Review of Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice: The Gerald Stanley and Colten Boushie Case

Luke S Faught

doi:10.22584/nr50.2020.015

Abstract

Review of Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice: The Gerald Stanley and Colten Boushie Case

Highlights

Gerald Stanley, a Saskatchewan farmer, was charged with the murder of Colten Boushie, a young Indigenous male, arising out of an incident on Mr Stanley’s Saskatchewan farm on August 9, 2016
In Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice:The Gerald Stanley and Colten Boushie Case, Professor Kent Roach, perhaps Canada’s leading criminal law scholar, sets out to place the case in its “larger historical, political, social, and legal context” and discover “what the case tells us about Canadian law, politics, and society.”
Professor Roach carefully examines all the legal components of the trial, including the procedures deployed in selecting the jury; the evidence offered at trial, including the expert evidence on the “hang fire” defence; the courtroom advocacy of the prosecution and defence counsel; and the rulings of the trial judge

Summary

Introduction

Gerald Stanley, a Saskatchewan farmer, was charged with the murder (and alternatively manslaughter) of Colten Boushie, a young Indigenous male, arising out of an incident on Mr Stanley’s Saskatchewan farm on August 9, 2016. The trial and Mr Stanley’s acquittal by a jury that did not include a single visiblyIndigenous person electrified the country and sparked furious debate about the treatment of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system.

Results

Conclusion