Manitoba, the First Nations woman was open about her struggles with drug addiction, which she said were rooted in past trauma. She said she felt the justice system didn’t treat her as innocent until proven guilty.
“I did what I had to do to get by in life, and the consequences for it were my charges. Some of the people don’t understand we’ve gotten left alone, abandoned in life, and so there’s trauma in our life that drives us into doing stuff like this, so we felt like we have nobody,” she said, while out on bail.
“They don’t understand the fact that like, if we had the help of other people, instead of them judging us the way they do, they’d actually probably have a lot of changed people in the world.”
After her 2018 arrest, a treatment bed opened for her at the Behavioural Health Foundation, but the spot was given away because she couldn’t raise the $500 the court imposed to allow her to get out on bail. A Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench judge later ruled it was illegal to impose cash bail on someone who can’t afford to pay.
katie.may@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @thatkatiemay
Katie May
Reporter
Katie May is a general-assignment reporter for the Free Press.