|
Jaime
Wheeler
| Denver
Crawford
| Wilf
Hathway | Martensville Prosecutors
still defending their malice | RCMP
agents committed crimes with immunity from prosecution
Still more Big Boss Scenario
Stings: Wade Skffington
| Atif Rafay and Sebastian
Burns (in this one, RCMP colluded illegally with U.S. Police
in Washington State | Patrick
Fischer |
Section 465 of Criminal Code
regarding criminal conspiracy found here
- Kakegamic's appeal could
take 18 months
Following his guilty conviction for first degree murder in Kenora
Superior Court on Tuesday, James Kakegamic began another stage
in his legal battle by immediately requesting an appeal.
By Dan Gauthier, Miner and
News, October 21, 2005
Following his guilty conviction
for first degree murder in Kenora Superior Court on Tuesday,
James Kakegamic began another stage in his legal battle by immediately
requesting an appeal.
Kakegamic's lawyer, Daniel
Brodsky from Toronto, said he filed a motion for an appeal with
the Ontario Court of Appeal Wednesday morning after meeting with
his client late Tuesday night at the Kenora Jail. He said the
motion was filed quickly for good reason.
"Unfortunately, the appeal
process works very slowly," said Brodsky, noting it normally
takes about 18 months for a case to be heard, but he is hoping
to "expedite" the process.
He said the first line on the
appeal, handwritten by Kakegamic, is "I'm innocent,"
followed by a listing of the legal grounds he wants the court
to consider. Brodsky added Kakegamic has also indicated his desire
to take the appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada
if necessary.
"He was devastated, but
not surprised," said Brodsky of his client's mood following
the guilty verdict.
Kakegamic, 27, was found guilty for the murder of 16-year-old
Jocelyn "Chippy" McDonald and sentenced to life in
prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.
The court found that Chippy
was killed in Kakegamic's Kenora apartment on Oct. 16, 2000.
Her body was not discovered until March 29, 2001, near the apartment
complex and Kakegamic was arrested in Winnipeg on Nov. 21, 2002.
During the five-week trial,
the jury heard audio tapes and watched a video of Kakegamic admitting
to undercover Ontario Provincial Police officers he strangled
Chippy to death in his apartment and dumped her body, during
a recorded undercover sting operation in 2002.
Brodsky said the crux of their
complaint is that Kakegamic's confessions to undercover officers
should not have been admitted as evidence. The defence maintained
that Kakegamic was the subject of coercion and intimidation by
this undercover technique.
Brodsky said police have taken
advantage of what he calls, "the Mr. Big Scenario",
first used in British Columbia 10 years ago, and are using it
more frequently because of its success in producing confessions.
In this technique, subjects will often tell undercover officers
of their own criminal wrongdoings in order to gain acceptance
into their bogus criminal organizations.
However, Brodsky said these
confessions like Kakegamic's aren't always the truth.
He said subjects often lie in order to gain the acceptance of
"Mr. Big" and become part of what they think could
be a profitable criminal venture.
"It's not used in the
United States or Great Britain because they find it's too dangerous,"
said Brodsky, referring to the tendency of the technique to produce
false confessions. "It works, it always gets a confession."
In Kakegamic's case, the undercover officers posed as aboriginal
cigarette smugglers from southern Ontario and the Crown said
they only wanted James to "come clean," or tell the
truth about his involvement in Chippy's death.
The defence's position was
that Kakegamic was coached by the officers into admitting he
killed Chippy because they needed something criminal to hold
over him. They claimed Kakegamic's early confession, that he
only found Chippy dead in his apartment and removed the body
for fear of being blamed for her death, was not good enough for
the undercover officers because it was not a criminal act, but
one of desperation.
The appeal will be a tough
one, said Brodsky, because they are challenging a police technique
developed to infiltrate sophisticated organizations or gangs.
He said this technique is the only one that works for them and
the court will be reluctant to stop its usage.
"It'll be a battle,"
said Brodsky. "It (the Mr. Big technique) wasn't meant for
the James Kakegamics of the world."
- First degree murder
conviction greeted with cheers
Victim's family thankful Kakegamic found guilty
By Dan Gauthier, with files
from Peter James, Miner and News, Wednesday October 19, 2005
The mother of the late Jocelyn
"Chippy" McDonald thanked the police investigators
and Crown attorneys Tuesday evening after a jury found James
Kakegamic guilty of first degree murder for her daughter's death
five years ago.
"There's not enough thanks,
that's all I can say," an emotional Jessie McDonald told
Ontario Provincial Police lead investigator in the case, Det.
Insp. Bill Olinyk, as she embraced him outside Kenora Superior
Court.
McDonald, who was in court each day of the five-week trial, refused
comment following the verdict. She saved her comments to thank
all the investigating officers on the case from the Kenora OPP
and Kenora Crown attorneys, Richard Cummine and Jana Rae Dewson,
embracing each of them outside the courtroom.
A group of over 20 of McDonald's
family members were jubilant in the courtroom and cries of "Thank
you, thank you," directed at the jury were heard after the
verdict was read at approximately 6:45 p.m.
By contrast, cries of despair came from a small group of family
members and supporters of Kakegamic.
After hearing short submissions
for sentencing from Cummine and defence counsel Daniel Brodsky,
Justice Erwin Stach delivered a mandatory life sentence without
eligibility of parole for 25 years. Defence co-counsel Greg Brodsky,
was not in court on Tuesday.
"It is the sentence of
this court Mr. Kakegamic, that you be sentenced for life,"
said Stach.
Kakegamic was also ordered to provide a sample of his DNA for
the national data bank of violent and sexual offenders and given
a lifetime firearms prohibition.
Kakegamic maintains
innocence
Kakegamic was allowed to address
the court following his sentencing, and he maintained his innocence.
"I didn't kill Chippy McDonald," said Kakegamic from
the prisoner's box. "That's all I got to say."
Daniel Brodsky said outside the courtroom that Kakegamic's final
comment was just the first step in the appeal process.
"We'll file a notice of
appeal tomorrow," said Brodsky as he left the courtroom
to meet with his client at the Kenora Jail.
The jury began its deliberations
Monday afternoon and continued all day Tuesday until reaching
their decision.
Kakegamic, 27, was convicted for the murder of the 16-year-old
McDonald, last seen at a party at his apartment at 39A Cambrian
Drive in Kenora on the night of Oct. 16, 2000. Her decomposed
body was not discovered until March 29, 2001, on a rocky outcrop
near the apartment complex.
During the five-week trial,
the jury heard audio tapes and watched a video of Kakegamic admitting
to undercover Ontario Provincial Police officers that he strangled
Chippy to death in his apartment and dumped her body, during
a recorded undercover sting operation in 2002 that took place
in both Winnipeg and Kenora.
On Nov. 21, 2002, investigators
from the OPP and the Kenora Police Service arrested Kakegamic
in Winnipeg.
The jury sided with the Crown's position that Kakegamic's admissions
to undercover officers were the truth and not the result of coercion
or intimidation as was claimed by defence attorney Greg Brodsky
during the trial.
Chippy's family
celebrates
Other family members, many
of them teary-eyed, embraced each other and celebrated the verdict
after leaving the courtroom.
"We love each other. We
care for each other. We look after each other," Mary Wesley,
Jessie McDonald's aunt, said of her family.
Although satisfied with the
verdict, Wesley said she was actually not happy with what happened
in court. She explained she was not mad at Kakegamic and even
felt sadness for him.
Ryan McDonald, Chippy's cousin
and one of the last family members to see Chippy alive during
the party at Kakegamic's apartment five years ago, had a different
view of Chippy's convicted murderer.
"I wish they could give
him the (electric) chair, but I don't know if they do that here,"
said a sombre Ryan McDonald outside the courthouse. "It
will never bring her back."
Another of Chippy's cousins,
Waylon Scott, who is also a band councillor for Wabaseemoong
First Nation, said this is only the beginning of justice for
crimes against First Nations people.
"Hopefully this will be
a trend for fair justice in the future," said Scott of the
verdict. "It was just a big sigh of relief."
Another of Chippy's great aunts,
Margaret Quewezance, said the entire ordeal of the trial was
emotionally tiring.
"Your emotions run high
and low, not knowing what the outcome would be," said Quewezance.
"It was very hard."
Kakegamic admits to finding,
moving Chippy's body
By Dan Gauthier, Miner and
News, Monday September 26, 2005
The jury heard stunning testimony
in Kenora Superior Court Friday as James Kakegamic confided to
an undercover officer, in a recorded conversation, that he found
Jocelyn "Chippy" McDonald dead in his apartment on
Oct. 17, 2000, and moved the body to a rocky area near the apartment
complex early the next morning.
This capped off the second week of the first degree murder trial
for the 27-year-old Kakegamic. The week included hours of recorded
conversations played back from an undercover operation by the
Ontario Provincial Police in October and November of 2002 in
Winnipeg.
On Nov. 7, 2002, Kakegamic
told "John", undercover officer Det. Const. Andrew
Johnson, posing as an aboriginal cigarette smuggler from southern
Ontario, that he returned to his apartment from the bar in the
early morning hours of Oct. 17, 2000 and began drinking some
more before waking up the next morning around 11:30 a.m. on the
couch. He went into the spare bedroom, where Chippy had been
left passed out at the end of the party the night before, and
found her dead.
"She was already all blue
when I woke up the next morning," Kakegamic told Johnson.
"I walked in there to tell her to go home and she was all
blue ... (it) freaked me out, man."
Kakegamic said he tried performing
CPR to revive Chippy without success, then began to wonder and
worry about how she died in his apartment at 39A Cambrian Drive,
admitting he "blacked out" and has little memory of
what happened after he returned.
"I wish I (could) know
what happened to her," said Kakegamic. "I don't know
if I did it, or if she just died of too much alcohol in her system."
Kakegamic has pled not guilty
to the charge of first degree murder laid by Kenora police on
Nov. 21, 2002 for the death of McDonald.
Investigators from the OPP
and the Kenora Police Service arrested Kakegamic in Winnipeg
more than two years after they suspect the 16-year-old from Minaki
was killed in Kenora, sometime between Oct. 16-17, 2000.
Kakegamic also admitted what he told Kenora police investigating
Chippy's disappearance and homicide in 2001 that he came
home to find the door unlocked and Chippy gone from the apartment
was false.
"I told them (that) cause
I knew if they found her there I would be the one that's sitting
in jail," Kakegamic told Johnson. "(It's) a pretty
racist town, especially with the cops, and I knew that day they
would start blaming me for it, you know."
As a result of his misgivings
toward Kenora police, Kakegamic said he decided not to call 911
to report the death and chose to get rid of the body.
"I didn't want to go to
jail for the next 20 or 30 years, so that night I just went and
dumped her body, man," said Kakegamic, noting that it was
around 4 or 5 a.m. the next morning, and he was sober at the
time. "When I put her body down, I knew what I was doing."
Kakegamic said Chippy was fully-clothed
when he found her and he made sure she also had her jacket when
he moved her body, he wanted nothing of Chippy's left in the
apartment to tie her death to him.
He said he was surprised it
took four months to find the body, he had expected it to be found
much sooner.
"I covered her up with a little bit of brush, but like I
wanted her to be found," said Kakegamic. "I didn't
want to be ruthless where, you know, she can't be found. I didn't
go out and bury her."
Finally telling Johnson his
secret seemed to be a relief for Kakegamic and it sounded as
though the two embraced after the revelation.
"I never said those words
before man, like I never told the whole story like that before
man, never," said Kakegamic.
The trial continues today with
more playback of recorded undercover recordings.
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell