Gerald Stanley Acquittal Outrage Result of ‘Centuries of Oppression’

In an article published by CBC, Julian Falconer commented that, the outrage felt and expressed across the country following the verdict in the Gerald Stanley trial comes from years of injustice that have deeply eroded confidence of Indigenous peoples in Canada’s justice system. “Its happened through centuries of oppression … centuries of treatment of Indigenous people as less than worthy victims,” said Falconer.

On Friday, February 9, 2018, a Battleford Saskatoon jury found Gerald Stanley, 56, not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old Indigenous man from Red Pheasant First Nation, who was shot and killed on August 9, 2016, after he and four others drove onto Stanley’s rural property.

Falconer was involved in a coroner’s inquest into the deaths of seven Indigenous youth in Thunder Bay that examined police handling of investigations and concluded in 2016. “I understand that one case becomes a lightning rod, but what you are seeing is the end result of bitter disappointment after bitter disappointment,” he said.

Falconer also once represented Isaac and Margaret Kakegamic in civil case related to the death of their son Max, who was found beaten to death on the sidewalk in Kenora, Ont., 17 years ago. No one has been convicted of the crime. Both parents have since died, Isaac on Jan. 3 of this year, and Margaret in October 2015. They carried the weight of Max’s death to their graves, according to their other son, Patrick Kakegamic. In 2004, officers with the now-disbanded Kenora police were found by an Ontario judge to have suppressed evidence to pin the homicide on a preferred suspect and exclude a second suspect related to one of the investigators. No other suspects have since been charged in the killing of Max Kakegamic.

In the News

Gerald Stanley acquittal outrage result of ‘centuries of oppression,’ says prominent civil rights lawyer    CBC, February 14, 2018

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